Yesterday I posted a link to Sharon Leiter’s “Critical Companion to Emily Dickinson, A Literary Reference to Her Life and Work” to discuss the Foreword of the book by Gregory Orr, and when I explored “who is/was Gregory Orr,” I was surprised to find that he lives where I live, in Charlottesville, Virginia. See yesterday’s post for details, HERE.
I also looked into “who is/was Stanley Kunitz,” the person Orr quoted at the start of his Foreword:
The voice of the solitary
Who makes others less alone
~ Stanley Kunitz
It was at that time I uncovered a second surprise: Kunitz was an American poet who was twice appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress (first in 1974 and then again in 2000), and when information popped up on my screen, I discovered that his first wife shared my last name, Asher.
So who was Elise Asher? (And are we related? LOL.)
Elise Asher was an American painter and poet. She is known for paintings on canvas and plexiglass, illustrating poems written by herself and others.
I also looked into “who is/was Stanley Kunitz,” the person Orr quoted at the start of his Foreword:
The voice of the solitary
Who makes others less alone
~ Stanley Kunitz
It was at that time I uncovered a second surprise: Kunitz was an American poet who was twice appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress (first in 1974 and then again in 2000), and when information popped up on my screen, I discovered that his first wife shared my last name, Asher.
So who was Elise Asher? (And are we related? LOL.)
Elise Asher was an American painter and poet. She is known for paintings on canvas and plexiglass, illustrating poems written by herself and others.
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Of course, you know I ran a search to discover if Asher ever painted anything based on a Dickinson poem, and I got this: “Whether Elise Asher ever painted anything based on Emily Dickinson's poetry cannot be definitively stated.”
Some of Asher’s paintings are shown below.
Some of Asher’s paintings are shown below.
Since I ran a search to explore any connection between Elise Asher and Emily Dickinson, I decided to run a search, too, on Stanley Kunitz and Emily Dickinson. I ended up getting an AI generated discussion on the two poets and their styles, but no “connection” between the two – EXCEPT – there was a link to a page at the Poetry Foundation with an essay entitled “Remembering Stanley Kunitz” (HERE), a memorial tribute written by a former student of his.
The writer said this:
“He modeled for many of us, for me at least, a poetry rooted in autobiography, but transfigured by imagination. The ‘I’ that inhabits his poems is not trapped in the personal self, but is instead Emerson’s ‘representative man.’ Or what Emily Dickinson said (she who began more poems with ‘I’ than any other word)—’when I state myself, as the Representative of the Verse—it does not mean—me—but a supposed person.’ The protagonist of his poems both him and not-him, and always searching, always questing.”
And who was this writer/former student? None other than Gregory Orr, the gentleman who penned the Foreword to Sharon Leiter’s “Critical Companion to Emily Dickinson,” the very book I wrote about yesterday and at the start of this post.
(Suddenly I’m singing, “It’s the circle / The circle of life.”)
The writer said this:
“He modeled for many of us, for me at least, a poetry rooted in autobiography, but transfigured by imagination. The ‘I’ that inhabits his poems is not trapped in the personal self, but is instead Emerson’s ‘representative man.’ Or what Emily Dickinson said (she who began more poems with ‘I’ than any other word)—’when I state myself, as the Representative of the Verse—it does not mean—me—but a supposed person.’ The protagonist of his poems both him and not-him, and always searching, always questing.”
And who was this writer/former student? None other than Gregory Orr, the gentleman who penned the Foreword to Sharon Leiter’s “Critical Companion to Emily Dickinson,” the very book I wrote about yesterday and at the start of this post.
(Suddenly I’m singing, “It’s the circle / The circle of life.”)
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