Emily Poems
- charlesmwyatt
- Feb 18, 2020
- 1 min read
There’s a certain slant of light
Imagine the chandeliers, the candles
at moonlight cant, hedge twist –
portrait of a pale cry,
animal rondo, puffed and pouted –
The orchestra files from the pit,
first the flutes, then an oboe,
cleaned with an owl’s feather,
then several owls, struggling
with a guitar, a wheel of cheese,
the tiny bones and skulls –
They always leave because
they can see, they can sing in the
dark –
I had been reading Helen Vendler’s wonderful book, Emily Dickenson, Selected Poems and Commentaries, when I had the notion to have some conversations with them. I’d take a line and use it for a cantus firmus. What I came up with was miniatures, images –
the kinds of things you see after you have been dazzled by a bright light.
They took on a kind of form, ending with a single word. I believe I should call this form the clunk.
Some editors liked them – others seemed to disapprove. My correspondence with Miss Dickenson should be conducted in private they implied. So I took a number of them and chopped off the line I was referencing. Then I gave them new titles. Now they are secret, like the puzzle paintings in George Perec’s Life, A User’s Manual. And it was fun to find titles for them. Here is one I like especially:
Extract from a Shorter Poem
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