'"Dicksonson is a challenging but rewarding poet".
Write an essay in which you react to the above statement, supporting your 
points with refernce to or quotation from the poems by Emily Dickonson
on your course.'

Every poet is unique and Dickson's uniqueness is visually and verbally striking. She is the most instantly recogniseable of poets on our course. Her idiosyncratic genius is clearly seen in the short lyrics without titles, the eccentric, unconventional punctuation; the capitalisations; the irregularities; the cryptic puzzling images; the dash; the rhymes and half-rhymes; the hymn metre and the vigorous rhythm.
When Emily Dickonson's poetry first attracted crticical attention, many editors were disconcerted by her unconventional poetics. They considered her form, rhyme and grammar to be defiant, while her laconic and elliptical style added furthur to difficulties of interpretation. Early editors of her poetry took to smooth rhymes, insert alternative metaphors rearrange syntax and delete provincialisms in order to mould the poems into a more conventional form and make them more accesible to readers.

However, Dickonsons earliest critic, T W Higginson, remarked that 'when a thought takes ones breath away, a lesson on grammar seems an imperitance.' This statement highlights Dickonsons priority as a poet (1 A4 Page) in attempting to fit language to experience, particulary psychological experience, Dickonson had to move beyond the confines of conventional expression, which occasionally resulted in cryptic thoughts and unmelodious rhymes. It is clear that poetry, to Dickonson, remained essentially the exposition and transfer of passionate feeling and deep convection. 
It is this exposition and transfer that, as a reader, must be taken into account during the reading of Dickonson's work. For example, 'I felt a funeral in my brain', Dickonson speaks of an experience after death, which in itself, immediately becomes sureal. Here something, final, sad and public is interiorised. The idea is simple, vivid, original.
In Dicksons case, the moment is one of nervous tension and vulnerability;

"I felt a funeral in my brain,
And mourners to and fro
Kept treading - treading - till it seemed
The sense was breaking through."

An immediate feel of restlessness and unease is created by 'to and fro' and the repetition of 'treading - treading' is almost irritating. From the opening line, Dickonson is the centre of the poem; 'I felt', 'I thought', 'I heard', 'And I', 'I dropped', 'My brain', 'My mind', 'My soul'. These phrases, making this poem very personal and intense, remind us constantly of Dickonsons relevance to her experience of death and the funeral itself. (2 A4 Pages)
The story being told here, parallels that of an actual funeral. In stanza one there was the sense of an ending, the people came to mourn. Stanze two tells of the service and in stanze three, there is the journey from the place of service to the burial ground, a space in the ground. Imagining oneself in a coffin at ones own funeral is a chilling and courages thought, one which highlights Dickonsons initial challenge as a reader, but once is explored is ultimately rewarding.
Another such poem which displays Dickonsons unconventional, sureal approach to poetry is 'I heard a fly buzz when I died.' The poem is in the first person, and though it tells of the crucial moment of death, that moment is not associated with knowledge, understanding or revelation, but with a sound;

"'I heard a fly buzz when I - when I died -
The stillness in the room
Was like the stillness in the Air - 
Between the heaves of Storm - "

The buzzing fly is a distraction. It trivialises a serious and unique moment and the silence is even more pronounced. The fly as been interpretted, not as a distraction, but as a last clear sound from the world as the light of conciousness sank from her.
The mood in stanza one is one of calm and control, another of Dickonsons poems where the lines are written in the form of hymn metre;(3 A4 Pages)
"Our god, our help in ages past
I heard a fly buzz when I died - "

and that tight formal control is maintained throughout. Could Dickonson be suggesting the process of death is a banal one? That she is aware of this process and has come to terms with her inevitable fate? The poem ends in darkness;

"And then the windows failed - and then
I could not see to see - "

It offers no vision of immortality. The poem is based around the sensory details of hearing (I heard), seeing (the eyes around), touching (signed away), and ends with silence, isolation and blindness. Is this another example of Dickonsons attempt to transfer passionate feeling and personal experience? I believe it is these expositions that I find rewarding.
With these deep convictions in mind, it is important to remember that, while Dickosons despairs were intense, almost unnerving, she also took pride in her delight, Such pride is evident in her poem 'I taste a liguor never brewed'. This poem begins with an intensely imagined moment;

"I taste a liquor never brewed - 
from Tankards scooped in Pearl - 
Not all the yields upon the Rhine,
Yield such an Alcohol!"

The moment is rare and special, the moment is hers. In the third line Dickonson juxtaposes the negative, "not all", to emphasise (4 A4 Pages) the postitive "Such an Alcohol!", ending on aexclamation mark to emphasise Dickonson's sustained delight. The true nature of the liquor is revealed in the second stanza;

"Inebriate of Air - am I -
And debauchee of Dew - 
Reeling - thro endless Summer days - 
From inns of Molten Blue"

She is drunk on Summer and that feeling of a never ending Summer's day is created by the dash. The sun is the source of these 'endless summer days' and Dicksonson has imagined herself growing closer to it so close that she can lean against it. This striking, unique final image suggests ease and comfort.
Sean Dunne described her poems as 'concise fragments from a diary, a logbook of the minds voyages, and where Melville wrote of the sea and Whitman of the plains, she wrote of a space equally as vast - her own mind.'
The whole truth about Emily Dickonson will elude us always, she seems witfully to have seen to that. There is a feeling of incompleteness, of area still to be explored, of mysteries that still beckon.
It seems that Emily Dickonson wanted to express not only the drama of her life, but the drama of literature. Perhaps Dickonson herself characterised her literary art in one of her poems by writing;

"Tell all the truth,
but tell it slant."

THE END