Emily Dickinson by Linda Pastan
Usually I’m annoyed when there just isn’t enough information about a person or subject (I just want to know some facts), but I kind of like the aura of mystique that shrouds Miss Emily. It’s likely we’ll never really know what went on in her head and I like Pastan’s separation of legend from personal opinion.
Emily Dickinson
By Linda Pastan
We think of hidden in a white dress
among the folded linens and sachets
of well-kept cupboards, or just out of sight
sending jellies and notes with no address
to all the wondering Amherst neighbors.
Eccentric as New England weather
the stiff wind of her mind, stinging or gentle,
blew two half imagined lovers off.
Yet legend won’t explain the sheer sanity
of vision, the serious mischief
of language, the economy of pain.
