Category: Bolts Of Melody

Great Minds

9/7/2025

About a week ago, I explored the topic “Emily Dickinson and cheese” (HERE); she never used the word in any of her poems, but I did find some interesting connections. Later I checked for her use of “curds" (HERE). Though she never used that word, one poem did come close with the use of “curdled,” and that poem – “There is an arid Pleasure” – took me off into different directions altogether.

I found Dickinson’s choice of “arid” as a modifier for “pleasure” to be intriguing – and brilliant, of course – so I investigated her use of “arid” in other poems – there was just one, “Rather arid Delight” – as well as the phrase “arid pleasure” in general. Was that a common (or at least a somewhat familiar) expression of the Victorian era?

From what I could ascertain, “arid pleasure" was not a common phrase at all. As a matter of fact, I could only find its use by two writers, Emily Dickinson, in her 1862 poem, and James Joyce, in his 1916 novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. In Joyce’s work, the main character, Stephen Dedalus, finds an "arid pleasure" in intellectualizing his own spiritual condemnation.

Was this purely coincidence? In 1862, Dickinson combined “arid” with “pleasure,” and fifty-four years later, James Joyce did so too – without any inspiration from Dickinson’s work? Or did Joyce read Dickinson, catch sight of the phrase, and regard it with awe as I do?

Well, it is true that Dickinson wrote the poem in 1862; however, it wasn’t made available to the public until 1945 when Millicent Todd Bingham published Bolts of Memory, with 650 previously unpublished poems by Dickinson. Therefore, if Joyce did read and study Dickinson in his time, he would not have come across “There is an arid pleasure.” As a matter of fact, Joyce died in 1941, so he would have never seen the poem at all.

I suppose I have to chalk this one up to that old adage, “Great minds think alike.”

By the way, I also learned that in some translations of his book The Truth in Painting (1987), French philosopher Jacques Derrida referred to a “somewhat arid pleasure” when discussing Immanuel Kant's Critique of Judgment (1790). I don’t know if Derrida actually said “arid pleasure,” or if that was just how what he said in French was translated into English.

Say "la vee" (translated from the French, "C'est la vie").

Text Message

11/13/2024

Many of my recent posts have involved "Bolts of Melody," Millicent Todd Bingham's 1945 publication of previously unpublished poems by Emily Dickinson – if you missed any of the posts, you can find them HERE.

I found an online copy of the book, and yes, the entire book is there – see the pic at the right, it shows where you flip through the pages – BUT – whoever posted this misspelled Dickinson’s last name, and they list the publication date as 1931 (the book was published in 1945). Aside from these (and any other issues), the book is there to enjoy!

To access the book, click HERE.

Narrow Minded

11/11/2024

Yesterday’s post included two “fragments” written by Dickinson from Millicent Todd Bianchi’s 1945 edition of the poet’s previously unpublished works, “Bolts of Melody”:

Society for me my misery
Since gift of thee.

**AND**

Or fame erect her siteless citadel.

Both of these lines appear on an envelope flap, and in his research in the late 1990s, editor R. W. Franklin noted that the second line is related to Dickinson’s poem “Step lightly on this narrow spot.”

If I understand all of Franklin’s comments, then Dickinson sent an early variant of the first stanza to Susan Dickinson, and it read as follows:

Step lightly on this narrow spot –
The broadest Land that grows
Is not so ample as the Heart
These Emerald seams enclose –

Also, a version of the final lines was written on that envelope flap – so that the second stanza would read like this:

Step lofty, for this name be told
As far as Cannon dwell
Or Flag subsist of Fame erect
Her siteless citadel.

However, at some point in time, Dickinson changed the word “Heart” at the end of line 3 to “Breast,” and she altered the final lines to read “Or Flag subsist or Fame export / Her deathless Syllable” – and this new version was sent in a letter to Thomas Wentworth Higginson.

