PLOG: Poetry Blog

Ch-Ch-Changes

7/14/2025

"Candle in the Wind" was written by Elton John and Bernie Taupin in 1973 in honor of Marilyn Monroe, who had died 11 years earlier (yikes – that surprised me! The Monroe era seemed so much more distant to me in 1973).

In 1997, John performed a rewritten version of the song, “Goodbye England’s Rose,” as a tribute to Diana, Princess of Wales.

Well, such changes – in response to shifting needs and circumstances – was not unusual for Emily Dickinson and her poetry.

For example, check out this poem from about 1884:

Not knowing when the Dawn will come,
I open every Door,
Or has it Feathers, like a Bird,
Or Billows, like a Shore –

After hearing of the death of Helen Hunt Jackson, Dickinson sent the same poem to Colonel Higginson, but she changed it to read like this:

Not knowing when Herself may come
I open every Door,
Or has she Feathers, like a Bird,
Or Billows, like a Shore-

The complete letter to Higginson can be found HERE.

BTW, this particular letter is dated “Spring 1886,” and in it Dickinson states, “I have been very ill, Dear friend, since November, bereft of Book and Thought, by the Doctor's reproof, but begin to roam in my Room now - ”

Dickinson did send two more letters to Higginson – one in late April 1886 and one in early May 1886 – and then she died on May 15, 1886.

More on all of this – variations with her poems, her last letter to Higginson, and more – tomorrow and beyond.

Oh, by the way, before I close, I will say that I came across an unfamiliar word when I looked up info on Elton John’s “Candle in the Wind.” Wikipedia describes it as a “threnody-style ballad.”

Threnody? I can’t say as I’ve ever come across that word.

Evidently, a threnody is a wailing ode or poem of mourning composed or performed as a memorial to a dead person. The term originates from the Greek word θρηνῳδία (threnoidia), from θρῆνος (threnos, "wailing") and ᾠδή (oide, "ode"); oddly, enough, though the OED site states, “The earliest known use of the verb threnody is in the 1890s. OED's only evidence for threnody is from 1893, in the writing of Grant Allen, writer on science and novelist.” How weird is that?

And it gets weirder. Stay tuned!

OHHH-- STOP THE PRESSES!

I just realized that in my statement above -- about OED's info on the word "threnody" -- I was looking at the entry of "threnody" as a VERB -- not a NOUN.

Sooo...I re-searched the word and found the entry as a NOUN:

"The earliest known use of the noun threnody is in the mid 1600s. OED's earliest evidence for threnody is from 1634, in the writing of Thomas Herbert, traveller and government official."

Okay -- that makes more sense!

All Ye Need To Know

7/13/2025

Recent posts have focused on Emily Dickinson’s “grammatical vagaries,” and some of them included discussion around the poem “I died for beauty – but was scarce.”

The opening lines to that poem read as, “I died for beauty, but was scarce / Adjusted in the tomb, / When one who died for truth was lain / In an adjoining room.”

Of course the grammatical discussion centered on the use of “lain” instead of “laid,” but poetry fans probably also picked up on a familiar ring to that poem – lines from John Keats’ “Ode on a Grecian Urn”:

When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."

In her book Emily Dickinson’s Poems As She Preserved Them, Cristanne Miller points this connection out, but adds, “perhaps (the poem) also refers to more recent allusions to this ode, for example, in Emerson’s ‘Nature’ (1836) or Barrett Browning’s ‘A Vision of Poets’ (1844). The latter reads, ‘These were poets true / Who died for Beauty, as martyrs do / For truth – the ends being scarcely two,’ lines marked, perhaps by ED, in SD’s (Susan Dickinson’s) copy.”

Keats' "Ode on a Grecian Urn" is HERE. Information on Emerson's essay "Nature" is HERE (and look on the right side of the page: there is a spot where you can download the entire essay as a PDF). Barrett Browning's "A Vision of Poets" is HERE -- and lo and behold, look what else popped up while I was looking for that poem, HERE.

