Comparatively Speaking

Yesterday, I shared info related to the 2006 edition of “The Oxford Book of American Poetry,” with poems chosen and edited by David Lehman: 
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“Here is the eagerly awaited new edition of The Oxford Book of American Poetry brought completely up to date and dramatically expanded by poet David Lehman. It is a rich, capacious volume, featuring the work of more than 200 poets-almost three times as many as the 1976 edition.”
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The 1976 edition was edited by Richard Ellman (info HERE)

I mentioned yesterday that the 2006 edition includes 43 poems by Dickinson, and I wondered how many were in the 1976 edition. Well, I found an online edition of the book, and there were 70 of Dickinson’s poems in that edition. 

Hmm.  I suppose they removed some in the 2006 volume to make way for the “three times as many” poets as mentioned above.

I wonder which ones they removed?  Sounds like a fun project to work on in the near future.  I’ll back to you on this later.

For now, I just wanted to check on a few things.

1. Did they – in 1976 and 2006 – use Dickinson’s poems as she wrote them – or as Mabel Loomis Todd and Thomas Wentworth Higginson edited them?  The poem I used for that test was “Because I could not stop for Death,” and I can say confidently that both the 1976 and the 2006 anthologies published the poems as written by Dickinson.

2. Did either or both of the volumes include the one poem which bothered Higginson a bit?   (i.e., the “one poem only I dread a little to print” wrote Higginson to Todd.)    

​Yes – both volumes included “Wild nights! Wild nights!”

Info on this poem & Higginson's worry is HERE. 

3. Did one or both volumes include the poem which Higginson said he had “always classed among the most exquisite of her productions, with a singular felicity of phrase and an aerial lift that bears the ear upward….“
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Nope – neither volume published “The nearest Dream recedes – unrealized.”

Info on this poem is HERE.

​Finally, I’ll just add that as I perused the 2006 edition, I discovered that Hart Crane wrote a poem entitled “To Emily Dickinson.”  I’ll share that one tomorrow.