Pandemic Fascicles
By Kennedy Hamblen & Kira Householder
[Final Project for New Dickinson seminar prompt: Collaborating with a partner, you will turn your scholarly research on an aspect of Dickinson that you feel needs more exposure or that has helped you get through this difficult period of the pandemic lock-down into a digital essay or digital project that can be exhibited on the web and on your personal portfolio for a larger not necessarily academic audience. This project should demonstrate the skills and knowledge we have practiced in class, but it should also take into consideration its audience, its goals as a form of public humanities, and the affordances of the web (that is, using links, images, media, audio and visuals, etc.). Creativity and adaptation are important to this project.]
Introduction
The context through which we read Emily Dickinson’s poetry affects our interpretations. Because Dickinson wrote such timeless poetry, even modern readers can find relevant lessons in these almost two hundred year old pieces. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we found lots of wisdom from Dickinson’s observations from another time. Here, we present six of Dickinson’s poems that we believe can be read through the lens of the pandemic. Not only have we written about these poems and our interpretations of them, we have also created visual representations of these poetic teachings.
“They put us far apart” – Kira
The poem, “They put us far apart,” appeared similar to the letters Emily Dickinson wrote to Susan in their affectionate letter exchanges, though I am not sure whether this was a letter poem or not. This poem evokes images of social isolation and loneliness, distance from one’s loved one. The lines, “as separate as the sea,” “they took away our eyes,” and “they summoned us to die” express the speaker’s contempt and deep despair for the ambiguous “they” who separate these two loved ones. Indeed, the tone fluctuates between contempt and despair; is the speaker angry with someone for separating them from their lover or simply lamenting their losses? Without the context of coronavirus, Dickinson could have multiple intended meanings for the ambiguous pronoun “they,” which she never clearly states in the poem, but I will discuss our alternative interpretation of this pronoun in the next section analyzing the poem’s pertinence to the current situation.
In light of the pandemic, this poem immediately called to mind the physical isolation we have all been experiencing in the past few months. The concept of being stuck, “[standing] opon our stapled feet” is especially relevant to the pandemic. In this collage, I wanted to show the barrier between life before and after health organizations began recommending social distancing. On the left, individuals congregate and live their lives taking gatherings and public health for granted, but on the left, representing the distance between all of us during the pandemic, both literal and metaphorical. The repeated ambiguous pronoun “they” in this poem could also serve a different purpose than Dickinson intended. With the pandemic health recommendations now highly politicized, this polarization further deepens the physical distancing that our country and world were experiencing. The left side and the watchful eye of the man in the protective blue suit can be interpreted from the point of view of quarantine protestors (“they put us far apart”), who view social distancing as an injustice done onto them by the government rather than a public health necessity. They may, as Dickinson wrote, have “turned their backs,” like the girl turning her back in the collage, and denied the situation. On the other hand, those in favor of social distancing stand upon “their stapled feet” and firmly self-isolate at home.
“Were it to be the last” – Kennedy
This tiny poem forgoes Dickinson’s usual intense imagery, synecdoche, or metaphors for four lines of earnest honesty. She tests the idea of “last” and “final” against infinity, playing with the ideas of real time and time in memory. Her speaker describes a meeting with someone else that neither the speaker nor the addressee realized was their last time together. This could be because of a death or illness after the “final interview,” or simply because the relationship had come to an end. Regardless, the diction is melancholic and reflective. There is an irony in how the speaker now knows this “was marked” their last meeting, but could never have known then, and this irony seems to colors how the speaker remembers this person and their final interaction. Even though this last meeting happened in the past, the speaker claims it is “infinite.” The Emily Dickinson lexicon defines infinite both in the conventional sense of “perpetual” and as “weighty,” “beyond circumference,” and “remembered forever after death.” The end of a relationship, which is impossible to notice in the moment, is often heavy on a person’s mind long after that relationship is over. Although this“interview” is long over, the speaker will remember it forever, and by being remembered with such importance, it is perpetual.
When was the last time you sat in a restaurant? The last time you saw your friends? The last time you were in a crowd – at a concert, in an airport, or in a mall? Many of us have these last moments in our heads right now, especially because at the time, we didn’t realize they would be the last time those fairly regular events happened for months. Lockdown happened rapidly, especially for Dartmouth students who left for spring break under the impression they would be returning in late March. This leaves us all with many moments that “we did not suspect [were] marked” as thelast, at least for a while. COVID-19 has given all of us many “final interview” moments, some as tragic as the more than 100,000 deaths that have now occurred in the United States alone. I cross-stitched Dickinson’s poem and a small flower, based on Epigaea repens or the mayflower, the state flower of Massachusetts and an early-blooming species. The flower is unfinished, although the extra threads and the needle coming out of the fabric show that the project could be completed eventually. I aimed to capture Dickinson’s combination of the sudden end of something with its eternal essence. Shout out to Three Girlies Designs on Etsy, from whom I bought the alphabet pattern, and Better Homes and Gardens’ 2001 Cross Stitch Designs, from which I adapted the flower pattern.
