{Journal Entry #9} Cynthia Nixon played Emily Dickinson and I'm here for it

...Also, what are these poems about?

The fact that I have yet to watch this is a travesty, but we saw a small clip of it in class and my woman Cynthia kills it as the socially awkward yet intense and witty Dickinson.

Poetry-wise, I don't have that much to say about Dickinson, quite honestly. I think she has some great pieces and some less-than-remarkable-ones. I admit I get where she's coming from; as a near-recluse, her poetry had an urgent and cagey feel (she often uses obscure and dark imagery, and dashes that almost superimpose one word to the previous one) of someone whose mental life is too large to be contained by their everyday. The fact that I can objectively get it, however, does not mean I resonate with it. Nonetheless, there are some poems I love deeply, such as this one:

To liken hope to a bird, beautiful and sweet yet haunting and restless, and not even say "bird" but "thing with feathers", so derisively... it's honestly the most relatable depiction of the bittersweet anxiety hope produces I've ever read. 

I think Emily here suffers of that case where her artistic persona has been so mythologized through the decades that it is hard to approach her already odd poetry without feeling daunted by her established genius. I'm still a sinner, though, because I admit I'm fascinated by her life and love those analysis that link her literary production to her poetry. Heh (I can't help it, I'm a literary biography fiend).

Because most of her work was never published in life and basically found posthumously, there is also something problematic about the intensity with which her every written word is scrutinized. Case in point, the (in my opinion) atrocious New Poems of Emily Dickinson, which I read a couple of years ago and could not get on board with. Fair enough, I was not well-versed on Dickinson at the time (and I'm not now either, but I am a bit better informed), but this is basically a collection of witty remarks and almost-poems found on letters, envelops, and diaries, WITH editorial commentary. I just don't think it's fair to present (and even comment on) her half-done scribbles as poetry, when she was so meticulous about her writing, published or not. 

Once again, this assessment is of course hypocritical, because if it was an author I was obsessed with from the beginning I'd be all over even their tiniest grocery least archived.

So, you know. To each their own.