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National Poetry Month: Emily Dickinson

By Glynn Young 8 Comments

National Poetry Month is on, and we continue to celebrate it.

Here’s a celebratory poem by Emily Dickinson (1830 – 1886). Dickinson was a prolific poet, yet fewer than a dozen of her almost 1, 800 poems were published during her lifetime. Apparently, her poems didn’t fit the style and tastes of her time, but they surely fit the time that came after and our own time.

From the Chrysalis
By Emily Dickinson

My cocoon tightens, colors tease,
I’m feeling for the air;
A dim capacity for wings
Degrades the dress I wear.

A power of butterfly must be
The aptitude to fly,
Meadows of majesty concedes
And easy sweeps of sky.

So I must baffle at the hint
And cipher at the sign,
And make much blunder, if at last
I take the clew divine.

From Time and Eternity by Emily Dickinson

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Glynn Young
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Glynn Young
Editor and Twitter-Party-Cool-Poem-Weaver at Tweetspeak Poetry
Glynn Young lives in St. Louis where he retired as the team leader for Online Strategy & Communications for a Fortune 500 company. Glynn writes poetry, short stories and fiction, and he loves to bike. He is the author of Poetry at Work and the Dancing Priest Series. Find Glynn at Faith, Fiction, Friends.
Glynn Young
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Latest posts by Glynn Young (see all)
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Filed Under: Courage Poems, Emily Dickinson, Hope Poems, poetry

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Comments

  1. Maureen Doallas says

    April 2, 2010 at 7:47 am

    It’s wonderful how fresh Dickinson still seems. This is a wonderful choice to highlight. (Plus, I know she’s one of your favorites.)

    Reply
  2. L. L. Barkat says

    April 2, 2010 at 10:51 am

    “A dim capacity for wings
    Degrades the dress I wear”

    Isn’t she great? 🙂

    My kids are going to try to write a poem a day for the month of April. Here’s the beginning…

    http://greeninventionscentral.blogspot.com/2010/04/making-april-educational-and-fun.html

    Reply
  3. L. L. Barkat says

    April 2, 2010 at 10:55 am

    Oh, and I must share this with you, my poetry buddies…

    yesterday I walked into a public library and saw a display table for National Poetry Month. InsideOut was in the middle of the display next to Billy Collins. 🙂

    (I figure I can share fun news like that here. I hope. 🙂 )

    Reply
  4. L. L. Barkat says

    April 2, 2010 at 1:38 pm

    Okay, and today… some advice on how to write a poem…

    http://greeninventionscentral.blogspot.com/2010/04/how-to-write-poem.html

    Reply
  5. Susanne Barrett says

    April 2, 2010 at 1:50 pm

    I’ve just added this wonderful place to my Google Reader–I am so excited about such a lovely place, especially one that features my friend Sarah’s blog. 🙂

    Yesterday Mama Nature played an April Fool’s joke on our small town: we woke to snow in Southern California! Here’s my first offering to the NaPoWriMo “gods”:

    April Fool’s Day

    Only a fool would believe
    in April snow,
    a sloggy quilt patchworked
    of white wetness,
    darkened dirt peeping through
    greening grass.
    Warm Southern California,
    usually basking in sunshine,
    chortles at the joke
    of snow on April first.
    Slipping from white to green,
    the snow
    it melts,
    dissolving the foolishness
    of Mother Nature’s prankishness.

    I post it here rather than the link because I’m in the process of switching my Blogger blog to my won domain name (www.MeditativeMeanderings.com), but for a day or two links to my blog won’t be working.

    Love the badge–thanks, L.L. for creating it! I’m going to pop it onto my own blog as soon as I can. 🙂

    Reply
  6. n davis rosback says

    April 2, 2010 at 7:08 pm

    It is only the second day of April, and
    already I’ve thinking just how much I am liking this month.

    Both, “From the Chrysalis” and “Shooting Crank”, are wonderful.

    The words that Emily Dickinson used are from another time, and yet, words that I would like to hear and use now.

    Reply
  7. Erin says

    April 3, 2010 at 2:50 pm

    I love Emily Dickinson. 🙂

    Reply

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  1. More Zombie Poetry says:
    April 2, 2010 at 10:48 am

    […] Tweetspeak poetry continues its National Poetry month posts, featuring Emily Dickinson today. She’s one of my favorites. Little known fact about Ms. Dickinson. Did you know many of […]

    Reply

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