'Lap the miles'
Marking the return to school and studies after summer holidays, we give you a brilliant poem by Emily Dickinson. Can you guess what it's describing?
I like to see it lap the Miles - And lick the Valleys up - And stop to feed itself at Tanks - And then - prodigious step Around a Pile of Mountains - And supercilious peer In Shanties - by the sides of Roads - And then a Quarry pare To fit its sides And crawl between Complaining all the while In horrid - hooting stanza - Then chase itself down Hill - And neigh like Boanerges - Then - prompter than a Star Stop - docile and omnipotent At it's own stable door -
What we love about this poem…
One of our curators explains why she chose this poem for today:
‘I was in 9th grade English class at a big state high school in the USA in the 1980s. The teacher handed out this poem and we read it together. Then she asked us what the thing is that Dickinson is describing.
Of course we all thought it was a horse.
She patiently went through the poem with us, line by line.
We still thought it was a horse.
When she finally revealed that it was a train, we were floored. How did Dickinson do this?! It seemed so obvious when the teacher explained it; how could we not have sensed the truth before?
I understood metaphor and its amazing power in a new way that day. I had always loved reading, but from that moment on I saw literature differently, and knew I wanted to keep studying it like my teacher. And I got myself a book of Dickinson’s poems.’
Do you have similar stories of a specific piece of literature that completely amazed you and got you hooked on reading? We’d love to hear from you on our email: kshepherdb@yahoo.co.uk.
About the Author
Emily Dickinson (1830-86) is one of the most important and innovative American poets. She spent most of her life in Amherst, Massachusetts, living reclusively but writing constantly, both poetry and letters. Her work was published after her death and became an instant success.
She once described the power of poetry as something that ‘takes the top of your head off’. Her poetry is also curiously rife with spelling and punctuation mistakes, sometimes deliberate (she loved to play with language and typography), sometimes unintentional. You can read more here about Dickinson’s ‘error’s’ and their significance.
Dickinson is a popular choice for us, and you can read past newsletters featuring her poems: ‘Vegetation’s Juggler,’ ‘This World is not Conclusion’, ‘The Brain is Wider than the Sky’, ‘Hope is the Thing with Feathers’, and ‘There’s a Certain Slant of Light’ — this last one featuring another interesting use of the word ‘slant.’
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