The Fight Continues

My patience is wearing thin. 

The issue:  The Poetry Foundation's website includes selected poems by Emily Dickinson, and one (or more?) has the incorrect number.   I have written about the issue before -- HERE.  

I've called the Poetry Foundation, and they will not return my calls.  I did speak to someone one once -- the rep who answered the Foundation's general number -- and she seemed VERY disinterested, although she claimed she would pass my message on to the right person.

I've emailed a contact at the Emily Dickinson Museum twice.  No response.  Not even "Go away and stop bothering me."  LOL.

Sooo...this morning I sent an email to the Executive Director of the Emily Dickinson Museum in Amherst, MA.  I'll see if she responds.

If not, I suppose I will have no other choice than to organize a National Day of Protest. 

Here's what I wrote to the ED (Executive Director) of the ED (Emily Dickinson) Museum:

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Are you too deeply occupied to say if my Worriment is alive?

The Mind is so near itself – it cannot see; distinctly – and I have none to ask –

Well, to clarify – I have, indeed, asked the Poetry Foundation and contacts at the ED Museum – but to no avail.  None have responded – to my telephone messages or emails.

Should you think my concern breaths – and have you the leisure to tell me, I should feel quick gratitude –

If I made the mistake – that you dare not to tell me – maybe just shoot back a quick response to read “Shoo” (or even “Drop dead”?)

I enclose the issue herewith:

As I am sure you are aware, there are TWO well-known versions of “It sifts from Leaden Sieves.”  One version is a five-stanza poem, and the other is a three-stanza work – and the only thing they share in common is the first stanza.

The Poetry Foundation has the five-stanza poem inventoried among their selected poems of Dickinson, and they list it as number 291.  Ay – there’s the rub –

If you check Johnson 291, it is a different poem, “How the old mountains drip with sunset.”

If you look up “It sifts from Leaden Sievers” in Franklin, it is indeed 291.  However, it is the three-stanza version of the poem, not the five-stanza work.

What the Poetry Foundation displays is the Johnson version of the poem numbered as 311. Therefore, they should either RENUMBER the poem to 311 – OR – change their poem to the Franklin, three-stanza version of the poem, 291.

Again, I have contacted representatives at the Poetry Foundation and the ED Museum, but to no avail. 

If you please – Ma’am –to tell me what is true?
​
That you will not betray me – it is needless to ask – since Honor is its own pawn –

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LOL -- if any of that sounds familiar, it's because I patterned it on Emily Dickinson's initial letter to Thomas Wentworth Higginson:

15 April 1862

Mr Higginson,

Are you too deeply occupied to say if my Verse is alive?

The Mind is so near itself-it cannot see, distinctly-and I have none to ask-

Should you think it breathed- and had you the leisure to tell me, I should feel quick gratitude-

If I make the mistake-that you dared to tell me-would give me sincerer honor-toward you-

I enclose my name-asking you, if you please-Sir-to tell me what is true?
​
That you will not betray me-it is needless to ask-since Honor is it's own pawn-