In the comment section of her edition of Dickinson’s poems, Cristanne Miller stated, “In January 1871, a statue of Abraham Lincoln by Vinnie Ream was unveiled in Washington, D.C. In September 1871, Lincoln’s remains were moved to a monument in Springfield, Illinois, and another statue (by Randolph Rogers) was dedicated in Philadelphia. ED knew that TWH would be aware of these events, as a former colonel in the Union army.” BTW: Ream’s statue of Lincoln is in the rotunda of the US Capitol (Hmm…I wonder if the treasonous MAGAts who stormed the Capitol on behalf of Imperial Grand Wizard Trump desecrated it?).

So is “Step lightly on this narrow spot” about Abraham Lincoln?

It sure seems that way because the speaker is standing above a burial site (which “Emerald Seams enclose” – WOW! Talk about a stunning image) and the grave is for someone larger than life: “The broadest Land that grows / Is not so ample” as the one laid to rest; plus, the name of the dearly departed will be told “As far as Cannon dwell / Or Flag subsist.”

What do you make of this poem? What stands out to you?

Fragment of Imagination

11/10/2024

Yesterday’s post included a fragment of a poem by Dickinson from Millicent Todd Bianchi’s 1945 edition of the poet’s previously unpublished works, “Bolts of Melody.” Today I have two additional fragments:

Society for me my misery
Since gift of thee.

**AND**

Or fame erect her siteless citadel.

Bianchi includes this note about these two fragments: “The two unrelated fragments…are written on the torn-off flap of an envelope.”

Johnson, Franklin, and Miller include the first fragment in their editions of Dickinson’s poetry as follows:

Society for me my misery
Since Gift of Thee –

However, the three editions do not include that second fragment. Franklin’s variorum edition, though, provides this information about the jottings on the envelope flap: “About 1871, in pencil on the flap of an envelope, on which is also written an unrelated fragment of ‘Step lightly on this narrow spot.’”

Yes, somehow that second fragment “Or fame erect her siteless citadel” is related to Dickinson’s poem “Step lightly on this narrow spot.”

I’ll look into that tomorrow!

Risky Business

11/9/2024

My recent posts have been about a couple of Dickinson’s poems included in the section called “Poems Incomplete or Unfinished” in Millicent Todd Bianchi’s 1945 edition of previously unpublished poetry by Dickinson, “Bolts of Melody.” Today I'll share one of the entries from the book’s section on “Fragments”:

Soul, take thy risks!
With death to be
Were better than
Be not with thee!

Bianchi included this note: “The fragment is written on a scrap of paper measuring less than two by four inches. On the reverse is a touching little pencil sketch of a tombstone among tall grasses.”

So a few things about this:

1. LOL – I thought it was funny that Bianchi characterized the drawing of the tombstone as “touching.”

2. Just FYI: From 1840 until 1855, the Dickinson family lived in a house that overlooked the Amherst cemetery. I wonder if the drawing on the scrap of paper came first? BTW: Johnson has the poem dated as 1869; Franklin dates it to 1867.

3. The handwritten draft appears to be three lines – not four – like this:

Soul, take thy risks,
With Death to be
Were better than be not with thee

(Hmm…is that handwritten word “risk,” “risks,” or “risk’s”?)

4. Even on this tiny scrap of paper, Dickinson included an alternative word choice – “chance” for “risks.”
The Johnson edition has the poem like this, a match to the structure of the handwritten copy:

Soul, take thy risk,
With Death to be
Were better than be not
With thee

Franklin and Miller both published the fragment as a three line poem, and both editors list “risks” an alternative word choice for the singular “risk”:

Soul, take thy risk,
With Death to be
Were better than be not with thee

Reap the Rewards

11/8/2024

Two years ago, did you realize that you needed a bit of Dickinson in your daily life? Today is the second anniversary of my #DickinsonDaily posts (on Counter Social) – and there’s still so much more to come!

Yesterday, I posted “The fairest home I ever knew” from the section of “Poems Incomplete or Unfinished” in Millicent Todd Bianchi’s 1945 edition of previously unpublished poems by Dickinson, “Bolts of Melody.”

