Recent #DickinsonDaily posts were about Dickinson’s poems about bees which led me to her poems which use the word “amen” and that brings me today to her poems with the word “Bobolink” (one of which, by the way, does not use “amen” but does include “amenable”); info on that is HERE.
The poem with “amenable” is “The Way to know the Bobolink” – and just FYI: In case you’re wondiering “what in the world is a Bobolink,” it’s a bird; Wikipedia states, the Bobolink is “a small New World blackbird and the only member of the genus Dolichonyx. An old name for this species is the ‘rice bird,’ from its tendency to feed on cultivated grains during winter and migration.”
More info on the Bobolink can be found HERE.
Dickinson wrote 14 poems which mention the Bobolink, and this one, “The Way to know the Bobolink” is one of my favorites. It is a wonderful ode to the bird.
The poem with “amenable” is “The Way to know the Bobolink” – and just FYI: In case you’re wondiering “what in the world is a Bobolink,” it’s a bird; Wikipedia states, the Bobolink is “a small New World blackbird and the only member of the genus Dolichonyx. An old name for this species is the ‘rice bird,’ from its tendency to feed on cultivated grains during winter and migration.”
More info on the Bobolink can be found HERE.
Dickinson wrote 14 poems which mention the Bobolink, and this one, “The Way to know the Bobolink” is one of my favorites. It is a wonderful ode to the bird.
I love the first four lines – wouldn’t you love to associate with people who are like this opening description of the bird – The Way to know the Bobolink / From every other Bird / Precisely as the Joy of him / Obliged to be inferred.”
And then lines 5 & 6 – yet another example of Dickinson’s writing which reflects both the whimsical and erudite nature of the poet: “Of impudent Habiliment / Attired to defy.” I mean, who do you know that uses the word “habiliment” – but it’s the perfect word – and to me, the use of the word does not seem to reflect any sort of intellectual snobbery.
And lines 15 and 16 – what a remarkable tribute to the bird: “He compliments existence / Until allured away.” Again, do you know others who “compliment existence”? LOL – I want to hang around people like that!
BTW: That line – that the Bobolink “compliments existence” calls to mind for me Frank Lloyd Wright’s view on cows. In his autobiography, Wright – who grew up on a farm in Wisconsin – wrote, “Why is any cow, red, black or white, always in just the right place for a picture in any landscape? Like a cypress tree in Italy, she is never wrongly placed. Her outlines quiet down so well into whatever contours surround her. A group of her in the landscape is enchantment.”
And then lines 5 & 6 – yet another example of Dickinson’s writing which reflects both the whimsical and erudite nature of the poet: “Of impudent Habiliment / Attired to defy.” I mean, who do you know that uses the word “habiliment” – but it’s the perfect word – and to me, the use of the word does not seem to reflect any sort of intellectual snobbery.
And lines 15 and 16 – what a remarkable tribute to the bird: “He compliments existence / Until allured away.” Again, do you know others who “compliment existence”? LOL – I want to hang around people like that!
BTW: That line – that the Bobolink “compliments existence” calls to mind for me Frank Lloyd Wright’s view on cows. In his autobiography, Wright – who grew up on a farm in Wisconsin – wrote, “Why is any cow, red, black or white, always in just the right place for a picture in any landscape? Like a cypress tree in Italy, she is never wrongly placed. Her outlines quiet down so well into whatever contours surround her. A group of her in the landscape is enchantment.”
| It is well known that Wright also thought that Wisconsin should pass a law compelling farmers to paint their barns red and another to compel them to pasture their cows by the highway and their pigs back behind the barn. LOL. Okay, back to the Bobolink and Dickinson’s poem. That final stanza includes quite a tribute to the bird – for when the bird flies off, “How nullified the Meadow / Her Sorcerer withdrawn!” I love that What in this poem speaks to you? |  |
Oh, BTW: Check out the “Dickinson’s Birds: A Listening Machine” project; you can click the link below and hear a Bobolink, HERE.
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