The Reason Why We Know Emily

If you know me at all, you are aware that I am slightly, em, obsessed with the life and poetry of Emily Dickinson. This fascination grew within me late in life when I stumbled upon a biography gathering dust on a neglected bookshelf in my basement. I opened this biography and fell in head over feet for several weeks. I read Emily’s poetry in tandem with her story. I found other books about her. I knew what flowers she loved, that her dog’s name was Carlo and he was there expressly at the command of her father to protect her on her solitary walks in the Amherst woods near her home. I thought it wonderfully delicate and astute of him to understand that she must be alone on these walks and a dog would be quiet and unobtrusive company for her silent, stirring inspirations.

I met the whole family that surrounded this lovely Belle of Amherst, and was once again confirmed in my belief that  - whether it is known or as yet undiscovered - genius does not exist in a vacuum. It is helped along and championed and defended sometimes by someone we would least expect.

One such champion was the sweet and sassy Vinnie Dickinson, Emily’s sister.  Vinnie was the practical, outgoing protector of this ardent, introspective, restless, and introverted sister.  She understood what Emily needed just to “be".  She took care of the practical side of life in the home: and though Emily did her fair share of baking and nursing their sick mother, Vinnie energetically cooked, cleaned, shopped in the town, planned all the commencement parties of Amherst, and entertained the guests.  She was a practical work horse.  She was witty, sometimes delightfully irreverent and fiercely loyal to Emily, often protecting her from the inevitable gossip of a small town. I have never seen such loyalty and understanding between two such different people. I think they never left Amherst because no one was going to know and understand them better than each other. Vinnie was the best of friends.  She knew she wasn't bookish like Emily.  She knew Emily and her artistic brother Austin had so much more in common and would talk for hours about things she did not quite fully understand. Vinnie knew she was "other" than they were, but they loved her dearly and knew they needed her.  She said this about their life at the Homestead:  "Emily had to think. Father to believe. Mother to love. Austin had the community of Amherst. And I had the family to keep track of….”. Vinnie's practical and loyal service to her family became her vocation.

At seventeen she fell for a young man who pretty much took advantage of her sweet and trusting nature and her loving heart which so badly needed to be loved and cherished and which she wanted so much to give to him.  He moved away on a whim one day,  leaving as excuse that she was never going to be able to survive outside of Amherst, as she was "too delicate and impractical".  He, of course, misread her solid and sterling personality, and Vinnie suffered deeply because of his breezy, arrogant assumptions.  In reality, she was tough, funny, called things as they were, and ran the whole household.  She would have been a great wife. And I declare right here and now that he wasn't worthy of her

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We tend to think of geniuses like Emily as alone and apart - in their own solitary aerie of context.  In reality,  Emily and Vinnie were knit together in a bond we don't often see anymore in the modern world.  Where brothers and sisters really are the best friends each are to ever have.

Most importantly, we have Vinnie to thank for the poetry collection of Emily’s we hold in our hands today. It could have been so very otherwise.

I would not have wanted to be Lavinia Dickinson on the day her sister Emily died. For Emily had emphatically charged her sister to destroy ALL her writings as soon as she was gone. Lavinia, sister and friend that she always was to Emily, promised. She found Emily's papers  in the cherry wood chest near her bedroom window. What a heartsore afternoon Vinnie must have had reading all those letters spanning so many years, with Emily's quips and quotes and fine, delicate handwriting. Vinnie dutifully - but I KNOW it was a struggle - burned most of the letters in the grate. I confess I had a moment of my own when I read that! All that inner treasure - GONE up in smoke. Sigh.

When Vinnie opened the second drawer, she found, to her wonder, a "trove" of poems neatly stacked one on top of the other. Hundreds and hundreds of poems, including some forty hand-sewn booklets, and many unbound sheets. These little books are called fascicles, which is also a botanical term for 'a cluster of leaves or flowers or roots growing together from a base'. How apt a definition for Emily's poems.

