Category: Franklin Edition

Emily Go Bragh!

3/17/2025

Happy St. Patrick’s Day to those who wear the green and/or drive snakes out of town!

In tribute to the foremost patron saint of Ireland, I thought I’d check a few SPD terms in the poetry of Emily Dickinson.

Did Dickinson ever use the word “shamrock”?

Nope.

However, she did use the word “clover” in fifteen poems – or sixteen if you count the 1890 version of “Like Trains of Cars on Tracks of Plush.” I think in that version, though, the word “clover” was added when editors Mabel Loomis Todd and Thomas Wentworth Higginson combined two of Dickinson’s poems into one.

Did Dickinson ever mention St. Patrick?

Nope.

How about Ireland (or “Eire”)?

Nope.

How often did she use the word “green”?

Dickinson used the word “green” in fifteen poems – but only fourteen if you check the Johnson edition of her “complete poems.” The poem “All overgrown by cunning moss” contains the word “green” in the Franklin edition of Dickinson’s poems, but NOT in Johnson’s edition.

The Miller edition includes both sets of stanzas and makes the following observation:

“May acknowledge the anniversary of the death of Charlotte Bronte (d. 31 March 1855), who published as Currer Bell and lived in Haworth. Line 1 echoes Bronte’s “Mementos” (1846): “all in this house is mossing over.” Gethsemane is the garden where Jesus prayed on the night before his crucifixion; asphodel flowers are associated with the Greek underworld, e.g. in The Odyssey. The “Or” between stanzas between 3 and 4 (where Miller indicated the alternate stanzas) may indicate that stanzas 4 and 5 are alternatives. In their single volume editions, THJ prints stanzas 1, 4, 5 and RWF prints stanzas 1, 2, 3.”

Shifting Ground

3/9/2025

Some of my recent poems have centered on Emily Dickinson’s use of rhymes – full rhymes, partial rhymes, other types of rhymes. Some of them have examined whether or not partial or slant rhymes were used for poems of despair while full, traditional rhymes were used in poems of joy.

In “Positive as Sound, Emily Dickinson’s Rhyme,” Judy Jo Small examined other ways Dickinson used rhyme as well.

“Another tactic Dickinson employs is the deliberate dislocation of a rhyme for a special semantic effect,” wrote Small. “In the well known ‘After great pain, a formal feeling comes,’ the lines are arranged in rhymed couplets, except in the anomalous second stanza.

In the middle stanza, the unthinking ‘Wooden’ motion that continues in states of spiritual numbness is suggested not only by the idea of feet functioning mechanically without the guidance of the mind and will but also by the steady iambic movement that proceeds dully without regard to (‘Regardless’ of) stanzaic shape or placement of rhyme. ‘Ground’ rhymes perfectly with ‘round,’ but not at the end of the line where it would seem orderly and coherent. Instead, it falls almost lost amid two unrhymed lines that move as if randomly, aimlessly, like the body whose soul is stupefied by pain. The word ‘Feet,’ then refers not only to human feet but, in a subsidiary way, to poetic feet.”

Interesting, huh? But consider this.

Small’s book was published in 1990, eight years before R. W. Franklin published his “The Poems of Emily Dickinson.” Therefore, she was likely basing her analysis on Thomas Johnson’s version of the poem in his 1955 edition of “The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson.”

Oddly enough, there are differences between the Johnson and Franklin versions of the poem, albeit subtle differences. First, the Franklin edition adds quotation marks in lines 3 and 4. However, the more significant difference involves lines 6 and 7 – the order of these lines is reversed.

In Johnson’s version, “ground” comes just two syllables after “round.” In Franklin’s version, “ground” comes six syllables later. Does that matter when it comes to Small’s contention? I suppose one could say “‘ground’ falls almost lost amid three unrhymed lines’ – or does the probability that Dickinson was aiming for an internal rhyme fall apart?

A bit more trivia about the poem: "After great pain a formal feeling comes" was first published in "The Atlantic" in February 1929. At that time, it was presented in three stanzas of 4 lines, 5 lines, and 6 lines. It later appeared in that same year in "Further Poems of Emily Dickinson.

In both publications, the Franklin/Miller version of the second stanza was used.

The Devil's In The Details

12/4/2024

This is number 666 of my #DickinsonDaily posts (on Counter Social), so I thought I’d do something a bit devilish today – and yeah (for those who remember this), “the Devil made me do it.”

Did Dickinson ever use the word “Devil” in any of her poems? Yep – in two: “The Devil – had he fidelity” and “Crumbling is not an instant’s act.”

How about the word “Satan”? Yep – in one poem, “The Bible is an antique volume.

I’ve posted that poem below & at the right – both as it appears in the Johnson & Franklin editions of her poetry and as it was altered in a note to her nephew, Edward (Ned) Dickinson. Click the images to enlarge.

I’ve posted that poem below – both as it appears in the Johnson & Franklin editions of her poetry and as it was altered in a note to her nephew, Edward (Ned) Dickinson.

