{"product_id":"2940012352934","title":"The Collected Poems","description":"PREFACE.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe verses of Emily Dickinson belong emphatically to what Emerson\u003cbr\u003elong since called \"the Poetry of the Portfolio,\"--something produced\u003cbr\u003eabsolutely without the thought of publication, and solely by way of\u003cbr\u003eexpression of the writer's own mind. Such verse must inevitably\u003cbr\u003eforfeit whatever advantage lies in the discipline of public criticism\u003cbr\u003eand the enforced conformity to accepted ways. On the other hand, it\u003cbr\u003emay often gain something through the habit of freedom and the\u003cbr\u003eunconventional utterance of daring thoughts. In the case of the\u003cbr\u003epresent author, there was absolutely no choice in the matter; she\u003cbr\u003emust write thus, or not at all. A recluse by temperament and habit,\u003cbr\u003eliterally spending years without setting her foot beyond the\u003cbr\u003edoorstep, and many more years during which her walks were strictly\u003cbr\u003elimited to her father's grounds, she habitually concealed her mind,\u003cbr\u003elike her person, from all but a very few friends; and it was with\u003cbr\u003egreat difficulty that she was persuaded to print, during her\u003cbr\u003elifetime, three or four poems.  Yet she wrote verses in great\u003cbr\u003eabundance; and though brought curiously indifferent to all\u003cbr\u003econventional rules, had yet a rigorous literary standard of her own,\u003cbr\u003eand often altered a word many times to suit an ear which had its own\u003cbr\u003etenacious fastidiousness.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMiss Dickinson was born in Amherst, Mass., Dec. 10, 1830, and died\u003cbr\u003ethere May 15, 1886. Her father, Hon. Edward Dickinson, was the\u003cbr\u003eleading lawyer of Amherst, and was treasurer of the well-known\u003cbr\u003ecollege there situated. It was his custom once a year to hold a large\u003cbr\u003ereception at his house, attended by all the families connected with\u003cbr\u003ethe institution and by the leading people of the town. On these\u003cbr\u003eoccasions his daughter Emily emerged from her wonted retirement and\u003cbr\u003edid her part as gracious hostess; nor would any one have known from\u003cbr\u003eher manner, I have been told, that this was not a daily occurrence.\u003cbr\u003eThe annual occasion once past, she withdrew again into her seclusion,\u003cbr\u003eand except for a very few friends was as invisible to the world as if\u003cbr\u003eshe had dwelt in a nunnery.  For myself, although I had corresponded\u003cbr\u003ewith her for many years, I saw her but twice face to face, and\u003cbr\u003ebrought away the impression of something as unique and remote as\u003cbr\u003eUndine or Mignon or Thekla.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis selection from her poems is published to meet the desire of her\u003cbr\u003epersonal friends, and especially of her surviving sister. It is\u003cbr\u003ebelieved that the thoughtful reader will find in these pages a\u003cbr\u003equality more suggestive of the poetry of William Blake than of\u003cbr\u003eanything to be elsewhere found,--flashes of wholly original and\u003cbr\u003eprofound insight into nature and life; words and phrases exhibiting\u003cbr\u003ean extraordinary vividness of descriptive and imaginative power, yet\u003cbr\u003eoften set in a seemingly whimsical or even rugged frame. They are\u003cbr\u003ehere published as they were written, with very few and superficial\u003cbr\u003echanges; although it is fair to say that the titles have been\u003cbr\u003eassigned, almost invariably, by the editors. In many cases these\u003cbr\u003everses will seem to the reader like poetry torn up by the roots, with\u003cbr\u003erain and dew and earth still clinging to them, giving a freshness and\u003cbr\u003ea fragrance not otherwise to be conveyed.  In other cases, as in the\u003cbr\u003efew poems of shipwreck or of mental conflict, we can only wonder at\u003cbr\u003ethe gift of vivid imagination by which this recluse woman can\u003cbr\u003edelineate, by a few touches, the very crises of physical or mental\u003cbr\u003estruggle. And sometimes again we catch glimpses of a lyric strain,\u003cbr\u003esustained perhaps but for a line or two at a time, and making the\u003cbr\u003ereader regret its sudden cessation. But the main quality of these\u003cbr\u003epoems is that of extraordinary grasp and insight, uttered with an\u003cbr\u003euneven vigor sometimes exasperating, seemingly wayward, but really\u003cbr\u003eunsought and inevitable.  After all, when a thought takes one's\u003cbr\u003ebreath away, a lesson on grammar seems an impertinence. As Ruskin\u003cbr\u003ewrote in his earlier and better days, \"No weight nor mass nor beauty\u003cbr\u003eof execution can outweigh one grain or fragment of thought.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e            ---Thomas Wentworth Higginson\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTRANSCRIBER'S NOTE\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs is well documented, Emily Dickinson's poems were edited in these\u003cbr\u003eearly editions by her friends, better to fit the conventions of the\u003cbr\u003etimes. In particular, her dashes, often small enough to appear\u003cbr\u003eas dots, became commas and semi-colons.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn the second series of poems published, a facsimile of her\u003cbr\u003ehandwritten poem which her editors titled \"Renunciation\" is given,\u003cbr\u003eand I here transcribe that manuscript as faithfully as I can,\u003cbr\u003eshowing _underlined_ words thus.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere came a day - at Summer's full -\u003cbr\u003eEntirely for me -\u003cbr\u003eI thought that such were for the Saints -\u003cbr\u003eWhere Resurrections - be -","brand":"SAP","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47069214343408,"sku":"2940012352934","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940012352934_p0.jpg?v=1763567570","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940012352934","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}