Running Mate

Yesterday I shared Dickinson’s poem “My River runs to thee.”  I discussed it in reference to a teacher’s website where he, Dr. Tim McGee, is slowly but surely uploading short “chats” about every Dickinson poem, and I also mentioned that I have composed a song based on the poem to be performed at my third-annual ED Birthday Celebration concert in December (more on that tomorrow).

Today, I am sharing the poem again today, and the pic below shows the formatting and editing of the poem in the various editions of Dickinson’s poetry. 

The poem was first published in the 1890 edition of “Poems” edited by Mabel Loomis Todd (who provided the title for the poem, "The Outlet"), so you can see that she “cleaned it up” for the public by providing more conventional capitalization and punctuation.  Check out the end of the sixth line, though.  That line ends with a comma followed by an em dash, something that is somewhat prevalent in Todd’s editing of Dickinson’s poems.  Was that a thing back then – a comma followed by an em dash?  Also, check out the use of italics in the final line between the various editions.

This poem was included in a letter to Mary Bowles, wife of Samuel Bowles, publisher and editor of the “Springfield Republican.”   Info about Mary is HERE. The text of the letter is HERE, and a digital copy of the actual letter in Dickinson’s handwriting is HERE.

In a different twist about this poem, I was scrolling through Reels this morning, and I came across a New Yorker “Mini-Interview” with Ocean Vuang.  Check it out in the link below.  He mentions a “short little, little romantic poem” by Robert Browning – and “it had no gendered pronouns.”

Browning’s poem, "Meeting at Night,"  is shown at the right, and the link to Vuong’s “mini interview” is HERE. 

It made me think of Dickinson’s poem – short, romantic, and no gendered pronouns.