As a fellow resident of Amherst Massachusetts, Jerome Liebling had the opportunity to document the home where Emily Dickinson lived and worked in his book The Dickinsons of Amherst. This Dickinson poem almost sounds like a conversation between the two. (Note that the final word is ‘bog’ not ‘blog’).
I’m Nobody! Who are you?
by Emily DickinsonI’m Nobody! Who are you?
Are you – Nobody – too?
Then there’s a pair of us?
Don’t tell! they’d advertise – you know!How dreary – to be – Somebody!
How public – like a Frog –
To tell one’s name – the livelong June –
To an admiring Bog!
I *almost* read “bog” as “blog.”
Are you familiar with Jack Gilbert? I find his poetry to be nothing short of stunning, and highly recommend his third book, “The Great Fires: Poems 1982-1992″ (published by Knopf).
Here’s one from the book:
Married
I came back from the funeral and crawled
around the apartment, crying hard,
searching for my wife’s hair.
For two months got them from the drain,
from the vacuum cleaner, under the refrigerator,
and off the clothes in the closet.
But after other Japanese women came,
there was no way to be sure which were
hers, and I stopped. A year later,
repotting Michiko’s avocado, I find
a long black hair tangled in the dirt.
Comment by danny — October 21, 2006 @ 11:04 am