Today I have “My reward for being was this,” another poem from Bianchi’s listing of “Poems Incomplete or Unfinished.” Coincidentally, one version of this poem uses the word “election,” a topic I wrote about recently, HERE.

Below is the poem as it appears in Bolts of Melody along with Bianchi’s notes as to why she considered this “unfinished.”

I love what Bianchi added at the end of her notes, “here is raw material on the way to becoming a great poem.”

The versions were written several years apart, and I suspect Dickinson was not completely satisfied with the end product and that she was still mulling over word choices, images, and lines to develop the poem.

What do you think? Which version do you prefer?

Below are the versions of the poem as they appear in the Johnson, Franklin and Miller editions.

Unfinished Business

11/7/2024

Recently I’ve published some posts about Millicent Todd Bianchi’s 1945 edition of previously unpublished poems by Dickinson, “Bolts of Melody.” One post a couple of days ago mentioned a section in the back of the book entitled “Poems Incomplete or Unfinished," HERE.

I’ve selected two of these poems at random, and I’ll highlight one today, “The fairest home I ever knew,” and one tomorrow, “My reward for being was this.”

The first poem appears in “Bolts of Melody” like this:

The fairest home I ever knew
Was founded in an hour
By parties also that I knew,
A spider and a flower.

A manse of mechlin and of floss
* * * *

For some reason, Bianchi includes a stanza break after line 4, and then the four asterisks after line 5 to imply that additional lines were lost or never written. However, the handwritten draft by Dickinson doesn’t seem to include or even suggest a line break.

All later editions of Dickinson’s works do not include the break – Johnson, Franklin, and Miller all show this as a five line poem:

The fairest Home I ever knew
Was founded in an Hour
By Parties also that I knew,
A spider and a Flower –
A manse of mechlin and of Floss –

Franklin’s variorum and Miller’s edition also note that Dickinson considered “Gloss” and “sun” in place of the final word, “Floss.”

Franklin also mentioned in his research that the lines are “in pencil on a fragment of stationery addressed by an unidentified hand to ‘Miss Vinnie Dickinson (A 394). On the other side is a draft of part of a letter sent to Sarah Tuckerman about 1877.”

In the draft of the letter, Dickinson wrote, “Accept my timid happiness – no Joy can be in vain but adds to some bright [* sweet] . . . whose dwelling”

I’m not sure what made Bianchi consider this an incomplete poem, but I suspect it was the rhyme scheme. The first four lines follow and ABAB pattern (with lines 1 and 3 ending in the same word, “knew”), so perhaps she thought of the fifth line as the start of a new stanza.

I will add that Dickinson’s writing seems to follow the contour of the page; nothing appears to be ripped away in her jottings. If that were the case, then it might suggest additional lines have been lost to the ages – but no.

What do you think? Is this a complete work? Or an incomplete poem?

Past and Prologue

11/4/2024

I’ve been writing about the various early publications of Emily Dickinson’s work with a focus on Millicent Todd Bingham’s 1945 edition, “Bolts of Melody.”

The publication of “Bolts of Melody” brought Dickinson’s published works to about 90% of the poet’s complete oeuvre. However, no single edition contained all of the poems; that came later in 1955 when Thomas Johnson edited “The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson.”

In 1945, Bingham made a deliberate decision to include all the fragmentary works in her possession in “Bolts of Melody,” and she wrote this:

“Not all the poems belong in the body of the book. (This volume) contains those which are incomplete, fragmentary, or trivial. It is as true to them as of all her poems that though Emily attached importance to form, she had her own rules. Some of her finished poems are rough, rugged, awkward. But that she intended. In some of these unfinished poems, however, not only is the idea obscured by the form; the idea itself is obscure – not sharp enough to pierce through the words. It may be questioned whether such groping should be published at all. Many of them will undoubtedly not appear in a final edition. But the fact remains that through some of the most confused passages shines a thought so searching that it should be preserved whatever the setting.”