Vagaries & Idiosyncrasies

7/12/2025

In her book Ancestors Brocades, The Literary Debut of Emily Dickinson, Millicent Todd Bingham spoke of Dickinson’s “grammatical vagaries” and “Emily’s idiosyncrasies” – “such as using ‘of’ for ‘by’; for example: ‘A clover’s simple fame / Remembered of the cow.’”

She also noted that “For the first editors, the perennial uncertainty was: which (of Dickinson’s grammatical errors) are mistakes and which are intentional irregularities with a definite function to perform.”

In his 1938 book This Was A Poet, Amherst College professor George F. Whicher argued that Dickinson’s grammatical errors were traceable to the fact that she followed the current spoken usage of her time.

In addition to the “of”/”by” peculiarity, what were some of Dickinson’s other quirks?

“Her chaos of singulars and plurals” – in Bingham’s words:

Examples: “We cannot put ourself away,” in the poem “I tie my hat” (changed to “ourselves” by editors Todd and Higginson); “And I for truth, themself are one” from the poem “I died for beauty” (changed to “And I for truth, the two are one”).

Also, Dickinson often used a plural verb with a singular subject, as in the poem “Air has no residence, no neighbor,” which ends as follows:

Ethereal guest at e’en an outcast’s pillow,
Essential host in life’s faint, wailing inn,
Later than light thy consciousness accost me,
Till it depart, conveying mine.

Bingham wrote, “To change the verbs to ‘accosts’ and ‘departs’ would defeat not only the meaning but the Miltonic surge of sound. This ‘mistake,’ my mother thought, was deliberate, as Emily’s use of ‘be’ for ‘is’ was deliberate:

Menagerie to me
My neighbor be.”

TBH: I tend to think that 99% of Dickinson’s “grammatical vagaries” were, indeed deliberate; there were lapses with “its” and “it’s” and other contractions too that I think were accidental – but most other “slips” were intentional.

Bingham concludes her (1945) discussion of Dickinson’s hallmarks and habits with this:

“Though these peculiarities were mere elision, they gave rise to much discussion half a century ago. Emily’s grammatical irresponsibility is well summed up in a line of an unpublished poem, 'This chasm sweet, upon my life,” which reads ‘Ourself am lying straight wherein.’”

Stay In Your Lain

7/11/2025

Recent posts have focused on Emily Dickinson’s use of the word “lain” in her poem “I died for Beauty” when the correct word in that instance was “laid."

“For the first editors (of Dickinson’s poetry),” wrote Millicent Todd Bingham in Ancestors Brocades, The Literary Debut of Emily Dickinson, “the perennial uncertainty was: which (of Dickinson’s grammatical errors) are mistakes and which are intentional irregularities with a definite function to perform.”

I’ll cover some of Dickinson’s errors and irregularities tomorrow; however, in the case of “I died for Beauty,” Bingham’s mother Mabel Loomis Todd seemed to prefer that a correction be made. In 1890, she wrote to Thomas Wentworth Higginson, “And do you think it best to leave the ungrammatical use of ‘lain’ instead of ‘laid’ in ‘When one who died for truth was lain’?”

Higginson wrote back, “I have forwarded yr corrections approved except the ‘lain’ which I think had better stay as it is.”

BTW, as an aside, I tried to find statistical information related to the usage of “lain” over time; however, every frequency chart I came across focused on the verb “lie” instead of its past participle “lain.” I did find this, though: “The past participle ‘lain’ of the verb ‘lie’ (meaning to recline) is not as commonly used as other past participles in modern English. While grammatically correct, many speakers and writers opt for alternative phrasing or the past tense form ‘lay’ instead, particularly in casual speech.”

Back to Dickinson:

In his 1938 book This Was A Poet, Amherst College professor George F. Whicher argued that Dickinson’s grammatical errors – including “lain” for “laid” discussed yesterday – were traceable to the fact that she followed the current spoken usage of her time.

I have not read Whicher’s book; however, I did find this information from a 1938 review of his book in the New York Times:

“Against the accusation that Emily Dickinson wrote slovenly and ungrammatically Professor Whicher rises in wrath. Her poems, he states, have never been carefully edited; often there will be more than one reading, and what would be the better reading has not always been the one printed. Moreover, Emily was brought up in the New England vernacular, which went back to grammatical usage not always that of today.”

