"The Mysteries of Life with Tim and Moby"
Watcha doin'?
--Beep.
"A ladybug, whose red and black
Wings would make a perfect snack
For one who has an empty pantry;
I'm talkin' 'bout the prayin' manty."
It's, um… nice!
--Beep!
"Dear Tim and Moby,
We're reading Emily Dickinson in school, but her poems are a little weird.
Can you help me make sense of them?
Thanks, Becca"
Emily Dickinson's poetry can be mysterious, almost like a riddle.
Her lines and verses are short, with a natural style that's almost chatty.
These qualities give her one of the most distinctive voices in American poetry.
--Beep?
The major poets of her day wrote epics, long pieces that tell a story.
While these guys looked outward, writing about history and culture…
Dickinson wrote lyrics, poems about the inner life of thoughts and feelings.
--Beep.
Yeah, and that's not the only area where she went her own way.
Women in those days were strongly encouraged to get married and raise families.
And though she had offers, Dickinson never accepted them.
Instead she focused on her work,
composing nearly 2,000 poems in just a few decades.
--Beep?
On the surface, her poems are about everyday subjects:
a dream she had; something she saw in the garden; an emotion she felt.
But once you dig a little, there's a world of meaning waiting in those lines.
--Beep.
Okay, listen to this one…
A Bird came down the Walk —
He did not —
--Beep?
Oh, reading poems aloud can help you understand them.
Plus, you'll hear all the sounds and rhythms.
In poetry, those things are just as important as the meaning.
"A Bird came down the Walk —
He did not know I saw —
He bit an Agleworm in halves
And ate the fellow, raw,
And then he drank a Dew
From a convenient Grass —
And then hopped sidewise to the Wall
To let a Beetle pass —"
--Beep.
This poem's meter, or rhythm, is really strong:
duh-DUM, duh-DUM, duh-DUM.
That's called iambic meter, and here it sounds kind like a bird hopping.
Or maybe it's his nervous heartbeat…
--Beep!
No, there's nothing cute about this bird.
He's a killer who devours a worm, then washes it down with a drink.
And check out that image: eyes like "frightened beads."
That's a simile, a poetic comparison that uses "like" or "as."
It's also a personification, giving human qualities to an object.
Beads aren't something you normally think of as frightened.
But you can totally imagine those creepy little eyes.
--Beep!
Urf… Let's continue, shall we?
"Like one in danger, Cautious,
I offered him a Crumb
And he unrolled his feathers
And rowed him softer home —"
--Beep.
Yeah, it's not clear who feels more "in danger:" the speaker, or the bird.
But the tension is broken when it escapes into the sky.
Notice how this stanza ends: he "rowed him softer home."
Softer than what?
--Beep.
Dickinson is setting us up to expect another simile.
And she spends the entire last stanza making it.
"Than Oars divided the Ocean
Too silver for a seam —
Or Butterflies, off Banks of Noon
Leap, plashless as they swim."
Whoa.
We could spend an hour unpacking that.
--Beep!
We start with a straight-up comparison:
flying is like rowing in a silvery sea, only "softer."
Then… it's almost like the speaker gets carried away
with the whole water idea.
The sky transforms into a river or a pond, with butterflies diving into it.
The edges of this pond are made of time itself: "banks of noon."
It's like a dream image: it doesn't quite make sense, but it's so vivid.
--Beep?
Those last two lines are a metaphor, a more direct comparison than a simile.
Flying isn't like swimming; it is swimming, through time or existence.
--Beep?
Good ear!
Once the bird's off the ground, the meter smooths out.
It's still iambic, but it flows more like conversation… or like water.
--Beep?
No, Dickinson knew that "crumb" and "home" aren't perfect rhymes.
That's an example of slant rhyme, one of her favorite devices.
With slant rhyme, words only have to share similar sounds.
It let Dickinson experiment with language.
And it calls our attention to her choices.
She wants us to notice to those words.
So they might hold clues to what's going on with this poem.
--Beep?
I think it might be about a person's spiritual journey.
His time on Earth is filled with suffering and fear.
When he takes off, maybe that's about dying.
He leaves the pain of life behind as he travels to his spiritual "home."
Notice how the bird is absent from the last stanza?
He's been replaced by a butterfly,
a clue that some change has taken place.
And the language is all about stuff that leaves no trace:
an oar that makes no crease in the water,
and a dive that makes no splash.
--Beep.
Yeah, it's like she leaves us with a big mystery: what happens when we die?
Those kinds of questions run through her work.
Maybe writing poetry was her way of getting closer to an answer.
--Beep?
It's true: she spent most of her adulthood alone.
She was a recluse, rarely leaving her simple bedroom in Amherst, MA.
--Beep?
Uh, were you listening to that poem?
I highly doubt she ever got bored.
She used that space to let her imagination run free.
Many of her poems are based on things she saw in her family's garden.
--Beep?
She published just a handful of poems in local papers.
We're really lucky to have the rest of them.
--Beep?
Before she died, Emily made her sister promise to burn her letters.
So in 1886, that's just what Lavinia Dickinson did.
--Beep!
Well, she had to keep her word.
But Lavinia also found a locked chest in her sister's room
Inside were 40 handmade booklets filled with poetry!
Lavinia became obsessed with publishing them.
The first volume of came out four years later and was an instant success!
--Beep?
It went through 11 printings, and critics loved it.
She was immediately recognized as a major American poet.
And her voice feels just as fresh today as it did back in 1890.
--Beep?
Do what?
--Beep!
Oh, okay.
I could also burn them right now.
Are you sure you don't want me to burn them now?
--Beep!
I just meant that you'll probably outlive me!