Blog Archives

On the Road Again

3/30/2025

Spring comes on the World –
I sight the Aprils –

~ Emily Dickinson

Here’s the scoop: I’m going to be traveling for a bit – we’re going to visit the National Parks in southern Utah. Sooo…for a time, I won't be making daily Dickinson-related posts (since I won’t have access to any of my Dickinson poetry and/or reference books).
Starting on April 1, I’m going to make humorous -- possibly daily? -- posts to celebrate National Poetry Month -- ON TUMBLR and SUBSTACK (my account on those platforms is "A Select Society"). The posts will be poetry-related – just not Dickinson specific -- and I won't be publishing those posts here as they will be taken from a "Special Exhibit" already posted on this site (HERE).
I’ll provide an update around mid-April as to when I’ll pick up again with my Dickinson-specific posts.
"Experience is the angled road," wrote Dickinson, and I'll be experiencing it for a couple of weeks! ; )

On the road again
Goin' places that I've never been
Seein' things that I may never see again
And I can't wait to get on the road again

~ Willie Nelson

Beer Nuts

3/29/2025

Dickinson described herself as “small, like the Wren, and my Hair is bold, like the Chestnut Bur- and my eyes, like the Sherry in the Glass, that the Guest leaves-”

In response I checked to see if Dickinson ever used the word “sherry” in any of her poems – AND – I checked for other alcoholic terms as well – and all of that reminded me of this cartoon I saw long ago, “thirst editions” by John Atkinson.

Of course, Mr. Atkinson’s chart might make one wonder what libations would top a similar list for poets – and what would the drink of choice be for Emily Dickinson?

Well, for Emily Dickinson -- and her sister Lavinia -- the choice would be a keg of beer. There was nothing the sisters loved more than frat parties and keggers at Amherst college.

In 1849, Emily Dickinson wrote to her cousins Frances and Louisa Norcross. In her letter, Dickinson stated the following:

"There is to be a party at the Sigma Alpha Epsilon house tomorrow night. They say that home is where the heart is ~ I think it is where the Sigma house is, and the adjacent buildings.

Vinnie and I will be happy amid this delightful kegger, and well we will drink our icy beers ~ and the world there will be so beautiful, and things so sweet and fair, that my heart will be soothed and comforted."

Well, I suspect you know that this post is a jest; however, yesterday I reported on the use of “drunkard” in Dickinson’s poems (the word is used in two poems), but I did not check upon the word “drunk” – and that word appears in three poems, “Had I known that the first was the last,” “One of the ones that midas touched,” “We – bee and I – live by the quaffing.”

The latter two use the word to mean a state of inebriation; the first uses the word as the part participle of “to drink” – BUT – only in the Johnson version of the poem. The Franklin and Miller editions both use the word “mixed” instead.

The Miller edition includes this note about the poem: “Matthew 19:30, ‘many that are first shall be last; and the last shall be first.’”

Sherry, Sherry Baby (Can You Come Out Tonight?)

3/28/2025

I cannot tell you how tiring it is to hear from people, “You look like George Clooney.”

No, I don’t look like George Clooney. George Clooney looks like me.

Lol – all kidding aside, if someone would say, “describe what you look like,” I’d say something quotidian like “five-feet-eleven, skinny-ish, thin face, white hair, blue eyes.” However, when Emily Dickinson described herself in a letter to Thomas Wentworth Higginson, she said nothing so practical and prosaic.
Here’s how Dickinson described herself:

“I had no portrait, now, but am small, like the Wren, and my Hair is bold, like the Chestnut Bur- and my eyes, like the Sherry in the Glass, that the Guest leaves-”

I love that last image – that her eyes are not just like “the Sherry,” but like “the Sherry in the Glass, that the Guest leaves.”
Hmm…that made me wonder if Dickinson ever used the word “sherry” in any of her poems.

Yep, she sure did. She used the word “sherry” in “Perhaps you'd like to buy a flower.”

Did she ever use any other liquors and libations?

Well, she never used “beer,” “brandy,” “claret,” “whiskey,” “rye” or “scotch.”

She did use “ale” in one poem, “We – Bee and I – live by the quaffing,” and “rum” in one poem, “The popular heart is a cannon first.”

