Miscellaneous Deductions

I have a lot of miscellaneous info to share this week, so that made me wonder if Dickinson ever used the word “miscellaneous” in any of her poems.
 
What do you think?
 
Well…
 
I thought the answer would be zero – but in fact, she did use the word in one poem, “From Cocoon forth a Butterfly” (and by the way, “butterfly” appears in 44 different poems). 

There is so much to love and discuss about this poem…
 
* Structurally
* Thematically
* Poetically
 
Here are just a few points of interest in each of those areas:
 
STRUCTUALLY:
 
* The inverted syntax at the start of the poem;
 
* The innovative handling of parts of speech (for example, the use of “forth” in line 1 – a verb?);
 
* The third stanza – with five lines;
 
* The concise, if not compact, use of language.
 
THEMATCIALLY:
 
* A day-in-life of a butterfly – a  “Miscellaneous Enterprise” to a human observer, although “The Clovers – understood.”

And since I opened this post with a focus on “miscellaneous,” here’s a miscellaneous question about Cummings’ poems:  Since Cummings is known for his use of lower-case letters, why the capital letters in these two poems?  (See “For” in line 11 of “maggie and milly and molly and may,” and “From,” “Between,” “My,” “Into,” and “With” in “when god lets my body be.”)  The capitalization of those words was clearly deliberate – so why?
 
Hmm…as another aside, Cummings’ allusions to the sea made me think of Whitman’s poem “Out of the cradle endlessly rocking” (i.e., the sea):

"Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking" by Walt Whitman is a deeply personal poem that explores the themes of loss, love, and the birth of a poetic voice, primarily through the lens of a young boy witnessing a mourning seabird on the seashore, where the bird's mournful song becomes a catalyst for the boy's own artistic awakening and understanding of death and grief; essentially, the poem is a meditation on how profound personal experiences can shape one's creative identity.”
 
That poem is HERE.

Back to Dickinson’s poem – does anything in particular in that poem speak to you?  I will say that it made me think of something about the life of one particular butterfly that I find astounding – so I’ll share that bit of miscellaneous information tomorrow. 

CONTINUED...HERE