July the Fourth be with you, dearest reader!
The question of the day is whether or not Emily Dickinson ever used the word “America” in any of her poems?
The answer is surprising – and the answer isn’t “No.” The answer is “Yes,” in three poems – and here’s the surprising part:
She used it once as ‘North America”; she used it once as “South America”; and she used it once to mean the “United States of America.”
The three poems are shown below, and the one with just the word “America,” “Trust in the unexpected,” opens like this:
Trust in the Unexpected--
By this—was William Kidd
Persuaded of the Buried Gold--
As One had testified--
The question of the day is whether or not Emily Dickinson ever used the word “America” in any of her poems?
The answer is surprising – and the answer isn’t “No.” The answer is “Yes,” in three poems – and here’s the surprising part:
She used it once as ‘North America”; she used it once as “South America”; and she used it once to mean the “United States of America.”
The three poems are shown below, and the one with just the word “America,” “Trust in the unexpected,” opens like this:
Trust in the Unexpected--
By this—was William Kidd
Persuaded of the Buried Gold--
As One had testified--
Well, that reference to William Kidd was certainly unexpected!
Did she mean William H. Bonney, a.k.a. Billy the Kid? I mean – E. E. Cummings wrote about the Buffalo Bill – so what not a poem about Billy the Kid? Plus, the California Gold Rush ran from 1848 to 1855.
No. The poem was written in 1862, and Bonney was born in 1859, so he would have been just two years old when Dickinson wrote the poem.
The William Kidd in the poem is William Kidd (c. 1654 – 23 May 1701), also known as Captain William Kidd or simply Captain Kidd. He was a Scottish privateer commissioned to protect English interests in North America and the West Indies.
From Wikipedia:
“Kidd was romanticized after his death and his exploits became a popular subject of pirate-themed works of fiction. The belief that he had left buried treasure contributed significantly to his legend, which inspired numerous treasure hunts in the following centuries.”
So please forgive my gap in knowledge about William Kidd – I used to teach English, not history! LOL!
Oh -- BTW -- Cummings' poem about Buffalo Bill is shown below.
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