“Draughts” appears in three poems, the word “liquor” shows up in six different poems – the most famous being “I taste a liquor never brewed” – and the word “wine” – a drum roll, please – appears in 17 poems.

By the way, the word “drunkard” is used in two poems, “A Drunkard cannot meet a cork” and “The rose did caper on her cheek.”

A Chamber Door?

3/27/2025

My recent posts have been about pleasant sounding and not-so-pleasant sounding words. Yesterday’s communique focused on “cellar door,” a locution some believe to be the most euphonious in the English language.

As a result of that post, I decided to explore Emily Dickinson’s use of the phrase to find out if “cellar door” ever appeared in any of her poems.

Well, she did use the word “cellar,” and she did use the word “door,” but she never used the two together, “cellar door.” Nor was the word “cellar” used in any of the poems which use “door.”

Here’s the scoop:

When I typed “cellar” into the search field of the online Dickinson archive, thirteen results popped up representing four poems: “It’s hour with itself,” “Remembrance has a rear and front,” “Under the light yet under,” and “Like brooms of steel.”

Like Brooms of Steel
The Snow and Wind
Had swept the Winter Street -
The House was hooked
The Sun sent out
Faint Deputies of Heat -
Where rode the Bird
The Silence tied
His ample - plodding Steed
The Apple in the Cellar snug
Was all the one that played.

When I searched the word “door,” 195 entries turned up, and they represent 76 poems; however, the number of published poems with “door” is actually 75. There is one unpublished version of “Safe in their alabaster chambers” which Dickinson sent to her sister-in-law Susan that includes the word “door”; however, that version of the poem is not included in the major editions of the poet’s works.

Here’s the story:

Dickinson wrote “Safe in their Alabaster Chambers” in 1859, and it was eventually published in the Springfield Republican (most likely having been submitted by Susan Dickinson).

However, in the autumn of 1861, Dickinson revised the second stanza of the poem and sent a copy to her sister-in-law, Susan:

Safe in their Alabaster Chambers -
Untouched by Morning -
and untouched by noon -
Sleep the meek members of the Resurrection,
Rafter of Satin and Roof of Stone -

Grand go the Years - in the Crescent - above them -
Worlds scoop their Arcs -
And Firmaments - row -
Diadems - drop - and Doges - surrender -
Soundless as Dots - on a Disk of snow -

Susan responded, “I am not suited dear Emily with the second verse – It is remarkable as the chain lightening (sic) that blinds us hot nights in the Southern sky but it does not go with the ghostly shimmer of the first verse as well as the other one.” She thought that the first stanza might be better suited as a stand alone poem.

Emily revised the second stanza again with this:

Springs - shake the Sills -
But - the Echoes - stiffen -
Hoar - is the Window - and numb - the Door -
Tribes of Eclipse - in Tents of Marble -
Staples of Ages - have buckled - there -

Dickinson sent this altered version to Susan and asked, “Is this frostier?”

Several months later, in April 1862, Dickinson enclosed four poems in her first letter to Thomas Wentworth Higginson (the letter which begins, “Are you too deeply occupied, to say if my Verse is alive?”). “Safe in their alabaster chambers” was one of the four poems– but not the version with the word “door.”

She sent Higginson the second version of the poem but with a new line arrangement.

Safe in their Alabaster Chambers -
Untouched by Morning -
And untouched by Noon -
Sleep the meek members of the Resurrection,
Rafter of Satin - and Roof of Stone -

Grand go the Years,
In the Crescent above them -
Worlds scoop their Arcs -
And Firmaments - row -
Diadems - drop
And Doges - surrender -
Soundless as Dots,
On a Disc of Snow.

Door Prize

3/26/2025

My post yesterday focused on some unusual words included in Emily Dickinson’s poetry, and it also highlighted an Instagram Reels that focused on some favorite and not-so-favorite words of individuals.

Some of the favorite words included pizzazz, smithereens, bungalow, bumblebee, and glockenspiel. Some of the more unpopular words included twelfths, moist, pamphlet, and galoshes.

Some of my personal favorites were megalopolis and hootenanny, and my least favorites included regurgitate, mooch and dongle.

The complete post is HERE.