Click the images to enlarge.

In the case of the other poem, “Crumbling is not an instant’s act,” the archive makes it seem as though the word “devil” appears only in the Johnson edition and NOT the Franklin edition (which would not be unusual). However, when I looked up the word “crumbling” and found the poem in both editions, it turns out that the word “devil” is, indeed, included in the poem in the Franklin edition.

So there you have it – the “devil” is in the details!

Fly Paper

12/2/2024

Yesterday I posted Emily Dickinosn’s “Fly – fly – but as you fly.”

Many years ago I was in Chicago for a Poetry Slam at the Green Mill. I was not a competitor but a guest – I was there to recite poems by Emmett Lee Dickinson, Emily’s third cousin, twice removed (at her request).

While in Chicago, I visited the Poetry Foundation, and while in their library, I pulled a book of Dickinson’s poetry from a shelf. That’s when I first came across “Fly – fly – but as you fly.” I had never seen this poem before.

Later, when I was back home, I checked Thomas Johnson’s “The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson” to revisit the poem – but it was not included in the book. Say whaaa?

I contacted someone – I think a reference library at the Houghton Library at Harvard – and discovered the poem was to be found in Franklin’s edition of Dickinson's poems. That’s when I realized that Johnson’s 1960 volume was no longer “complete,” following Franklin’s 1998 update.

That’s when I began comparing the poems between the two editions.

Both have “Awake ye muses nine, sing me a strain divine” as the first poem, but that’s where the similarities end. Johnson’s number 2 is not found in Franklin at all. Johnson’s numbers 3, 4 and 5 are Franklin’s 2, 3, and 4. Johnson’s number 6 is Franklin’s number 24, and Johnson’s number 7 is Franklin’s 16.

Johnson’s 8 and 9 are Franklin’s 42 and 43, and Johnson’s 10 is Franklin’s 61.

Johnson’s volume includes 1775 poems; the last one in the book is “The earth has many keys.” This poem does not appear in Franklin at all. The Franklin edition includes a total of 1789 poems, and the final poem is “The saddest noise, the sweetest noise” (#1764 in Johnson).

“Fly – fly – but as you fly,” poem number 1244 in Franklin, was written in 1872. It was not included in previous editions because it was kept “among the prose fragments” and thought to be “raw material for a poem.”

The poem was written in pencil on the back of a flier advertising a decorated one-volume edition of “The Children’s Crusade” by George Zabriskie Gray. On the same page is a prose draft beginning “Paradise is no Journey.”

More on this tomorrow.

CONTINUED...

Yesterday I posted information about Emily Dickinson’s “Fly – fly – but as you fly.”

The poem was written in pencil on the back of a flier advertising a decorated one-volume edition of “The Children’s Crusade” by George Zabriskie Gray. On the same side as the poem is a prose draft beginning “Paradise is no Journey.”

What was the Children’s Crusade? From Wikipedia, I found this:

“The Children's Crusade (1212) was a failed Popular Crusade by the West to regain the Holy Land. The traditional narrative includes some factual and some mythical events including visions by a French boy and a German boy, an intention to peacefully convert Muslims to Christianity, bands of children marching to Italy, and children being sold into slavery. Thomas Fuller referred to it as a Holy war in his Historie of the Holy Warre.”

Who was George Zabriskie Gray? I found this info, HERE

I even found Gray’s book that was advertised on the flyer, 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.

Knead-y Variations

11/6/2024

My "Fuck You" post to Trump, the GQP and the MAGAts is up on threads, so more on that later. For now, a bit of normalcy to take your mind off the absurd abnormalcy of giving the keys to the house to a known criminal.

Yesterday was National Donut (or Doughnut) Day, and no surprise – Emily Dickinson never used the word “donut” (or “doughnut”) in any of her poems. However, she did use the word “dough” in one poem – at least in one variation of the poem.

The poem “The Wind begun to knead the grass,” found in the Johnson edition of Dickinson’s poems, includes the word “dough.” However, another version of the poem, found in both the Franklin and Miller editions with the altered first line “The Wind begun to rock the Grass”, does not include the word “dough.”

The Franklin variorum edition includes this information about the poem: “Manuscripts: Five (one lost), variant, about 1864, 1866, 1873, and 1883. ED’s revisions spanned nearly two decades, yielding five combinations of readings in as many fair copies.”

Franklin’s discussion of the poem and its five variations covers six pages. Included in his analysis is an interesting chart that lists the poem’s lines listed down the left, and the names of those who received copies of the poems across the top. Then, the words in the diagram provide a road map of sorts as to the word choices used within the version each person received.

See below for the versions as they appear in Johnson, Franklin, and Miller.

Miller’s edition includes this note: “Sent to ED or the Hollands (variant) c. 1864, to SD (variant) c. 1866, to TWH (lost, transcribed variant) c. 1873, and to Thomas Niles (variant) April 1883, called ‘a Thunder Storm’”

Below is Franklin's chart from his variorum edition:

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.”