In her book Ancestors Brocades, The Literary Debut of Emily Dickinson, Millicent Todd Bingham also spoke of Dickinson’s “grammatical vagaries” and “Emily’s idiosyncrasies” (“such as using ‘of’ for ‘by’: ‘A clover’s simple fame / Remembered of the cow’”).

The review continues:

“Thomas Bailey Aldrich tried to improve certain of her poems, shown him, probably, by Colonel Higginson, but only made them worse. Emily was a law unto herself and a law unto her poetry. Even in her rhymes, which often are no rhymes at all, she must be accepted for what she is, a unique literary being. She has her own special province in the world of poetry; in Professor Whicher's carefully thought-out phrasing, ‘the region of dramatic tension between the mind and experience.’”

Life In The Slow Lain

7/10/2025

Yesterday’s post started with this: “How are your grammar skills? Specifically, how well do you understand ‘lie’ (to recline) vs. ‘lay’ (to place)?”

Here are some of the contributing factors for all the confusion between “lay” and “lie”:

1. The past tense of “lie” is “lay,” the same spelling and pronunciation as the present tense of the verb “lay.”

2. The past tense AND the past participle for “lay” are both “laid”; however, the past participle of “lie” is not “laid” but “lain” – and few people these days actually use “lain.”

3. The verb “lay” is transitive and requires a direct object; “lie” is intransitive and does not take a direct object.

Yesterday’s post focused on Dickinson’s poem ‘I died for beauty” which includes these lines: “When One who died for Truth, was lain / In an adjoining Room.”

The correct word at the end of that first line is “laid,” which Mabel Loomis Todd pointed out to Thomas Higginson, but Higginson insisted the word “lain” remain “as it is” when they published the first edition of “Poems” in 1890.

In Febrary 1891, Higginson received a letter from Julia Eastman, a principal of a school for girls, about Dickinson’s misuse of “lain” in this poem:

“Dear Sir,

Would it be an ‘impertinence’ – to borrow your own word – to ask if one change might not be made in the next edition of Emily Dickinson’s ‘Poems’?

On page 119, in the line, ‘When one who died for truth was lain,’ could not ‘laid’ be substituted without harming the poem?”

Eastman continued later in the letter with this observation:

“To most of the educated people of New England, the confusion of ‘lie’ & ‘lay’ is condoned with some difficulty, and the writer of this note is the more sensitive, perhaps, with regard to a grammatical error of this nature, from the fact of her having known Miss Dickinson, and also in her having the most unspeakable delight in her poems.”

Across the top of this letter, Higginson wrote, “I have discouraged this.”

A professor at Amherst College, George F. Whicher, in his 1938 book This Was a Poet, argued that Dickinson’s grammatical errors – including this “lain” for “laid” – were traceable to the fact that she followed the current spoken usage of her time. More on this tomorrow.

Lie/Lay Person

7/9/2025

How are your grammar skills? Specifically, how well do you understand “lie” (to recline) vs. “lay” (to place)?

In past posts, I’ve written about challenges Mabel Loomis Todd and Thomas Wentworth Higginson faced in preparing Emily Dickinson’s poetry for publication. Issues ranged from having to decipher Dickinson’s handwriting to determining word choice (when faced with multiple alternate word choices on the page) to correcting (or not correcting?) errors in spelling, capitalization and grammar.

“When it came to bad grammar,” wrote Todd’s daughter Millicent Todd Bingham in her book Ancestor’s Brocades, The Literary Debut of Emily Dickinson, “there was room for difference of opinion.”

According to Bingham – in discussing the poem “I died for Beauty but was scarce” – “Colonel Higginson usually stood for correct usage. And yet,” she reported, “he it was who preferred ‘lain’ when ‘laid’ was correct” (Bingham added, “Emily always misused that past participle”).

Concerning that poem, Bingham wrote, “My mother particularly disliked this mistake. In her letter of December 29, 1890, to Colonel Higginson she asks, ‘And do you think it best to leave the ungrammatical use of ‘lain’ instead of ‘laid,’ in ‘When one who died for truth was lain’?’ As Colonel Higginson preferred ‘lain,’ it so appeared. But his preference was often challenged, not only in the poem, ‘I died for beauty,” but in others as well. Each time the word appeared it gave rise to argument and each time he prevailed.”

