Emily Dickinson The Less is More Poet

I sat in a small classroom at Salem College in North Carolina. It was the 1970s when the "Women's Movement," a term now so quaint, was off to the races. The first episode of Wonder Woman in March 1976 told anybody with doubts about action, fantasy and adventure in women's lives to .... well, ... roll over and go back to sleep.

A little grey-haired professor stood at the front of the room and read the powerful and gentle poem, "He fumbles at your Soul/As Players at the Keys/Before they drop full Music on/He stuns you by Degrees/Prepares your brittle nature/For the...", and, immediately, poetry by Emily Dickinson set off sparks in my head.

I wasn't only enchanted. I was motivated. I remember thinking how a pop song of those days, "Killing Me Softly," would always be associated for me with newly discovered Dickinson poems that quietly torpedoed my lukewarm attitude toward poetry. "Wild nights - Wild nights!/Were I with thee/Wild nights should be/Our luxury!...." I didn't know if I wanted to study, shout or make a career of those poems. One thing I knew. I had to have more.

Now, if you are not the type person who gets an over-the-top reaction when, one, the weather is blissful, and, two, you have enough to eat, a roof over your head, and, three, a few things to call your own -- you won't relate to words like, "I taste a liquor never brewed -/From Tankards scooped in Pearl -/Not all the Frankfort Berries/Yield such an Alcohol!/Inebriate of Air - am I -/And Debauchee of Dew -/Reeling - thro' endless summer days.....".

And, "I'm Nobody! Who are you?/Are you - Nobody - too?/Then there's a pair of us!/Don't tell! they'd advertise...."more>>.

Years later, and not so long ago, a niggling question about what it might have been like to discover such genius of ability to write poems, and to combine it with a mature look at life, was met in the poem, "My Life had stood - a Loaded Gun -/In Corners - till a Day..." But, that poem and what you and I might want to say about it, is an entire website. There are many websites and many books on Dickinson poetry, all of which are powerful in their brevity, comprehensiveness; experimental and rebellious use of language.