Why a Blog?

How to respond to Dickinson’s daunting challenge to “see a soul at the White Heat?” The poem itself recommends that we, the observers, “crouch within/the door” and watch as the “common” red flame is “vanquished” into the most intense colorless “light/Of unannointed Blaze.”

Some readers interpret Dickinson’s injunction to “crouch” as a subjected posture, but it can also be protective and instructive: reminding us to shut up, listen and watch this inflammatory, self-authorizing process happen.

The best way to evoke process is through a sustained, repeated and cumulative engagement with the work. A weekly installment over a year seemed like an appropriate length of time for such an immersion.