In “Bolts of Melody,” there is a section titled “Poems Incomplete or Unfinished” with 23 poems. There is also a section called “Fragments” with 14 entries. The final section of the book is “Poems Personal and Occasional” with 30 poems, and then on page 333, there is one last poem, “If I should cease to bring a rose.” The poem is accompanied by this note: “This poem was chosen by Mrs. Todd (Bingham’s mother and first editor of Dickinson’s poetry) in the early nineties (i.e., the 1890s) and laid aside for eventual use as the prologue of a final series of Emily’s poems.”

Ch-Ch-Changes

10/30/2024

Yesterday I posted some of Millicent Todd Bingham’s comments on the difficulties of editing the poetry of Emily Dickinson. She even included lines from Dickinson herself on the topic of word choice:

“I hesitate which word to take, as I can take but few, and each must be the chiefest; but recall that Earth’s most graphic transaction is placed within a syllable, nay, even a gaze.”

Take the poem “Two butterflies went out at noon.”

According to Franklin’s research (1998), there are at least three manuscripts for this poem, with “one lost”: “The lost manuscript was sent to Louise and Frances Norcross, perhaps about summer 1863. The first two lines survive on a list Frances made of poems received.”

Franklin also noted that one copy of the poem was recorded in Fascicle 25 about the summer of 1863, and that “a version from about 1878 begins with the same first two lines but differs thereafter”:

“It is a clean copy from a preceding draft, with alternatives ordered and transcribed onto the verso, at the end of the poem. Having accomplished this, ED began to try new readings for lines 7 and 8, using available space at the end and writing neatly. She then turned to lines 5 and 6, her writing becoming less controlled as she proceeded. She filled the space here and returned to the recto, writing vertically in the margins and then in the text of the poem itself. Throughout this effort, no word was canceled, though the last version of line 7 satisfied enough for her to underscore it.”

Franklin’s research then includes two full pages of alternative phrases and word choices. Bingham mentioned many of the same alternatives in her introduction to “Bolts of Melody" (shown at the right; click the image to enlarge).

Which words, images, phrases would you have landed on?

Editor in Chiefest

10/29/2024

In 1890, 1891, and 1896, Mabel Loomis Todd published three volumes of poems by Dickinson – the three books represented about 25% of Dickinson’s work.

Then, in 1898 – due to a lawsuit between Todd and Lavinia Dickinson – she locked all of the remaining poems in her possession in a wooden chest (about 600-plus poems), and she did not open it until 1929. These poems were then published in 1945 in “Bolts of Melody.”

In 1929, when she and her daughter Millicent Todd Bingham opened the chest, Bingham described what was before her like this:

“The manuscripts of the poems were of two sorts: those Emily herself had worked over, and those which she had not touched since they were first captured in words – the ‘esoteric sips of sacramental wine.’ She had begun to copy her poems and to destroy the rough drafts. She wrote them in ink on sheets of letter paper measuring five by eight inches. When she had filled five or six double sheets, she would make two pin-holes in the left margin and insert a piece of string, tying the sheets together in neat little fascicle which Lavinia called ‘volumes.’”

She continued later with this information:

“Although Emily seems to have considered many of these poems finished, as I have said, they were far from ready for the printer. The arrangement, verse form, and in particular the punctuation were not clearly indicated. In some poems dashes are sprinkled about so lavishly that they give to the page the appearance of a thread on which the phrases are strung. At times the dashes seem so integral a part of the text that an editor is tempted to perpetuate them, lest without them the words should fall apart.”

And here’s where the work really got complicated:

“In a good many poems she supplied alternative words, phrases, or lines, little crosses indicating where the final choice should be inserted. The editor is obliged to retrace Emily’s steps, to follow the method she herself used, trying one word after another before deciding which best fits the particular setting.”

Editor Bingham mentioned that even Dickinson found the task of editing difficult as evidenced by these lines the poet wrote:

“I hesitate which word to take, as I can take but few, and each must be the chiefest; but recall that Earth’s most graphic transaction is placed within a syllable, nay, even a gaze.”

I’ll take a look at one particular poem tomorrow.