I asked my wife if she had any favorite words, and she responded, “Well, not off the top of my head, but,” she added, “my mother used to say that people learning English would often say the words ‘cellar door’ were beautiful.”

Say what?

That sounded so random to me that I Googled “do people like the sound of ‘cellar door’” – and lo and behold, look what popped up!

The New York Times even wrote about it back in 2010, HERE. I loved Dorothy Parkers take on it:

The writer and famous wit Dorothy Parker didn’t think much of the collection of beautiful words compiled in 1932 by the dictionary-maker Wilfred J. Funk, who topped his list with words like dawn, hush and lullaby. Parker said she preferred check and enclosed — but also cellar door.

And from C. S. Lewis:

Sometimes, the loveliness of cellar door is thought to be more evident when the phrase is given a different spelling. “I was astonished when someone first showed that by writing cellar door as Selladore,” C. S. Lewis wrote in 1963, “one produces an enchanting proper name.”

He's right! say the name in a seductive voice! It's quite alluring! ; )

I suspect you know what all of this information led me to investigate: Did Emily Dickinson every use the words “cellar door” in any of her poetry?

Stay tuned!

Word Play

3/25/2025

Recently I saw a post on Reels about favorite and least-liked words, and that called to mind some recent and past posts of mine which happened upon some unusual words used by Dickinson – words like “abstemiousness,” “propitious” and others. I’ll get to those words later. First, the Reels post that showed up in my feed.

The Reels’ video was posted by a dude named @bentellect, and he posted a pronouncement made by someone known as @jazz_inmypants and comments made by others in reaction to his assertion: “Best English word is Pizzazz. Worst English word is Twelfths. Any questions?”

The responses @jazz_inmypants received are the following:

I like bookkeeper because it has three double letters in a row.

I would whisper “ladle” repeatedly to myself as a kid because I liked how it sounds.

My favorite word is SMITHEREENS. It’s perfect.

Love the word “bungalow.”

I like “level” because it looks like an owl.

I’ve always loved juxtaposition.

CRISP is the only word that starts at the back or your mouth and travels forward to your lips. Say it slowly, Crriissp.

Completely agree with the “moist” thing.

Personally I love flabbergasted and bumblebee.

Kerfuffle needs more (heart).

Hijinx! The only word with three dotted letters in a row.

I’d like to raise your best word to “buffoonery.”

There is razzmatazz.

Pamphlet is awful. That many consonants together should never be allowed…mphl? Really?

Don’t sleep on “sassafras.” That’s a quality word.

“Glockenspiel” is a delight to say.

Always liked the word Cattywampus and hated galoshes.

The Rural Juror

[SIDE NOTE: That mention of "ladle" is straight from a line by Linda in the show "Bob's Burgers."]

What’s your favorite or least favorite word? I’ve always liked “megalopolis,” “serendipity,” “ad infinitum,” and “hootenanny.” Words I don’t like? “Regurgitate,” “scab,” “mooch,” “buttress,” “frippery” and “dongle.” I will say that I’ve always hated the name of that restaurant “Ruth’s Chris’ Steak House.”

So back to Dickinson. Some of the more out of the ordinary words used by Dickinson are “abstemiousness,” used in “Who never wanted maddest joy” (HERE), and “propitious,” used in “Went up a year this evening” (HERE).

How about the word “surcingle”? Are you familiar with that word?

While it might be foreign to modern readers (except those who work with horses), the word would have been very familiar to those in the late 19th century.

sur·cin·gle
/ˈsərˌsiNGɡ(ə)l/

noun

a wide strap that runs over the back and under the belly of a horse, used to keep a blanket or other equipment in place.

The word shows up in Dickinson’s poem “Bees are Black, with Gilt Surcingles.” How perfect is that?

How about the word “Emigravit”? “Emigravit” is a Latin word that means "departed,” and in years past, it was often used on gravestones.

In this case, Dickinson didn’t use the word in any of her poems. Instead, Thomas Wentworth Higginson wanted to use “Emigravit” as the title for “Went up a year this evening” in Series Two of “Poems” in 1891, but Mabel Loomis Todd convinced him to change the name to “Gone.”

