ANNCR:
People in America – a program in Special English about famousAmericans of the past. Now, Kay Gallant and Harry Monroe tell thestory of nineteenth century poet Emily Dickinson.
VOICE ONE:
Because I could not stop for Death –
He kindly stopped for me –
The carriage held but just ourselves
And immortality.
VOICE TWO:
The words are by American poetEmily Dickinson, who died in eighteen-eighty-six. During her life,she published only about ten poems. Four years after her death, afew more poems were published. But her complete work did not appearuntil nineteen-fifty-five.
VOICE ONE:
I’m Nobody! Who are you?
Are you — Nobody – Too?
VOICE TWO:
Emily Dickinson has become part of our language without reallybeing part of our history. Some see her as the last poet of an earlyAmerican tradition. Others see her as the first modern Americanpoet. Each reader seems to find a different Emily Dickinson. Sheremains as mysterious as she was when she was alive.
VOICE ONE:
Tell all the Truth but tell it slant —
VOICE TWO:
The truth about Emily Dickinson has been difficult to discover.Few people of her time knew who she was or what she was doing. Themain facts about her life are these.
She was born December tenth, eighteen-thirty, in the smallMassachusetts town of Amherst. She lived and died in the same housewhere she was born. Emily received a good education. She studiedphilosophy, the Latin language, and the science of plants and rocks.
Emily’s parents were important people in Amherst. Many famousvisitors came to their house, and Emily met them. Her father was awell-known lawyer who was elected to Congress for one term.
Mister Dickinson believed that women should be educated. But healso believed that women should not use their education to workoutside the home. He felt their one and only task was to care fortheir husband and children. Emily once said: “He buys me many books,but begs me not to read them, because he fears they upset the mind.”
Emily wrote more than one-thousand-seven-hundred poems. There arethree books of her letters. And there are many books about her life.
Some of her best work was written in the four years betweeneighteen fifty-eight and eighteen-sixty-two.
VOICE ONE:
I live with Him — I see his face —
I go no more away
For Visitor — or Sundown–
Death’s single privacy
Dreams — are well — but Waking’s better,
If One wake at Morn —
If One wake at Midnight – better —
Dreaming — of the Dawn —
This is my letter to the World
That never wrote to me–
The simple News that Nature told–
With tender Majesty
VOICE TWO:
In those years, Emily seems to have found her “voice” as a poet.She settled into forms she used for the rest of her life. The formsare similar to those of religious music used during her lifetime.But her choice of words was unusual. She wrote that her dictionarywas her best friend.
Other influences were the English poet, William Shakespeare; theChristian holy book, the Bible; and the forces of nature.
VOICE ONE:
I dreaded that first robin so,
But he is mastered now,
And I’m accustomed to him grown–
He hurts a little though
I dared not meet the daffodils,
For fear their yellow gown
Would pierce me with a fashion
So foreign to my own.
I could not bear the bees should come,
I wished they’d stay away
In those dim countries where they go:
What word had they for me?
VOICE TWO:
Throughout her life, Emily asked men for advice. And then she didnot follow what they told her. As a child, there was her father.Later there was her father’s law partner, and a churchman she met inthe city
of Philadelphia. Another man who helped her was the writer ThomasWentworth Higginson.
Higginson had written a magazine story giving advice to young,unpublished writers. Emily wrote to him when she was in her earlythirties. She included a few poems.
Higginson wrote back and later visited Emily in Amherst. In thenext few years, Emily sent him many more poems. But he did not havethem published, and admitted that he did not understand Emily’spoetry.
VOICE ONE:
‘Tis not that dying hurts us so —
‘Tis living hurts us more;
But dying is a different way,
A kind behind the door —
VOICE TWO:
Some historians wish that Emily’s poems had reached the bestAmerican writers of her day: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry DavidThoreau or Walt Whitman. These men could have over-looked herstrange way of living to see only her ability.
Historians also say it is possible that Emily chose to write tosomeone like Higginson so she would not be understood.
VOICE ONE:
To hear an oriole sing
May be a common thing
Or only a divine
It is not the bird
Who sings the same unheard,
As unto crowd.
VOICE TWO:
So little is known about Emily’s life that many writers havecreated a life for her. They talk about the things that interestthem as if they interested Emily, too. But one writer says part ofthe joy in studying Emily is what we cannot know. Emily herselfsaid, “I never try to lift the words which I cannot hold. “
VOICE ONE:
I cannot live with you,
It would be life,
And life is over there
Behind the shelf
So we must keep apart,
You there, I here,
With just the door ajar
That oceans are,
And prayer,
And that pale sustenance,
Despair!
VOICE TWO:
Emily Dickinson sewed the pages of her poems together with threadand put them away. She also seems to have sewed her life togetherand put it away, too. Step by step, she withdrew from the world. Asshe grew older, she saw fewer visitors, and rarely left her house.
The time of Emily’s withdrawal was also the time of the AmericanCivil War. The events that changed America’s history, however, didnot touch her. She died in eighteen-eighty-six, at the age offifty-five, completely unknown to the world.
No one wrote about Emily Dickinson’s poems while she was alive.Yet, more than one-hundred years since her death, she has come to beseen as one of America’s greatest poets.
VOICE ONE:
The brain is wider than the sky,
For, put them side by side,
The one the other will contain
With ease — and you beside.
VOICE TWO:
After Emily died, her sister Lavinia found Emily’s poems lockedaway. Lavinia wrote to Thomas Wentworth Higginson and demanded thatthe poems be published. Higginson agreed. And a few of Emily’s poemsabout nature were published. Slowly, more and more of her poems werepublished. Readers soon learned that she was much more than a naturepoet.
In her life, Emily was an opponent of organized religion. Yet sheoften wrote about religion. She rarely left home. Yet she oftenwrote about faraway places. She lived quietly. Yet she wrote thatlife passes quickly and should be lived to the fullest.
Will we ever know more about the life of Emily Dickinson? As shetold a friend once: “In a life that stopped guessing, you and Ishould not feel at home. “
We have the poems. And for most readers, they are enough.
VOICE ONE:
Surgeons must be very careful
When they take the knife!
Underneath their fine incisions
Stirs the Culprit – Life
ANNCR:
You have been listening to the Special English program People inAmerica. This program was written by Richard Thorman. Your narratorswere Kay Gallant and Harry Monroe. Listen again next week at thissame time on VOA for another story of People in America.
This is Shirley Griffith.