Dickinson Poems

When I ordered the books for our class, Final Harvest, the paperback selection of Dickinson's poems I usually order, was out of print, so I ordered The Selected Poems of Emily Dickinson, edited by Billy Collins, instead. But now that I look at that edition, I'm unhappy with the way Collins edited them poems to make them "more accessible to the eye of the modern reader," as he puts it. So ——     This complicated page is my attempt to give you both the poems I want you to read and several ways to read them. The list of FIRST LINEs will allow you to identify which poems, in any edition of Dickinson you have (and at this point Final Harvest, featuring Thomas H. Johnson's selection and editing of her poems, is back in print). Clicking on MS., when that link exists for a poem, will bring up a digital facsimile of the poem as Dickinson herself left it for us to read, in her handwritten manuscript. Clicking on TSJ+ will pop up a transcription of the poem based on Johnson's editorial practices, except I've replaced his dashes ( — ) with hyphens ( – ), which I think are closer to Dickinson's own punctuation marks.     Try reading at least your favorite among the poems in all these versions, and decide for yourself what kinds of difference conventions of editing and publishing make to the experience of Dickinson's poetry. One other approach to her work that I very much recommend is copying your favorite poems out, in your own handwriting.     One last note: the first two poems below aren't included in Collins' edition, so you'll have to read them here. And feel free to read as many more Dickinson poems as you want! but make sure to read at least the following ones:

FIRST LINE	FACSIMILE MANUSCRIPT	"JOHNSON" VERSION
This was a poet	MS.	TSJ+
This Consciousness that is aware	MS.	TSJ+
A light exists in spring		TSJ+
Apparently with no surprise		TSJ+
Because I could not stop for Death		TSJ+
Belshazzar had a letter*		TSJ+
Dare you see a soul at the white heat?		TSJ+
Death is a dialogue between		TSJ+
Exultation is the going		TSJ+
Far from love the Heavenly Father*		TSJ+
Given in marriage unto thee		TSJ+
He preached upon "breath" till it argued him narrow		TSJ+
Hope is the thing with feathers		TSJ+
I cannot live with you		TSJ+
I felt a funeral in my brain	MS.	TSJ+
I had been hungry all the years		TSJ+
I heard a fly buzz when I died	MS.	TSJ+
I know that he exists	MS.	TSJ+
I like to see it lap the miles		TSJ+
I'm ceded, I've stopped being theirs		TSJ+
I'm wife; I've finished that		TSJ+
I never lost as much but twice	MS.	TSJ+
I never saw a moor		TSJ+
I reason, earth is short		TSJ+
I shall know why, when time is over		TSJ+
I stepped from plank to plank	MS.	TSJ+
It was not death, for I stood up		TSJ+
Mine by the right of the white election!		TSJ+
Much madness is divinest sense		TSJ+
My life closed twice before its close		TSJ+
Nature, the gentlest mother		TSJ+
No rack can torture me		TSJ+
One need not be a chamber to be haunted	MS.	TSJ+
Presentiment is that long shadow on the lawn		TSJ+
She rose to his requirement, dropped*		TSJ+
The brain is wider than the sky	MS.	TSJ+
The brain within its groove		TSJ+
The bustle in the house		TSJ+
There's a certain slant of light	MS.	TSJ+
These are the days when the birds come back		TSJ+
The show is not the show		TSJ+
The soul selects her own society		TSJ+
The soul unto itself		TSJ+
The thought beneath so slight a film		TSJ+
This is my letter to the world		TSJ+
To fight aloud is very brave		TSJ+
To hear an oriole sing	MS.	TSJ+
To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee		TSJ+
What soft, cherubic creatures		TSJ+
Wild nights! Wild nights!		TSJ+

SOURCES: MANUSCRIPTS ARE SCANNED FROM THE MANUSCRIPT BOOKS OF EMILY DICKINSON, ED. R. W. FRANKLIN, 2 VOLUMES (© CAMBRIDGE: HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS, 1981). DICKINSON'S MANUSCRIPTS ARE IN THE HOUGHTON LIBRARY, HARVARD UNIVERSITY, AND THE AMHERST COLLEGE LIBRARY. TRANSCRIPTIONS ARE FROM THE COMPLETE POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON, ED. THOMAS H. JOHNSON (© BOSTON: LITTLE, BROWN, 1960) -- EXCEPT FOR THE THREE MARKED WITH AN ASTERISK, JOHNSON'S VERSIONS OF THE POEMS ARE ALSO IN FINAL HARVEST (© BOSTON: LITTLE, BROWN, 1961).

BACK TO READING CALENDAR