“Had I known that the first was the last” – Kira
The poem “Had I known that the first was the last” (J172) does not have a manuscript image or Franklin Variorum (only Johnson) edition in the Emily Dickinson Archive, but I found it too relevant not to include in our discussion of pandemic-related lessons from Dickinson. Outside the modern context of the pandemic, this poem could be read as a general statement about appreciating small moments and not taking life for granted. The speaker laments not appreciating whatever “it” they allude to in this poem. At first the speaker expresses a tone of sadness, but then they turn to blame— “Cup, it was your fault, / Lip was not the liar.” The speaker holds this contempt for the Cup, perhaps for not reminding the speaker to “have drunk it stronger” before the contents of the Cup disappeared. Another mention of the idea of bliss or paradise with the line “Bliss was most to blame” comes up again in another poem discussed later, “I had a daily bliss,” where bliss takes on a much more positive role.
In my ink drawing for this poem, I intentionally draw the viewers’ attention to the center of the page, the human subject, for a multitude of reasons. I wanted to show that humanity is central to our current crisis, that we must use this situation to create empathy for the individual rather than denying or allowing those suffering or dying to appear as just a number. The content of the poem, particularly the striking first line, “Had I know that the first was the last,” abounds with information to unpack and apply to the coronavirus pandemic. I find myself and my friends expressing this same lamentation when looking back at our final days on campus, living our “normal” lives and taking everyday things for granted, but had we “known that the first was the last,” perhaps we “should have kept it longer.” Perhaps we “should have drunk it stronger.” I also loved playing with the imagery of Dickinson’s words, “cup,” “lip,” and “liar,” and as I created this piece, I began to find this imagery deeply ironic in conjunction with the face mask. We wear these masks for everyone’s safety, but this piece acknowledges that such restrictions can still feel restricting. We must strive for perspective while still caring for ourselves. In a time of social distancing and emotional isolation, individuals must find creative ways to have our voices heard and our needs met, even from a distance, even from beneath our masks. The drawing contains so many colors, so much “noise” inside the subject, representing the internal battles we are all fighting, but the spotlight on the subject is an ironic reminder that in these times we must strike the delicate balance between our individual needs and our community’s needs.
“My first well Day – since many ill -” – Kennedy
The speaker of this poem discusses their sickness and “pain” starting when flowers were “a’blossom” at the very beginning of spring and continuing as “The Summer deepened” (Dickinson ll. 5-6, 9). Instead of describing their sickness and the tribulations that placed upon them, the speaker elects to focus on the beauty of nature and the changing seasons, contrasting the well-described, beautiful things happening outside with the speaker’s illness. Dickinson personifies summer as a woman decorating, filling the poem with nature-focused, summery diction. However, the illness of the speaker lingers in the background even in stanzas that do not discuss it, the lack of detail and explanation about it all the more worrisome, as it clearly forces the speaker to stay inside for several months while they miss the sunshine and the progression of the year. The final stanza offers a shaky moral:
My loss, by sickness – Was it Loss?
Or that Etherial Gain
One earns by measuring the Grave –
Then – measuring the Sun – (ll. 25-28)
While this is a hopeful sentiment on first glance, it does not seem to dismiss any suffering from the speaker’s illness, but instead offers a small silver lining to a near-death experience. By losing these months to sickness, the speaker feels they have come to appreciate the beauty of nature and the “Sun,” understanding just how valuable life is and how much they don’t want to lose it. That contrast of nature/life and death is finally resolved in the final stanza. Still, there was undoubtedly “loss” involved.
In the United States, the spread of COVID-19 and the intensity of lockdown increased just as spring was beginning. This poem’s timeline and the one we’ve experienced are eerily similar, with many of us retreating inside just as everything was first “a’blossom” and trying to enjoy nature to distract from current events. I’ve adopted a habit of going on an hour-long walk every day through the woods around my neighborhood to destress. I’ve been able to focus on the changing view outside my window as spring turns into summer, and I’ve dedicated a lot of time to the plants in my garden. Nature and the predictable changing seasons have become a comfort when nothing else seems certain. In my visual art project for this poem, I focused on the last stanza, which Dickinson gave a significant variant. By putting these last stanzas onto (used!) masks, I was hoping to call back to Dickinson’s habit of writing poems on envelopes, while also making COVID-19 the literal “background” through which someone reads this final stanza. The pressed flowers are another reference to Dickinson’s eclectic presentation method, as she sometimes sent people pressed flowers with her letters or poems. The flowers are various kinds from around my house and the trails I walk on.