Other unusual vocabulary in Dickinson’s poetry include “cochineal,” “mazarin,” “Thermopylae,” “sedulous,” and “cambric.”

Do you have any favorite words?

Other unusual vocabulary in Dickinson’s poetry include “cochineal,” “mazarin,” “Thermopylae,” “sedulous,” and “cambric.”

Do you have any favorite (or not-so-favorite) words?

Odd Numbers

3/24/2025

In 1891, the editor of New York’s The Independent published a favorable review of the newly published Poems by Emily Dickinson, and he then wrote to Mabel Loomis Todd requesting additional poems to publish in his paper. She sent him four, from which he printed three. One of the three was “God made a little Gentian.” I wrote about that poem earlier in the month, HERE.

That poem made me wonder how many works Dickinson wrote that include the word “gentian.”

When you search “gentian” on the online Dickinson archive, 15 entries pop up, and they represent seven different poems:

Distrustful of the gentian
God made a little gentian
It will be summer eventually
The gentian has a parched corolla
The gentian weaves her fringes
The springtime’s pallid landscape
While Asters

Of the seven poems listed above, the ones in bold appear in all of the major editions of Dickinson’s poetry – Johnson, Franklin, and Miller. However, “While Asters” appears only in Johnson and NOT in Franklin or Martin.

Also, the poem “The springtime pallid’s landscape” appears only in the 1896 publication of Poems (Third Series) edited by Mabel Loomis Todd, and it does not appear in any of the “complete” editions.

But all of this gets more than a little fuzzy, and it all has to do with the third poem on the list above, “It will be summer eventually.”

The poem “The springtime’s pallid landscape,” in Todd’s 1896 edition, is really just stanzas 2 through 5 of “It will be summer eventually.”

And then look at “While Asters.” This poem is just a variation of lines 14, 15, and 16 of “It will be summer eventually”; however, BOTH poems appear in Johnson, “While Asters” (poem number 331) and “It will be summer eventually” (poem number 342).

Those lines, by the way, were sent to Samuel Bowles around early 1862.

Sooo…depending upon the editions of Dickinson’s poems you check, the word “gentians” could be in 5, 6 or 7 poems.

One for the Books

3/23/2025

HISTORY WAS MADE ON OUR SITE ON 3/2/25: THIS WAS A FIRST!

The week of 3/2/25 saw the first time we ever had a guest poet showcased as the writer of one of our Featured Poems of the Week!

The guest poet that week? It was none other than Nancy Friedman, "Writer, name developer, brand critic. lapsed journalist, year-round bay swimmer" -- and all-around logophile -- and you can find her on Substack, HERE, as well as other social media platforms. She publishes weekly posts on topics related to corporate naming & branding, language peculiarities, words of the week, online link-fests, and more! If you, too, are a lover of words, be sure to subscribe to her posts!

Just before the week starting on 3/2, she penned "The new New Colossus," a timely hybrid take-off of "Ozymandias" by Percy Bysshe Shelley and "The New Colossus" by Emma Lazarus. I loved it so much, I thought I'd share it here!

The new New Colossus, by Nancy Friedman

Not unlike Ozymandias, ancient wreck,
With rheumy eyes and cheek of third-rate bronze,
And grand illusions of a thousand cons
In which some fawning sap picks up the check,
This mob-connected grifter, faux exec,
Who’s tweeted through ten thousand sleepless dawns,
Now conjures up some gilded echelons
And spies more treasure he can turn to dreck.
“Cough up the cash!” taunts he
Through puckered lips. “Give me your liars, your whores,
Your preening fraudsters yearning to run free,
The wretched excess of your shameless shores.
Send these, your bloated billionaires, to me:
Just five mil gets you through my golden doors.”

For info on Nancy Friedman, click HERE.

By Percy Bysshe Shelley:

I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

By Emma Lazarus:

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Cover Letter

3/23/2025

Yesterday, I wrote about Dickinson’s poem “Of Tribulation, these are they,” one of four poems she enclosed in a letter to Thomas Wentworth Higginson in July 1862. The other three poems were “Your Riches taught me poverty," "Some keep the Sabbath going to Church," and "Success is counted sweetest."

