Category: The Independent

Odd Numbers

3/24/2025

In 1891, the editor of New York’s The Independent published a favorable review of the newly published Poems by Emily Dickinson, and he then wrote to Mabel Loomis Todd requesting additional poems to publish in his paper. She sent him four, from which he printed three. One of the three was “God made a little Gentian.” I wrote about that poem earlier in the month, HERE.

That poem made me wonder how many works Dickinson wrote that include the word “gentian.”

When you search “gentian” on the online Dickinson archive, 15 entries pop up, and they represent seven different poems:

Distrustful of the gentian
God made a little gentian
It will be summer eventually
The gentian has a parched corolla
The gentian weaves her fringes
The springtime’s pallid landscape
While Asters

Of the seven poems listed above, the ones in bold appear in all of the major editions of Dickinson’s poetry – Johnson, Franklin, and Miller. However, “While Asters” appears only in Johnson and NOT in Franklin or Martin.

Also, the poem “The springtime pallid’s landscape” appears only in the 1896 publication of Poems (Third Series) edited by Mabel Loomis Todd, and it does not appear in any of the “complete” editions.

But all of this gets more than a little fuzzy, and it all has to do with the third poem on the list above, “It will be summer eventually.”

The poem “The springtime’s pallid landscape,” in Todd’s 1896 edition, is really just stanzas 2 through 5 of “It will be summer eventually.”

And then look at “While Asters.” This poem is just a variation of lines 14, 15, and 16 of “It will be summer eventually”; however, BOTH poems appear in Johnson, “While Asters” (poem number 331) and “It will be summer eventually” (poem number 342).

Those lines, by the way, were sent to Samuel Bowles around early 1862.

Sooo…depending upon the editions of Dickinson’s poems you check, the word “gentians” could be in 5, 6 or 7 poems.

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Right Ankle?

3/22/2025

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In 1891, the editor of New York’s The Independent published a favorable review of the newly published Poems by Emily Dickinson, and he then wrote to Mabel Loomis Todd to request additional poems to publish in his paper: “If there are any others that compare with the best ones in the volume, I should like much to publish them.”

Todd sent him four poems. He sent one back and said, “Three of them I will take and print as soon as I may. They are fresh and interesting. One of them I return. It seems to me so unsatisfactory in the way the last two verses are worked up. I am afraid I fail to catch the meaning except generally.”

In recent posts, I have shared information related to the three poems he accepted:

“I held a jewel in my fingers,” HERE.

“God made a little gentian,” HERE.

“Went up a year this evening,” HERE.

The poem he rejected was "Of Tribulation, these are they."

Dickinson included this poem in her July 1862 letter to Thomas Wentworth Higginson, where she called attention to the misspelling of “ancle.”

That’s right – she deliberately spelled the word “ankle” as “ancle,” and she knew full well how to spell “ankle.” For one thing, she used the word “ankle” – and spelled it correctly – in “It sifts from Leaden Sieves.” Plus, on the copy of the poem she’d sent to Higginson, she wrote, “I spelled ankle wrong.”

It turns out that the word "ancle" (i.e., “ankle”) appeared in older editions of the King James Bible, specifically in Ezekiel 47:3 (describing water ankle-deep) and Acts 3:7 (referring to the strengthening of a man's feet and ankles).

Although modern translations now use the word "ankle" instead of "ancle,” Dickinson’s Bible used “ancle,” and the poem references this – and she knew that Higginson, a minister himself, would understand her message when she wrote to him, “I spelled ankle wrong.”

The discussion of the poem on “White Heat,” HERE, mentions that the poem also “borrows heavily from the Book of Revelation, chapter 7, a page that Dickinson dog-eared in her Bible.”

Tomorrow: More on the letter Dickinson sent Higginson. It’s a fascinating one!

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How Does Your Garden Grow?

3/16/2025

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This poem was written in 1859, and some have speculated that it was written in tribute to Amos Newport, a hired hand who helped manage the Dickinson’s Homestead stable and grounds.

“Old Amos,” as he was known, was the grandson of a man who had been caught as a young boy by slave traders on the coast of Africa; he was brought to Springfield, Massachusetts, and later successfully sued for his freedom.

Amos worked for the Dickinson family for at least 8 years, and in 1851, Dickinson wrote of “Old Amos” in a letter to her brother Austin: “The garden is amazing - we have beets and beans, have had splendid potatoes for three weeks now. Old Amos weeds and hoes and has an oversight of all thoughtless vegetables. The apples are fine and large in spite of my impression that Father called them ‘small.’"

