Susan Howe reading Emily Dickinson Part 1

but they just were not taught they were not looked at they were not and and I was completely it was just writing my Emily Dickinson during the and I was just shocked when I began to carefully look at what was in the Franklin in fact similes which the line breaks were asked I mean it I I just don't want to go on about it because I think from a complete bore just to tell you her line breaks were not increasingly became more and more not what you see in a job and I admire those additions and frankly the tone of the Thomas Johnson Edition is it's what I think of when I think of Emily Dickinson and those dashes and that's its I'm not saying that there was an answer to by just breaking the lines this new way it the way she did that that would answer the problem because we do not know what her final intentions were the whole idea of final intentions goes out the window with Emily Dickinson and but what was erased was her variants dashes that were different but first of all I was most disturbed by the difference in line breaks but to ask you as you go on and on and she goes on the work that barriers breakdown between what is a letter what is a poem and I believe what is a visual production on the page that opens to the deepest mystery of writing which is to me that sound and sight are inextricably and mysteriously bound and that every mark on paper is an acoustic mark and that I mean there was endless books came out about Emily Dickinson you know and this is the angry 80s the 90 and feminist but nobody they weren't paying attention to the thing I mean I think there was a lot of it was so hard to get anyway Dickinson even kind of considered seriously in academia that it was like if you really it would all become sand to melt away if you really really looked at what was really there but anyway the compute the Internet has changed everything I won't go into my hatred of Harvard I mean there was a war between the Dickinson that unfortunate things that happen with her papers were that Harvard got of the FAFSA khals I got a certain amount because of the war and the family I mean there was a huge war in the family and Amherst got Mabel Loomis Todd who was her first editors papers and the Dickenson material and Harvard got the Dickinson family at the Gilbert all went to Harvard so there was this split and Harvard was very closed about access and had completed the Harvard University Press has the complete control or did I mean I don't know what's happened by now but it had total control of publishing it if you wanted to write a dissertation on Emily Dickinson or if you were gonna teach Emily Dickinson I mean there were old little books that had fallen out of copyright Higginson's version but if you wanted to be do the real you know be taken seriously you had to consult Harvard was in control Amherst had to go through Harvard for the public so Harvard controlled the whole the picture of Dickinson and the copyright and it was into control and at the time and I mean Thomas H Johnson did heroic work I mean it was all I can and obviously around Franklin did a heroic work in collectiveness mysterious piles material and tracking down letters was done by these people but it was done in the age of new criticism you know when TS Eliot was in the ascendancy and anyway it what if you could you couldn't do anything without the permission of Harvard really all and you have to realize that both Robert Frost and Emily Dickinson were the big money makers their additions and as the Thomas Johnson edition was about to disappear you know run out of copyright because it was done in 50s it was about to run out of copyright then around Franklin Edition assumed control so this woman's work was in the hands basically if two male editors which I found us but that's just one problem it was disturbing because nobody else no it's anyway so it just wasn't I mean to this to get this to happen finally it really has been well since ad ever since 86 Marta Werner was a graduate student of mine and she kind of shared my mania and she did the work real work of scholarship and she's the one who worked with Amherst and put there and also the woman Martha Neil Smith was another there was a clip it gradually became a collective of women who were working on the editing problem more and some men but but anyway it took a long long time for something like this to happen and the I kept my life just kept saying oh I just think they would just show some of her work it should be shown in like the drawing center where finally it happened was like a miracle it's years and years to have that happen and so pristine and Barbara and I mean it that New Directions did this to me in the tradition that I believe in two directions tradition that they did these books well I I don't know I I thought I'd tell you one amusing thing is that it isn't that cheap you know they're not only we see the envelope poems but there's endless you know bits and pieces and scraps and the ring thing that I and this was a this was this book was crucial to me that Ralph Franklin brought out the three master letters in an edition where he broke the line he where he did he did the transcription and then he brought he made the lines you know times you made the line he broke the lines anyway this was prose this is he said I wrote him a pen saying this is just so wonderful to see this but what about the poem he did not he doesn't he believes that the form of the poem is the stanza and he will not he he can break lines in prose but not in poetry so that anyway so this book was I couldn't have a lot of arguments with this book but nevertheless finally you saw the transcriptions and you saw but the thing that annoyed me particularly about the book was that he you supplied an envelope and that three master letters did not necessarily come together in an envelope and there was something about Franklin neatly putting the three master letter in an envelope together that really annoyed me and so now I think it's just highly ironic finally finally with it the bright thing happens it's called mg I mean the envelope I mean it's just a wonderful wonderful idea and I one of the to me the incredible miracles of Dickenson yesterday how could she since this stuff in letters to send it off I mean who knew lines that you would kill to write I mean but but just Shakespeare just oh they could be thrown away they might be I just can't I'd that is beyond that's the great miracle of her that she didn't I mean she cared about an audience because obviously there's an audience when you send a letter or you know she did save her and so together her manuscripts but there's some mystic holy gesture of tossing at all of that and you know for like for like I you know I've gone I mean I really I'm very old man wasn't I enough with the Emily Dickinson with me no way for several years but I've just been working slaving over some introduction and and then I it's I should come here oh my god every page I love down here there's some incredible it's unbelievable she's so great but I mean it's it is so now I've lived what do you want I mean I wrote I brought in a few small little poems I could read one of the master letter a couple of or you could ask me some questions oh man oh