Higginson’s “lain” prevailed when the poem was first published in 1890, and it survives to this day in the Johnson, Franklin, and Miller editions.

More on the “lie vs. lay” tomorrow.

Photo Finish

7/8/2025

Have you seen the documentary “Finding Vivian Maier” and/or have you heard her story?

Maier was a French-American woman who worked most of her life as a nanny and housekeeper to a multitude of Chicago families. She carried a camera everywhere she went, but Maier's photographic legacy was largely unknown during her lifetime.

The film “Finding Vivian Maier” documents how John Maloof came to purchase a box of photo negatives at a 2007 Chicago auction, then scanned the images and put them on the Internet; soon, a Kickstarter campaign for the documentary was underway about the woman who took all the pictures.

Take a look at this Reels video that popped upon on my feed, HERE.

The story of Maier, of course, reminded me of Emily Dickinson. Her work was completely unknown while she was alive, and then after her death – and the discovery of her work – she gained fame. Maier’s photographs have now been exhibited in museums world wide.

Maier, like Dickinson, was a poet – but with a camera.

In tribute to Maier, I have posted Dickinson’s poem “This was a Poet – It is That.”

This poem explores the unique ability of poets to transform ordinary experiences into profound insights, highlighting the contrast between the poet's rich inner world and the "ceaseless Poverty" of others. The poem uses imagery of distilling "amazing sense" from "ordinary meanings" and creating "Attar so immense" from "familiar species," suggesting the poet's power to extract deep meaning and beauty from the everyday – and this applies both to Dickinson and Maier.

If you haven’t seen the documentary “Finding Vivian Maier,” I highly recommend it!

Also, here’s a site with more info about Maier, HERE.

Train of Thought

7/7/2025

Navigating the New York subway can be more than a little intimidating because the tangled map is veinier than a full head of romaine lettuce, and it’s emblazoned with colors, letters, numbers, double letters, locals, expresses, circles, squares, dots and more. However, I’ve gotten better at decoding it over the years – AND – I love the “credit card tap in” feature to enter stations so that I don’t also have to figure out a complex fare card system on top of deciphering the labyrinthine map.

On my recent trip to New York, we rode the subway a few times to various destinations, and on one train, I glanced down and saw a poster on display with what appeared to be a two-stanza eight-line poem. Of course, I immediately thought it was a poem by Dickinson, but no – it was an excerpt from a longer poem called “Queens of the Night” by Katherine Bradford. The poster was sponsored by the Poetry Society of America.

Click the image at the left to enlarge.

Anyway, that made me wonder – if I were to display a poem by Dickinson on the subway, which one would it be?

Well, like this poster, I would select a short poem or a brief excerpt from a longer poem, but nothing from one of her darker poems of death, pain, loss or grief. Also, I wouldn’t post something too abstruse – say, like “Expectation is Contentment”-- nothing that would be overly baffling and/or require deep reflection and contemplation – not that there’s anything wrong with that – but for a quick subway ride, I’d want something captivating, joyful, and uplifting – and something that people could read quickly and think, “Wow! I love that.”

The poem that jumped into my mind is “The Skies can’t keep their secret!” That’s a four stanza poem, so I’d post just the first two stanzas.:

The Skies can't keep their secret! 
They tell it to the Hills –
The Hills just tell the Orchards –
And they—the Daffodils!  

A Bird – by chance – that goes that way –  
Soft overhears the whole –  
If I should bribe the little Bird –  
Who knows but she would tell?  

The complete poem is at the right. Click the image to enlarge.

Catching Up

7/6/2025

I have some catching up to do!

I've posted various Trump-related poems as some of our recent 'Featured Poems of the Week," but I was negligent in then posting the poems in our plog (poetry blog) -- so here are a handful of poems based on the following:

1. The recent "No Kings" protests held around the country (the biggest day of protest in our nation's history).
2. The Trump birthday military parade debacle -- a.k.a., the Squeaky Wheel Gets the Parade (what a colossal waste of money that was, huh?).
3. The "big beautiful bill" -- which in reality turned out to be a "big bonanza for billionaires."