Amos died at age 84 in 1859 – and, if Dickinson did write “Went up a year this evening” in tribute to him, then perhaps the poem is misdated?

When exploring this poem, I found an interesting interactive site – a virtual walking tour of Black Amherst called “Reorienting Dickinson,” HERE. "Old Amos” is mentioned at sites 2, “West Cemetery,” and 9, “Newport House.”

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Shall I Bloom?

3/13/2025

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As I explored this poem, I came across various sites analyzing the poem, and I happened upon this comment:

“Until its last line, ‘God made a little Gentian’ is a clever homily for children, a botanical version of red-nose Rudolf with frost instead of fog, including

“It tried — to be a Rose --
And failed — and all the Summer laughed —”

Here's another:

“Like Fringed Gentian, ED is a ‘Creature’ of the North. ‘Snows’ and ‘Frosts’ remind her of the cold silence of Judeo-Christian God and stimulate her to ‘bloom’ poems, including this one. In Line 12 ED asks a pantheistic ‘Creator’ to get involved, ‘Shall I — bloom?’

Perhaps she wants a formal invitation, just for physical evidence that He exists. At any rate, bloom she did.”

One other interesting comment I came across:

“Lines referring to God begin and end the poem, the last line more intimate than the first. God is associated here with frost, winter and death. ED often describes a god that is indifferent (‘Apparently with no surprise to any happy flower, the frost beheads it at its play in accidental power . . . for an approving God’) and the creatures of his creation – small and insignificant (‘Victory comes late –- . . . God keeps His Oath to Sparrows – Who of little Love – know how to starve’). ED's god may note a sparrow falling, but doesn't intervene.

This poem is in line with these others. But the insignificant here – the ‘little Gentian’ – has its own power, a royal purple color that shames all of nature – a power invoked by winter and death.

It's a lovely poem.”

I remembered, too, that I had a book about Dickinson’s love of gardening, “Emily Dickinson’s Gardening Life (The Plants & Places That Inspired the Iconic Poet)” by Marta McDowell, and I wondered if the poem were included among its offerings. It was not – although it does include the poem “The Gentian has a parched Corolla.”

Click the pic at the right to enlarge.

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Jewel Thief

3/12/2025

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In 1891, the editor of New York’s The Independent published a favorable review of the newly published Poems by Emily Dickinson, and then he wrote to Mabel Loomis Todd requesting additional poems to publish in his paper. She sent him four, from which he printed three. One of the three was “I held a jewel in my fingers.”

How do you interpret this poem? Metaphorically, is the “Jewel” a child? A beloved other? Or could it be something completely different, like an idea for a poem which the poet cannot recall?

Does the speaker blame herself for the loss? She does rebuke herself – with a bygone form of “chide” – though her fingers seem to be faultless (i.e., they were “honest fingers”).

"Chid," by the way, was the standard past tense and past participle of “chide” until the early 20th century – and “chidden” was another variant for the past participle.

Is the memory of the lost “Jewel” of lesser value than the actual gem itself? Take a look at this interpretation, HERE, from “Literary Gitane, Meanderings of a Literary Vagabond.” I stumbled upon this blog when exploring “I held a Jewel in my fingers,” and to paraphrase Joni Mitchell, this blogger’s interpretation “looks at gems from both sides now.”

“This is one of my favorite Dickinson poems as I love the image of ‘an Amethyst remembrance.’ An amethyst is a semi-precious stone compared to the precious jewel. So one could argue that what remains is definitely less precious than what one has experienced. But it could be the opposite too. Isn’t it interesting that we don’t have a precise picture of the jewel but the description of the memory is more concrete? Our memories are often idealized versions of a past that was far from perfect. The colorful, lustrous and sparkling picture of the amethyst evoked at the end of the day and perhaps at the sunset of her life suffuses the poem in a violet glow. What a gem of a poem!”

Now, some current (relatively speaking) research has explored the ambiguous relationship between Emily Dickinson and her sister-in-law Susan. Was it more than platonic? Could Susan have been the “Jewel”?

Since the poem refers to the missing gem as an “Amethyst remembrance,” I thought I’d look at Dickinson’s use of the word the “Amethyst” to see if that would offer up any clues.