The letter is a very well-known one in all of Dickinson’s correspondences; it is the one where she describes the way she looks:

“I had no portrait, now, but am small, like the Wren, and my Hair is bold, like the Chestnut Bur- and my eyes, like the Sherry in the Glass, that the Guest leaves-”

In much of the body of the letter, she discusses her role as his “scholar,” so that she might grow if not flourish in her work as a poet based on his feedback, and she also divulges more about her own personality (“I know the Butterfly, and the Lizard, and the Orchis – / Are not those your Countrymen?”).

Her talk of the work of the Surgeon calls to mind an allusion she made in her second letter where she thanked Higginson for the critique of her work: “Thank you for the surgery – it was not so painful as I supposed.”

In this, her fourth letter to the writer, she states “I shall bring you – Obedience…and every gratitude I know.” However, she states that she is looking for more than someone who will just “smile at me”; she stipulates “My Business is Circumference.”

Two things to note here: First, I just discussed the other day (on Pi Day) Dickinson’s use of the word “circumference” in her poetry (HERE); second, check out the meanings for “circumference” from the online Dickinson’s archive (HERE). In relation to this letter, take a look at meanings 6, 8, 11, 12 and 13.

Toward the end of the letter, she talks about her craft: “When I state myself, as the Representative of the Verse – it does not mean – me – but a supposed person.” In other words, when she uses the pronoun “I,” she does not mean herself.

Of course, this is obvious in poems like “I heard a fly buzz when I died” and “I felt a funeral in my brain,” but perhaps not so clear-cut in a poem like “If I can stop one heart from breaking / I shall not live in vain.”

In the penultimate paragraph, she states, “You spoke of Pippa Passes” – this is in reference to a verse drama by Robert Browning published in 1841 (info HERE).

At the end, she is grateful but uncertain how to thank Higginson: “To thank you, baffles me”... “had I a pleasure you had not, I could delight to bring it” – and she signs the letter “Your Scholar.”

Emily Dickinson and Thomas Wentworth Higginson corresponded for roughly 23 years, starting in 1862 and continuing until Dickinson's death in 1886. The two only met twice, and Higginson also attended her funeral in the spring of 1886.

After Dickinson's death, Higginson collaborated with Mabel Loomis Todd to edit and publish the first collection of Dickinson's poetry.

Right Ankle?

3/22/2025

In 1891, the editor of New York’s The Independent published a favorable review of the newly published Poems by Emily Dickinson, and he then wrote to Mabel Loomis Todd to request additional poems to publish in his paper: “If there are any others that compare with the best ones in the volume, I should like much to publish them.”

Todd sent him four poems. He sent one back and said, “Three of them I will take and print as soon as I may. They are fresh and interesting. One of them I return. It seems to me so unsatisfactory in the way the last two verses are worked up. I am afraid I fail to catch the meaning except generally.”

In recent posts, I have shared information related to the three poems he accepted:

“I held a jewel in my fingers,” HERE.

“God made a little gentian,” HERE.

“Went up a year this evening,” HERE.

The poem he rejected was "Of Tribulation, these are they."

Dickinson included this poem in her July 1862 letter to Thomas Wentworth Higginson, where she called attention to the misspelling of “ancle.”

That’s right – she deliberately spelled the word “ankle” as “ancle,” and she knew full well how to spell “ankle.” For one thing, she used the word “ankle” – and spelled it correctly – in “It sifts from Leaden Sieves.” Plus, on the copy of the poem she’d sent to Higginson, she wrote, “I spelled ankle wrong.”

It turns out that the word "ancle" (i.e., “ankle”) appeared in older editions of the King James Bible, specifically in Ezekiel 47:3 (describing water ankle-deep) and Acts 3:7 (referring to the strengthening of a man's feet and ankles).

Although modern translations now use the word "ankle" instead of "ancle,” Dickinson’s Bible used “ancle,” and the poem references this – and she knew that Higginson, a minister himself, would understand her message when she wrote to him, “I spelled ankle wrong.”

The discussion of the poem on “White Heat,” HERE, mentions that the poem also “borrows heavily from the Book of Revelation, chapter 7, a page that Dickinson dog-eared in her Bible.”

Tomorrow: More on the letter Dickinson sent Higginson. It’s a fascinating one!