Hey Literary World!
So first off, I just want to say how amazing the library is. Not only is it a place to escape from the world for a bit, and into the many wonderful landscapes of books, but I bought a giant anthology of poetry for 2 bucks at my local library! How can it get any better than that?
As I was flipping through the pages, I checked out the section on Emily Dickinson. I just think that she is amazing, and wrote poetry that was so thoughtful, and so many years ahead of its time. I think there’s a reason that she saw the world the way that she did, and she put those thoughts, that were often times hauntingly beautiful, into words.
So real quick, I want to talk about her poem, “My Life closed twice before its close.”
“My life closed twice before its close—
It yet remains to see
If Immortality unveil
A third event to me
So huge, so hopeless to conceive
As these that twice befell.
Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell.”
It’s such a short, and powerful poem, and can take the reader’s interpretation in many directions. Even in the meaning behind that first line, “My life closed twice before it died.” What does it mean? I like to think that Dickinson is trying to convey that in her life, or in the life of the narrator, two other-worldly events occurred. Now this could mean many things, but I think the mystery of it all is what makes it more powerful… The reader is able to create their own abstract, wonderfully unique interpretation…
Maybe she saw the afterlife in a dream, or a vision… maybe it’s the death of another… but whatever it is, you can see how important these events were to the narrator, and how they even changed her perception of the world. If you had a taste of the afterlife, how could you ever see existence the same? Her life closed twice before its close.
And now she waits, and thinks of life, and of death, and of that final closing of this world, and into the next. It’s wonderful, and daunting, and beautiful. Many people see Dickinson’s writing as somber, but I think there is much more hopefulness and beauty hidden in the meaning of her words.
And I’ll leave this post with her final two lines of the poem,
“Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell.”
I would love to hear any other thoughts on this poem!
lazylanguage 