god okay how long I know what shoes and I but there so this is this is Irma's I'm looking for a few good okay this is the line searches so okay master and you know we don't know movies or why or were they written to anybody or were they influenced by I have a feeling that in some on some level she I think she used Charlotte Bronte a lot in this letter but I think it's a crisis point that in her life when she realizes what she's got in her and they may be a kind of conversion narrative and sort of sorts but love must have done something there definitely whatever we don't know okay master if it's because they did she each letter must master that's the one thing they master if you saw a bullet hit a bird and he told you he wasn't shot you might weep at his courtesy but you would certainly doubt his word one drop more from the gash that spring stains here daisies Busan then would you believe Thomas faith and anatomy was stronger than his faith in faith God made me serve master I didn't be myself he I don't know how it was done he built the heart in me by and by it outgrew me and like the little mother with the big child I got tired holding him I heard of a thing called Redemption which rested many women you remember I asked you for it you gave me something else I forgot the redemption in the redeemed I didn't tell you for a long time but I knew you had altered me I and was tired no more so dear did this stranger become that were it or my grant the alternative I had tossed the fellow away with a smile I am older tonight master but the love is the same so are the room and the Crescent if it had been God's will that I might breathe where you breathe and find the place myself at night if I can never forget that I am NOT with you and that sorrow and frost are nearer than I if I wish with the might I cannot repress that mine were the Queen's place the love of the Plantagenet is my only apology to come nearer than pres Patrice and nearer than the new coat that the tailor made the prank of the heart and play on heart in holy holiday is forbidden me you make me say it over I fear you laugh when I do not see but she known is not funny have you the heart in your breasts sir is it's a fly crying a little to the left has it the misgiving if it wake in the night the chance itself to it a timbrel is if itself to it attune these things are Reverend holy sir I touched them reverently hallowed but persons who pray dare remark our Father you say I do not tell you all Daisy confessed and denied not Vesuvius don't talk Edna don't they said a syllable one of them a thousand years ago and pomp they heard it and hid forever she couldn't look the world in the face afterward icicles bashful Pompey tell you of the want you know what a leech is don't you and remember that Daisy's arm is small and you have felt the horizon haven't you and did the sea never come so close as to make you dance I don't know what you can do for it thank you master but if I have the beard on my cheek like you and you had daisies petals and you cared so for me could you forget me in fight or flight or the foreign land couldn't Carlo and you and I walk in the meadows an hour and nobody care but the Bob woman and his a silver scruple I used to think when I died and continued so I died as fast as I could but the corporation are going to sow eternity heaven won't be sequestered at all now say I may wait for you say I need go with no stranger to the to me untried country fool I waited a long time master but I can wait more wait till my hazel hair is dappled and you carry the cane and I can look at my watch and if the day is too far declined we can take the chances of for heaven what would you do with me if I came in white have you the little chest to put the alive in I want to see you more sir than all I wish for in this world and the wish-altered the little will be my only one for the skies could you come to New England this summer good would would you come to Emerson would you like to come master would it do harm yet we both fear God would Daisy disappoint you no she wouldn't sir it were comfort forever just to look in your face while you looked in mine and I could play in the woods chill dark till you take me where Sun none cannot find us and the true keep coming till the town is storm will you tell me if you will I didn't think to tell you you didn't come to me in flight nor ever told me why no rules [Applause] she wrote to GW Higginson after she had sent him his work do you want me to read Arizona she said it's work I don't have the fur on it I didn't read the first letter which is incredible and then he'd sent her we have a terrific it is true about the innocent that he saved her letters anything he pretty thought she was bouncing you know outstanding he didn't reject he was a well-known publisher she this was her gesture to the world and he he took her in in a way but this is ok so this is 7 June 1862 and it's about the same period as as the master letter dear friend your letter gave no drunkenness because I tasted run before Domingo comes but once yet I have had few few pleasures so deep as your opinion and if I tried to thank you my tears would block my tongue my dying true der told me that he would like to live till I have been a poet but death was much of a mom as I couldn't ask you then and when afterward a sudden light on orchards or a new fashion in the wind trouble for attention I found the policy even the verses just relief your second later surprised me and for a moment swooned I have not supposed it your first gave no dishonor because the true were not ashamed I thanked you for your justice but could not drop the bells whose jingling includes my perhaps the bomb seemed better because he led me first this is one of the great things my lines to me ever I smile when you suggest that I delay to publish that being foreign to my thought as firmament too thin I smile away if they belong to me I could not escape it if she did not belong to stay with pass me on the chase and the approbation of my dog which was safely then my barefoot rank is better you think my gait spasmodic I am in dangerous search you think me uncontrolled I have no tribunal would you have time to be the friend you should think I need I have a little shape it would not crowd your dance nor may make much racket as the mouse that dance your galleries if I might bring you what I do not so frequent to trouble you and ask you if I told it clear to a decontrol to me it's another great line coming the Sailor cannot see the north but knows the needle can the hand you stretched me in the dark I put mine in and turn away I have no sex in now as if I asked a common on sister she goes right into poetry and in my wandering hand a stranger press to Kingdom and I bewildered stand as if I ask the Orient and head for Nia morn and it should lift its purple dykes and shatter me with Dawn but will you be my preceptor mr. Higginson your friend he Dickinson [Applause]

Channel: New Directions Publicity

Views: 2,604

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Susan Howe, Emily Dickinson, New Directions, Christine Burgin, Marta Werner, Jen Bervin, McNally Jackson, Picture Room

Id: 6hobMaH7Va4

Length: 23min 31sec (1411 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 27 2017