“I had a daily bliss” – Kira
Dickinson’s handwriting in this manuscript is less careful, more free than other poems, perhaps representative of the daily bliss. Perhaps Dickinson’s speaker meant that their “daily bliss” was writing this very poem. The poem evoked ideas of Dickinson’s concept of paradise, which I found a paradoxical yet crucial idea to remember during this pandemic. Paradise is not expansive. To the speaker, paradise is something that “grew as I pursued.” The speaker’s daily bliss, or daily paradise, grows when she pays attention to it. Therefore, she derives a sense of wellbeing intrinsically rather than from her circumstances, which is an important lesson to learn during the unusual circumstances of Covid-19.
In this art piece, I tried to capture the idea of a simple paradise and the sense of starkness or minimalism I first experienced when I read “I had a daily bliss.” I also mirrored the simplicity of Dickinson’s original manuscript, which she wrote on a white page rather than yellow, and she wrote less carefully than many other poems. I wrote this in ink in my journal (where I also write the things I am grateful for) and pasted a pressed flower below to represent the singularity of this daily bliss: the object of focus. In the context of the pandemic, this “daily bliss could be anything,” perhaps the object of our gratitude that day, and this is the beauty of Dickinson’s ambiguity here. She never names the daily bliss and uses ambiguous pronouns to describe “it.” To me, this poem evoked ideas of mindfulness and daily gratitude during such difficult times. I have been seeing a lot of self-care, mindfulness, meditation resources online for people during the pandemic, and I’ve personally benefited from meditation and gratitude practices during this time.
“March is the Month of Expectation” – Kennedy
In this poem, Dickinson once again focuses on a certain time of year, claiming that March is a time of excited, joyful waiting for something not entirely known. Her speaker could be referring to anything from Easter to springtime, but what exactly the speaker is expecting is not discussed. In fact, the cheer of this poem is balanced with uncertainty, as the speaker tells us that “Persons of prognostication,” or those who predict the future, “Are coming now –” (Dickinson ll. 3-4). Dickinson ends the poem by comparing the nervous, unsure excitement the speaker feels to the happy nerves of “a Boy” at “his first Betrothal” (ll. 7-8). While the poem is deliberately vague about the exact moment the speaker is looking forward to, Dickinson still perfectly captures the feeling of waiting for time to pass so that some highly anticipated event can occur.
March 2020 has been full of uncertainty, “things we do not know,” and “Persons of prognostication” trying to tell what is coming next, but less full of “pompous Joy.” I tried to capture the contrast between the two types of expectation, and Dickinson’s March and ours, in my collage. No matter what happens in the world, March is still the beginning of springtime in the United States, and I used the bright colors to show the sunshine and early flowers that appeared both this March and in Dickinson’s March. But while the hopeful poem is in the bottom left hand corner of the collage, headlines from this year about COVID-19 are above it, partially blocked out with the same bright colors present in the rest of the collage. The uncertainty was the lens through which we viewed everything this March, and you cannot read the poem in the collage without also reading the headlines.
Works Cited
“Definition for Infinite.” Emily Dickinson Lexicon, Brigham Young University, edl.byu.edu/lexicon/term/482088.
Dickinson, Emily. “Had I known that the first was the last” (F1753). Emily Dickinson Archive, https://www.edickinson.org/editions/1/image_sets/240799.
—. “I had a daily bliss” (F1029). Emily Dickinson Archive, https://www.edickinson.org/editions/1/image_sets/236428.
—. “March is the Month of Expectation.” (F1422). The Poems of Emily Dickinson, edited by R. W. Franklin, Reading ed., Belknap Harvard, 1998, p. 1877.
—. “My first well Day – since many ill-” (F288). The Poems of Emily Dickinson, edited by R. W. Franklin, Reading ed., Belknap Harvard, 1998, p. 128.
—. “They put us far apart” (F708). Emily Dickinson Archive, https://www.edickinson.org/editions/1/image_sets/236011.
—. “Were it to be the last” (F1165). The Poems of Emily Dickinson, edited by R. W. Franklin, Reading ed., Belknap Harvard, 1998, p. 1870.