The word “Amethyst” appears in six of Dickinson’s poems, and all of them are about the sunrise or sunset. In one of them, “The Daisy follows soft the Sun,” a flower follows the sun to explore "Night's possibility at the parting west. Dickinson’s nickname, by the way, was “Daisy.”

If one interprets the Daisy following the Sun to be Dickinson, then the “Night’s possibility” – bathed in Amethyst – could give rise to an “Amethyst remembrance”; however, Dickinson refers to the Sun as a “Sir” in the poem – so at least in this case, in attempting to connect an “Amethyst remembrance” to Susan, I came up empty handed.

But here’s a little more food for thought:

Austin Dickinson married Susan Huntington Gilbert in 1856. Dickinson wrote “I held a Jewel in my fingers” in 1861. However, she wrote “The Daisy follows soft the Sun” in 1859 (Johnson) or 1860 (Franklin). Furthermore, Dickinson traveled to Philadelphia in 1860 and met Charles Wadsworth, another possible love interest of Dickinson’s (some info is HERE). Sooo…I suppose Wadsworth could be in the Sun in the one poem, and Susan the “Amethyst remembrance” in the other. Or, of course, I could be off base altogether.

By the way, Dickinson’s 1859 “Daisy” poem ends wondering about “the Amethyst / Night’s possibility” – and shortly after writing her 1860 “Jewel” poem, she penned “Wild Nights! Wild Nights!”

That poem ends, “Might I but moor – tonight / In thee!”

Now who do you suspect she was thinking about with that poem?

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Three Out of Four Ain't Bad

3/10/2025

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William Hayes Ward joined the editorial staff of the New York Independent in 1868 and remained with the Independent thereafter, rising by degrees to editor in chief (1896–1913), and then honorary editor.

In 1890, after the debut of Emily Dickinson’s “Poems,” the paper published a review. I could not find a copy of the complete review; however, I do know that it noted that her “modest verses … [are] piquant, spirited…and are cast in no conventional mold.” It stated that the poems “bear the stamp of original genius. … there is nothing like these poems in the language.”

After the review appeared in the paper, Ward wrote to editor Mabel Loomis Todd and asked if there were other unpublished poems: “If there are any others that compare with the best ones in the volume, I should like much to publish them in The Independent.”

In the letter he stated, “I am thoroughly surprised at the excellence of the poems. I have read them over and over at my home to my sisters, and three or four of them cling in my memory. She had a real genius, and it is extraordinary that with her sense of poetic thought and her sense of metre too, she had absolutely no sense of rhyme.”

Evidently, rhyme was extremely important in the 19th century.

Anyway, in compliance with his request for additional poems, Todd and Lavinia Dickinson selected four poems to send to him in January 1891.

Within the month, Ward replied to thank her for the poems.

“Three of them I will take and print as soon as I may. They are fresh and interesting. One of them I return. It seems to me so unsatisfactory in the way the last two verses are worked up. I am afraid I fail to catch the meaning except generally.”

Which poems did he accept, which one did he return?

Stay tuned!

CONTINUED...

In late 1890, William Hayes Ward, an editor of The Independent in New York, published a favorable review of Emily Dickinson’s Poems (published posthumously); he then wrote to the book’s editor Mabel Loomis Todd and requested additional poems for his paper to publish.

In January 1891, Todd sent him four poems, and within the month, Ward replied:

“Three of them I will take and print as soon as I may. They are fresh and interesting. One of them I return. It seems to me so unsatisfactory in the way the last two verses are worked up. I am afraid I fail to catch the meaning except generally.”

Which poems did he accept, which one did he return?

The rejected poem (“if my memory does not fail me,” wrote Todd’s daughter Millicent Todd Bingham in “Ancestors’ Brocades, the Literary Debut of Emily Dickinson”) was “Of tribulation these are they.”

Below: "Of Tribulation, these are they." Why did Dickinson misspell "ankle" as "ancle"? I'll look into that in the coming days.

The three which he accepted were “I held a jewel in my fingers,” “God made a little gentian,” and “Went up a year this evening.

All three of these poems were included in the Second Series of “Poems” published later in that year (click the images below to enlarge).

I'll look into these three poems in the coming days.

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Odd Numbers

Right Ankle?

How Does Your Garden Grow?

Shall I Bloom?

Jewel Thief

Three Out of Four Ain't Bad

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