Emily Dickinson's small, upper-floor room, where she lived, a virtual recluse, for many years. And where she wrote those eighteenhundred or so poems that changed - actually, that are still changing - the face of poetry...

Hers is a long and most interesting story. Instructive and full of follow-up questions. For instance: Who/Where is the unknown Emily Dickinson of today?

But, in her time, this little lady in white (always white!); this literary recluse (the antithesis of Walt Whitman: compatriot, contemporary and PR expert); this deeply sensual und deeply analytical lyric mystic (what a living multi-oxymoron, especially in the U.S. of A.!) did indeed commit the message to hands she could not see (read the poem again!). Robert Frost, a century later, commented that "we [by which he meant the literary community] did not know of her" - and added, non-comprehendingly and condescendingly (but - I believe and hope - mistakenly!), "Poor thing!"

The story of Emily Dickinson has been told, retold, and will be told again and again in the future. Not so much because of her, although that may be the reason given. But because of a society that sees itself in Her mirror. (Deeply embarrassed, of course, but blaming it all, non-comprehendingly and condescendingly, on the past...)

(Just in case you wondered: This contemporary poem is built with many phrases from Emily Dickinson's poems, some of which you will also find on this website.)

The Internet is full of stories about Emily Dickinson, this internal refugee, this lover of Nature, of the soul, of the word - who, in the later years of her life, conversed with people only through the slighly opened door of her attic abode, yet knew more of them and their modes of behavior than anybody else. And knew how to say it, i.e. slant.

She did not publish her poems, save for a couple of incidental ones; and hence her seminal verses - which fell to relatives that quarrelled tooth and nail for them - kept falling on stony ground: into the hands of do-gooders, self-annointed protectors of the American tongue, and defenders of Christian family values. With predictable results.

Only in 1955 were her poems printed in original form, i.e., as written/assembled in/by her own hand. If you are interested, have a look at a short biography/bibliography of hers. And, more importantly, walk to the library and see whether they have the latest tomes from Harvard Press, with her poems in font or facsimile.

Incidentally, Emily Dickinson came from a prominent family and was very well educated. She knew, for instance, Latin and German. Was the latter the origin of her unusual but highly effective capitalizations? Or was that just Her Nature?

And she was a superb baker of bread. Her father - from whom she had to hide her poems - preferred HER bread above all others. What an irony for man who, according to some other important literature, is not supposed to live by bread alone...

So why not listen to some of Dickinson's immortal poems (and letters), read by Julie Harris on some 1960/61 low-resolution audio files from Harper-Collins. "This is my letter to the world" is there, as well as - from the poems that I have translated - "Hope is the thing with feathers", "I'm nobody! Who are you?", "My life closed twice before its close", "Beside the autumn poets sing", "The heart asks pleasure first", and "The sky is low, the clouds are mean".

Forgive me, I still have to add a small footnote about a particular interest of mine, an Austrian poet whose poems - owing to her own choice, I presume - were also not published during her lifetime (and are still not available in print).

Ehrentraut Helmberg-Lanner was no Emily Dickinson. But Emily would have loved her. Despite her conventional punctuation. But her language was full of poetry, of nature, of the soul. And it was, like that of Emily Dickinson, the tongue of the spirit. Have a look...

And there was also a compatriot and contemporary of hers whose poetry I came to love. His name was Franz Kießling. Though he was published, albeit sparingly, his poems are now nigh forgotten. So have a second look...

And then, listen in on Hanne Tveter's take on Emily Dickinson's poem:

Na, und ob! Bitte, mir auch!

Was das Bild dieses Dachkämmerchens hier soll? Naja, sie wissen ja, wie das mit Dichtern so zu sein hat.

Aber Spaß beiseite. In dieser oberen Klause lebte Emily Dickinson zurückgezogen für viele Jahre. Und hier, auf diesem kleinen Tisch hinter dem Bett (kaum auszumachen in dem Bild), schrieb diese InternEremitin an die achtzehnhundert Gedichte. Gedichte, die meiner (und einer noch nicht ganz akzeptierten) Meinung nach das Schöpferischte und Ursprünglichste darstellen, das die USA zur Weltlyrik beigetragen hat.

Do dribn? Jo glaum's denn, i bin deppat, dass i des ah auf de linke Seitn schreib? Do hed i gschwind ane am Deckl! Mia lebn jo do in ana Demokratie! Nua guat, dass wenigstns Sie Weanerisch kennan...

Und natürlich die Sprache der Poesie, die Musik der Seele. Und drum, wenn Sie mir's gestatten, möchte ich Sie noch auf zwei Dichter hinweisen, die, wenn sie auch nicht direkt mit Emily Dickinson zu tun haben, mir doch ähnlich nahestehn.