So here we go...

1. "No Kings":

Donald the Adulterer craves a crown -- and what is completely stunning is that the Supreme Court has helped his effort by giving him carte blanch to commit criminal activities with impunity -- and the GOP continues to enable his desire by allowing his anti-constitutional antics. And here's what's laughable -- and I mean completely and wholly laughable: he does not even know his history -- OUR HISTORY -- in that we broke from a monarchy waaaaay back in 1776 because our forefathers and mothers did not want a king -- and Trump described the Declaration of Independence as a document of love and unity and respect. LOL -- I'm not making that up. He truly is -- in Rex Tillerson's words -- a moron.

In response to his desire to don a crown (hee hee), true patriots took to the streets yesterday across the country for the No Kings protests (and I was there!).

In tribute to the No Kings protest, I have posted Emmett Lee Dickinson's "The Court condoned his crimes themself" below on the left. Dickinson's poem inspired his third cousin Emily to pen her poem "Who Court obtain within Himself," below on the right.

By Emmett Lee Dickinson:

The Court condoned his crimes themself
Who sees himself a King –
A Travesty of Monarchy
Is an inferior thing –

This Man we loathe
Whom Hate doth reign –
And He demands a Crown
For him who doth continual
Conspires against his Own

By Emily Dickinson:

Who Court obtain within Himself
Sees every Man a King-
And Poverty of Monarchy
Is an interior thing-

No Man depose
Whom Fate Ordain-
And Who can add a Crown
To Him who doth continual
Conspire against His Own

2. The Donald Trump Military Parade Stupidtacular

IN TRIBUTE TO DONALD "SHIFTY DON" TRUMP'S WASTEFUL SPENDING OF MILLIONS AND MILLIONS OF TAXPAYER DOLLARS FOR A MILITARY PARADE IN HONOR OF HIM AND HIS BONE SPURS (he really did want to serve in the Army, but those pesky bone spurs kept him out of duty. TBH, it's a miracle the man can even play golf every weekend on our dime), I HAVE POSTED EMMETT LEE DICKINSON'S "INCONCEIVABLY WASTEFUL" below on the left. DICKINSON'S POEM INSPIRED HIS THIRD COUSIN TO PEN HER POEM "INCONCEIVABLY SOLEMNS," below on the right.

By Emmett Lee Dickinson:

Inconceivably wasteful!
Things this guy
Does – for the very Press
Of Imagery –

His farce Parades – perjured on the eye
With a mock Pomp –
Pleading for Pageantry –

Flags, are a vain sight –
Not true to Eye
As they went By –
Speciously –

Music’s repugnant –
As the true Ear
Winces with disgust
For Doom’s too near –

By Emily Dickinson:

Inconceivably solemn!
Things go gay
Pierce – by the very Press
Of Imagery –

Their far Parades – order on the eye
With a mute Pomp –
A pleading Pageantry –

Flags, are a brave sight –
But no true Eye
Ever went by One –
Steadily –

Music's triumphant –
But the fine Ear
Winces with delight
Are Drums too near –

3. The Big Bonanza for Billionaires

Trump signed his "big beautiful bill" this past weekend, but honestly it's nothing but a big beautiful bonanza for billionaires. The bill marks the greatest transfer of wealth from the needy to the top 1% in our nation's history -- AND -- it will increase the national debt by three to five trillion (or more). Millions of Americans will be stripped of healthcare, medical research will cease, and rural hospitals will close, all to fund purchases of yachts and private islands by GOP dark money donors and big-tech oligarchs (and of course, this is all on top of the calamities that have already occurred thanks to Trump, Musk and their DOGE-bags; for ex: the loss of emergency alert personnel prior to the horrific loss of life in catastrophic flooding in Texas; people who have been shot by white men simply because "they looked like illegal immigrants"; our nation's worst outbreak of measles since the disease had been eradicated; and more).

