Some Thoughts about Dickinson's "Dont put up my Thread & Needle"

Abstract

Meditation; exploration. A poem about Spring, about sewing, an indoor activity, and sowing, an outdoor activity' and sewing words, an indoor activity derived from an outdoor activity. The dainty interspersion of tucks, the dotted Dot. Picture tiny seeds in the furrow, one falling next to, or above another. These are bent, crooked, and missed, but no matter. The I is plain and straight and strong. An art of stitched words, held together by dashes like loose stitches, folded and bound by a sightless knot. To seam well looks like seamlessness.

One fine April day last week I had drawn a set of lines with a hoe in the reddish brown dirt, and was sowing some black cosmos seeds there. As I ran the openings back together, I was thinking that I would have to thin the seedlings once they appeared, and then thinking of the spaces that are needed between things if those things are meant to grow. And then I was thinking of the spaces between words. And then, by the same logic of association, thinking of Dickinson's spaces between words, spaces lined with her dashes. And of the spaces between lines like spaces between lines of tilled earth—the dash of the hoe in and out, up and down, top and under, keeping straight, but twisting a little, off-kilter, then on track. And then, via sew and sow, and so—words that sound alike, though the first involves closing up, the second opening, and the third both causality and beholding, the next . . . —I thought of this poem:

Dont put up my Thread & Needle - I'll begin to Sow When the Birds begin to whistle - Better Stitches - so -

These were bent - my sight got crooked - When my mind - is plain I'll do seams - a Queen's endeavor Would not blush to own -

Hems - too fine for Lady's tracing To the sightless knot - Tucks - of dainty interspersion - Like a dotted Dot -

Leave my Needle in the furrow - Where I put it down - I can make the zigzag stitches Straight - when I am strong -

Till then - dreaming I am sowing Fetch the seam I missed - Closer - so I - at my sleeping - Still surmise I stitch -

(Fr 681)

What is the rhetorical/syntactical structure of this poem? It involves three promises or claims: I'll begin to sew; I'll do seams; I can make the zigzag stitches. It involves three conditions for their fulfillment, respectively: when the birds begin to whistle; when my mind - is plain; when I am strong. It involves three imperatives: Dont put up my Thread & Needle; Leave my Needle in the furrow; Fetch the seam I missed.

The promises all bind the speaker to sewing, but since the conditions necessary involve the birds singing and a change of physical and mental strength or state, this kind of sewing becomes another kind of sowing. Not electing the thread and needle, but rather leaving the needle in the furrow, and fetching the seam are further indications that the context has shifted from sewing to sowing. In the last stanza, the speaker is "at her sleeping" as someone would be "at her sewing" or "at home."

A poem about Spring, about sewing, an indoor activity, and sowing, an outdoor activity—and sewing words, an indoor activity derived from an outdoor activity. Boustrophedon, the ploughed line of the poem. As the ox goes, left to right and right to left, verse and reverse.

She will begin to sow in Spring, when the birds begin to whistle.

Sowing a garden will afford better stitches, just so, perhaps to show to Sue.

Here are twenty lines of alternating tetrameter/trimeter with certain overly exact and inexact rhymes: needle/whistle; sow/so; crooked/endeavor; plain/own; tracing/interspersion; knot/dot; furrow/stitches; down/strong; sowing/sleeping; missed/stitch.

And here is what the underlying meter looks like:

/ - / - / - / - / - / - / / - / - / - / - / - / - /

/ - / - / - / - / - / - / / - / - / - / - / - / - /

/ - / - / - / - / - / - / / - / - / - / - / - / - /

/ - / - / - / - / - / - / / - / - / - / - / - / - /

/ - / - / - / - / - / - / / - / / / - / - / - / - /

4/3/4/3/4/3/4/3/4/3/4/3/4/3/4/3/4/3/4/3

Four trochees, a trochee and cretic, four trochees, a trochee and cretic...