Category: Days Of The Week

TGIS?

12/14/2024

Okay, everyone – I have a pop quiz for you today! Get out a paper and pencil.

The quiz is based on yesterday’s post, and if you missed yesterday’s post & need to review it first, you can find it HERE.

Once you feel that you’re ready for the quiz, here it is (keep your eyes on your own paper):

How many poems by Dickinson include the word “Wednesday”?

A. 2
B. 2 ⅔
C. 3
4. All of the above

I’ll grade all the quizzes and get your scores back to you as soon as I can.

For now, let’s move on to “Saturday.” How many of Dickinson’s poems include the word “Saturday”?

None. However, editor Mabel Loomis Todd gave one of Dickinson’s poems the title “Saturday Afternoon” in the third edition of selected poems published in 1896.

Hmm…perhaps a better name would have been something like “School’s Out,” for the poem doesn’t really describe a Saturday afternoon; rather, it describes the burst of energy when “a mob of solid bliss” (i.e., the students) is released from school and “They storm the earth and stun the air.”

TGIS!

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TGIF?

12/13/2024

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I’ve had a busy week, and I’m behind on a few things – including various paths I plan to explore with my #DickinsonDaily posts – so I thought today maybe I’d do a quick check on Dickinson’s use of the word “Friday” – that would make for a nice and easy post, no?

No – cuz there’s a bit of confusion.

First I checked on how many poems Dickinson wrote with the word “Friday.” There were none (so that part was easy).
Next, I decided to check the other days of the week, and it turns out that only two days were ever named in Dickinson’s poems: Sunday and Wednesday.

“Sunday” was used in two poems, “I never felt at home – below” and “If anybody’s friend be dead.”

“Wednesday” was used in three poems, “Dew is the freshet in the grass,” “I never felt at home – below,” and “We spy the Forests and the Hills.”

SIDE NOTE: “Freshet” is the flood of a river from heavy rain or melted snow, and the pic below shows its rise and then decline in use over the years

A closer look at the Dickinson archive surprised me, for I noticed that the last poem, “We spy the Forests and the Hills,” appeared only in a 1914 edition of selected poems, “The Single Hound,” so I decided to check for it in my Johnson & Franklin editions. Hmm…it’s not included in either volume.

Well, that struck me as odd – a poem that was included in a 1914 edition of Dickinson’s poetry but not included in either of the late-twentieth century volumes of the poet’s “complete works.” So much for a nice and easy post today, huh?

It turns out that the poem “We spy the Forests and the Hills” consists of the second and third stanzas of another poem, “Dew is the freshet in the grass” (which is included in both Johnson and Franklin), and Dickinson sent those two stanzas as a stand alone poem to her sister-in-law Susan in late 1865. See the images below.

BTW: Johnson dates “Dew is the freshet in the grass” from 1866; Franklin dates the poem as 1865 – the same year at the letter – so I wonder if the three-stanza poem came first or the two-stanza version?

Oh – and then there’s the problem with “Saturday.” As Scarlett O’Hara so famously said, “Fiddle-de-dee, I'll worry about that tomorrow!"

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Time Lines

12/2/2020

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Did Emily Dickinson favor a particular season in her poetry? You'll find that answer HERE.

Did she have a favorite month? You'll find that information HERE.

Was she a "morning person" or a "night owl"? And did she have a favorite day of the week (at least in her poetry)? You'll find those answers below.

I scoured the online Emily Dickinson Archive to find these results -- so that you don't have to! : )

I'll start by reporting on her use of the days of the week.

Well, to be honest, the info on "which days of the week appear in the poetry of Emily Dickinson" is pretty anticlimactic -- because she only used the names of two days -- Sunday and Wednesday -- in any of her poems, and she never mentioned Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, of Saturday.

"Sunday" appears in two poems ("I never felt at home below" and "If anybody's friend be dead"), and "Wednesday" appears in three poems ("I never felt at home below," "Dew -- is the freshet in the Grass," and "We spy the Forests and the Hills").