Of course, the new GOP mantra seems to come from Joni Ernst's philosophy that we're all going to die anyway -- so I suppose, "who cares" (LOL -- the GOP certainly doesn't). As a matter of fact, I think the new slogan for Trump and the GOP ought to be, "Policies To Die For!"

In response to the big bonanza for billionaires, I have posted Emmett Lee Dickinson's "His Bill an Auger is" below on the left. Dickinson's poem inspired his third cousin Emily to pen her poem with the same opening line, below on the right.

By Emmett Lee Dickinson:

His Bill an Auger is,
His Hype, a Con and Shill
He "laboreth" at every Tee
A Term, His utmost Fail.

By Emily Dickinson:

His Bill an Auger is,
His Head, a Cap and Frill.
He laboreth at every Tree
A Worm, His utmost Goal.

Close Encounters of a Poetic Kind

7/6/2025

I have now returned home after trips to New York City and Baltimore, and my “Close Encounters of a Poetic Kind” experience occurred while visiting the New York Public Library on Fifth Avenue at 42nd Street. I was there with one of my daughters while my wife and other daughter were running errands, and we were all going to meet up at the Metropolitan Museum later in the day.

While at the library, we visited the library’s “first-ever permanent exhibition” highlighting items from their world-renowned collections. For example, we saw a First Folio of Shakespeare printed in 1623, music composed in Mozart’s handwriting (from Symphony No. 32 in G Major), and the original Winnie the Pooh and friends (all pictured below).

Info on the library’s free exhibit, “Treasures,” is HERE.

When we exited the exhibit on the first floor, I told my daughter that we should run up to the third floor just to take a quick peek at the study and research rooms because they are spectacularly beautiful; however, when we got up there, I saw that the rooms are now roped off and one cannot go in unless conducting research and/or studying (I assume with an appointment). We could look in only from an allocated spot several feet from the entry doorway.

We peered in to see as much as we could see, and then as we were about to leave, I had an idea. I walked up to one of the guards and asked if I could go in. I told her that I published daily posts about Emily Dickinson, and I wondered if the library had a copy of the first edition of Dickinson poem published posthumously in 1890.

I gave a bit of background – about the number of poems Dickinson wrote, how they were discovered after her death, how lucky we are that her sister didn’t burn them, etc. – and the guard was so intrigued that she agreed that I must see a copy of the book – IF the library had one!

She then discreetly ushered my daughter and I into the main study area, and she told me to speak with a reference librarian.

LOL – we were in, and my heart was pounding!

I gave a similar spiel to the reference librarian, and she was equally fascinated, so she began her online search. Alas, thousands of entries popped up when she typed in “Dickinson,” so I suggested that she run a more specific search for the name “Mabel Loomis Todd,” and that did the trick.

She showed me her screen as the search narrowed, and I saw a book published by Todd and Higginson in 1890 and whisper-screamed, “That’s it!”

“No,” she said, “this says ‘sixth edition.”

I explained that the first printing of “Poems” had six printings in 1890, and that that book – edited by Todd and Higginson and published by Roberts Brothers of Boston – was indeed a first edition.

She got so excited she looked into this a bit more, and it seemed that the library seemed to have a first edition from the first printing.

She printed the information, handed it to me, and pointed to some doors on the far wall of the research room.

“See those doors?” she said. “Go there. That’s our rare book collection. Buzz to get in, and tell them that I sent you.”

Needless to say, my heart was palpitating wildly, though I tried to exhibit a calm and professional aspect on the outside. Inside, I was doing the Snoopy dance.

My daughter walked to the doors, but we could not figure out how to “buzz” ourselves in, so we returned to the reference librarian to ask.

She looked at the doors and then looked at us, and I could tell by the look on her face that “Houston, we have a problem.”
“Oh, I forgot,” she said. “Today is Monday, and the rare books room is closed on Mondays.”

OOOOOHHHH NOOOOOO!

Alas, I could not return the next day as the hour of our train departure would not allow sufficient time to see the book! Woe was me!

BUT – I have all the info I need for my next visit to New York – so that is something to look forward to!

As my daughter and I exited the study area, the guard came running over to see what I had found out. LOL – she was as disappointed as I was – but I told her I’d stop by to see her on my next visit!