“ME CHANGE! ME ALTER!” THE CHANGING POET RY OF EMILY DICKINSON The striking words of Emily Dickinson’s poem 268 insist that she and her poetry cannot be subject to change. However, with just the briefest flick through her complete works, the reader observes not only her ascent into madness and consequently varying content, but also a change in the very structure and punctuation of her poems, most significantly with regards to her signature dash. As the poem number steadily rises, the path becomes darker and more precarious for Dickinson. The focus of her earlier work is planted in nature and the admiration and awe that it pollinates, especially in those cherished solitary landscapes of poems 318 and 48. The cascading sunbeams, “a ribbon at a time”, glint and smile in the halcyon optimism of the speaker as she searches for idealism. Indeed this initial positive outlook of life can be summed up in the first line of poem 536: “the heart asks pleasure first”. The focus of this poem is debatable, for it can be read with reference to a fatal injury, or alternately with regards to the very lives of men. In the same way that a child tries to convince themselves that all is good and well in life, Dickinson’s poetry begins on a positive, arguably forced, note but the child soon grows to realise that there are trivialities in the world and so asks for “excuse from pain” which is perhaps most readily observed in poem 61. Dickinson here begins by addressing “papa above”, perhaps a reference to the recent death of one of her most beloved professors, and whilst this death-ridden image should appear morbid, she continues with some of her most manic and childish imagery. We can see the forced smile and gritted teeth in the overtly optimistic three exclamation marks as she exclaims “in your kingdom // a “mansion” for the rat!” The notion is so absurd, and the speaker’s desperation for normality so profuse, that the reader can feel the spurring pain that we wish could end.
32 AQUILA 2016-17