Emily is famous for writing her poems on old envelope flaps, little ripped scraps, and even receipts, but the most wonderful thing she did was create these little booklets called fascicles- all her handwritten,  finished poems sewn together with thread from her sewing box. On each of these pages she has a poem written and several words underlined which she called variants. Around the edge of the page she had written several other words that could be substituted for the variant words. So, in effect she had several poems contained in one with subtle changes in meaning. She shared about 500 of these poems with more than forty different correspondents. She might have sent many different versions (with different variants) of one poem to each of the friends depending on what they might be going through at that time. Or she might have even suited them to a friend’s personality. Her poems morphed in subtle meanings, so to speak, without changing in essence. THAT is utterly astounding

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I found out she didn’t want them published officially because of this morphing ability. She wanted them always growing and changing in the particular hands to which they were sent - not set in a heavy, unchanging stone of sameness.

Lavinia struggled over this new find. She just could not burn the poems. She gave them to Mabel Loomis Todd, a good friend of Emily's, to publish. When Mabel finally had them published she had to choose one word for each variant.  I am supremely happy she did, of course, but what a treat of genius it must have been to find the fascicles and SEE all the words Emily chose; her mind and heart trying to take in the hearts of each individual friend and yet keeping a universal theme that all humans could share together.

And so, because of Vinnie,  the world met Emily at last. But did Emily want to be found? She was always ambivalent about getting her poems published in magazines. She made a few efforts as a younger woman to do this, but as she grew older there is a sense that she just wanted to write them because they were there within her to write. Not unlike George Herbert, her poems revealed the arc of her life lived, growing, changing, and discovering its purpose. It was enough to have them in the cherry chest of drawers, for Emily. She wrote this poem once. It is a new one to me. The words reveal the struggle every writer and artist knows.

Publication - is the auction

Of the Mind of man - but

We - would rather

From our garret go

White - Unto the White Creator

Than invest our snow.

In one of the letters that survived, Emily’s  last words on earth were "Called Back" written in a missive to a friend when she knew she was dying. She had wanted to take her poems with her to that White World as proof that she had been faithful to the Muse she had been gifted by the ‘White Creator’. It did not matter a fig to Emily whether anyone on earth was to read them. Or did it matter?

This is a sense of detachment I wondered at, because in the end, I think she did care a fig. She also knew that Vinnie cared a fig. Poems are always gifts. They do not belong to their authors in the same way  that letters would belong - those last being so deeply and particularly personal in time. No. Poems are universal.  They cannot be kept in a cherry chest for long. Emily knew this to be so, but she was too afraid to share her treasure with those who would not understand it. She couldn't do it, being who she was. I really do understand that.  She had to leave the scene first - she was too shy for so bold an act as opening her soul to so many of us without a covert nearby. Much like Hopkins, like Herbert - she kept them secret until the end - right up to the day she was "called back".

Emily knew that Vinnie could do it. It's like she gave over the whole lot to Vinnie’s protective arms, and waited at the top of her famous stairs in the hall, listening to see how things went. Intrepid Vinnie,  loyal and true. Would that every writer, poet, or artist had a Vinnie!  Eventually, Mabel Todd published them and that is why we can put that book upon our shelf.

Poetry is a gift. We all sense this truth.  It comes through so many human mediums chosen we not know how or why. But the poems belong to us, not the mediums. So much humility and surrender is called for from poets - to bare their hearts for the sake of the gift. Poems are messages from the 'White Creator' given through the likes of a little, fragile, wren of a woman who developed agoraphobia in her older age but who loved children, her home, her garden, her family and her books so fiercely.

Now every time it snows, I think of Emily's ‘white’ poetry 'invested' upon us in the end. She did not take it with her - did not keep it locked away. Vinnie came through as Emily must have known she would, and we are blessed indeed.

Would that every artist had a Vinnie.

I do not feel inclined at this time to have a paid substack. But if we were together in a cafe discussing all these thoughts, I would not be opposed to you buying me a cup of coffee - with cream, of course. In that spirit, if any of my posts resonate with you and you feel so inclined, you can donate here: buymeacoffee.com/denise_trull