My Emily Dickinson

by Susan Howe

Book Overview

For Wallace Stevens, "Poetry is the scholar's art." Susan Howe--taking the poet-scholar-critics Charles Olson, H.D., and William Carlos Williams (among others) as her guides--embodies that art in her 1985 My Emily Dickinson (winner of the Before Columbus Foundation Book Award). Howe shows ways in which earlier scholarship had shortened Dickinson's intellectual reach by ignoring the use to which she put her wide reading. Giving close attention to...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0811216837
• ISBN13: 9780811216838
• Release Date: November 2007
• Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation
• Length: 160 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 6.2" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

My Emily Dickinson

This book is not for the faint of intellect. It is a challenging book for most readers, I believe. Ms. Howe takes you on a poetic journey well worth taking.

Very Interesting Take

This book does more than just explore Dickinson's life and poetics, although it does that expertly. It falls in line with a tradition of books of poets writing about poets who have intensely figured in their conception of poetry. This is more personal than a biography in that it is a writer's concern with Dickinson's place in history and what she was trying to do with her poetry. Howe does a wonderful job of trying to get into the poems through playing with language. It's a place to meet Dickinson at as she was a lover of games and words.

If you think you know Emily...

This is a serious and personal literary study of Dickinson's work by a scholar and fellow poet who appreciates both the art and the attitude of one of her American literary forebears.Howe points out how Dickinson's poetry has been overlooked in light of her character and biography. It seems that in the 19th century, it was remarkable for a woman to be a poet at all, let alone write original, rebellious, and quite modern poetry. Hence, the work itself, though enjoyed by schoolchildren all over America, has been little understood.Delving into Dickinson's reading lists, her notes and letters, and analyzing a few poems, Howe explores the workings of an intricate mind. She uncovers connections between Dickinson and the Brownings, the Brontes, and James Fenimore Cooper, and she shows how seemingly submissive, soft spoken poetic lines are actually rebellious and even at times angry. What Howe does not do is confuse the image of "The Belle of Amhearst" with the vital workings of the mind of this remarkable woman.This book is an enjoyable read filled with Howe's admiration for her artistic predecessor and written in straightforward language, not literary jargon--a tribute from one poet to another. For anyone who enjoys Emily Dickinson's poetry, it is not to be missed.