How Emily Dickinson Writes A Poem: A Short Video Introduction

[Nikky Lee]

Not amusing as such, but I found it interesting.

How Emily Dickinson Writes A Poem: A Short Video Introduction | Open Culture

 

[Katie-Ellen]

I agree with Emily Dickinson, 'Tell all the truth but tell it slant.'

Nuts to Horace and his 'instruct and delight.'

 

[Amber]

That was hella interesting.

 

[Eva Ulian]

Do we all think that deeply when writing poems... or is it the unconscious at work in spite of ourselves?

 

[Nikky Lee]

Do we all think that deeply when writing poems...

I certainly don't. But then I don't write a lot of poetry. And to be honest, I would never have read that much meaning from Dickinson's poem on my own.

 

[Paul Whybrow]

Do we all think that deeply when writing poems... or is it the unconscious at work in spite of ourselves?

I saw an observation by the Scottish poet Robin Robertson last week about creating verse:

I've always thought that writing poetry has very little to do with the intellect. It's not something one can explain and chat about very easily: certainly not about the making of it. It's very resistant to explanation. It comes from a place that is occult, in the sense of being hidden. It attends to some of our deepest anxieties and hopes in the same way that dreams do....

I know what he means. I'm currently re-reading short stories and novellas I wrote 4-5 years ago, polishing them to support a campaign of self-promotion in 2019. I also wrote 500 poems and songs in that time, compiling some into 30 titles that I uploaded to Smashwords and Amazon. I haven't looked at them yet, but I know it'll be like peeking at transcripts from a session on a psychiatrist's couch! Of all the writing forms I've tried, poetry resists perfection the most...there's always a word that could be changed to make more of an impression on the reader.

 

[Katie-Ellen]

Introduction to Poetry
BY BILLY COLLINS
I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem’s room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author’s name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.