* "Saturday" is used as part of the title "Saturday Afternoon" for the poem "From all the jails the boys and girls" in an 1896 edition of Dickinson's poetry.

So, since actual days don't make much difference in Dickinson's poetry, what about the time of day? First I looked at "day" versus "night," and then looked into how often she used the following words: dawn, morning, noon, afternoon, evening, twilight, dusk, and midnight.

What do think the results will show?

Did Emily Dickinson prefer the "day" -- or the "night"? Scroll below to find out!

When it comes to "night" versus "day," Dickinson was most definitely a "day" person: she used the word "day" in 234 poems and the word "night" in 127.

As far as the different times of days, here are the numbers of poems these words appeared in:

Dawn: 28
Morning: 110
Noon: 74
Afternoon: 28
Evening: 76
Twilight: 9
Dusk: 10
Midnight: 18

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Week Memory

5/5/2020

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From Jarvis MacKinnon III:

A few of our recent tweets about life in quarantine:

Day 30: I cleaned my vacuum cleaner. NOTE: I did not say, "I cleaned WITH my vacuum cleaner." I said, "I cleaned my vacuum cleaner."

Day 32: I cleaned the inner tub of our washing machine.

Day 35: I started to alphabetize all of the items in my fridge, but I wasn't sure if the Mt. Olive Bread & Butter Pickles should go under M, B, or P -- so I stopped. I ate a family size bag of double-stuf Oreos instead.

Day 37: @IvankaTrump would be proud of me. I just finished reading the Sumerian mythological account of "Lugalbanda in the Mountain Cave," and I've learned to play the Hornucopian dronepipe. Now I'm thinking of learning to play Mayan temple trumpets.

Day 40: I'm beyond the "what day is it?" phase. I'm in the "what meal is this?" phase.

Day 43: You remember that quip from Lady Grantham, the Dowager Countess of Downton Abbey, "What is a weekend?" Yeah. That.

Day 44: Big day today. We're going to inventory our condiments before some online shopping.

Day 49: It was a gray morning, the sort of gray you’d see in the roots of a dame who’d finally given up the battle to go with color for a more youthful look & just go gray, but you wouldn’t notice the gray because everything in this day was gray like the color of a television tuned to an off air channel. It was 8:26 a.m. & the morning held the promise that nothing would happen. All day. Nothing would happen at all. It was the first of May, but at best, felt like Maybe.

Day 51: Another day of binge watching -- the refrigerator.

Day 52: I'm experiencing symptoms of pain, numbness and tingling in my backside. I believe I'm suffering from couchal tater syndrome.

We'll post a few more on @The_Dickinson as life in quarantine continues.

For now, we have changed the names of the days of the week since no one can remember what day it is any way (the days are now Someday, Mundayne, Chooseday, Whatsday, There'saday, Fraudday, and Sadderday), we have posted Emmett Lee Dickinson's poem "My Ass so has so little to do" below on the left. Dickinson's poem inspired third cousin Emily to pen her poem "The Grass has so little to do," below on the right, and -- as an added bonus -- we've included a new weekly planner where you can organize your daily "to do" lists in one seamless lump.

By Emmett Lee Dickinson:

A Day! Help! Help!
Another Day!
Affairs – they’re Passing by!
From such a common spell as this
What date of Mystery?
From figurings once simple
The need for patience springs
Steady – my soul: What issues
What day tomorrow brings?

By Emily Dickinson:

A Day! Help! Help!
Another Day!
Your prayers – Oh Passer by!
From such a common ball as this
Might date a Victory!
From marshallings as simple
The flags of nations swang.
Steady – my soul: What issues
Upon thine arrow hang!

Below: To simplify your life during the 2020 global pandemic for the Trump Virus, we have provided this "Weekly To do List" where you can organize your daily "to do" lists in one seamless lump.

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PLOG

A poetry log for the Emmett Lee Dickinson Museum (above the coin-op Laundromat on Dickinson Boulevard in historic Washerst, Pennsylvania).

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