My Emily Dickinson

This draft was inspired by the biography of Emily Dickinson on the Poetry Foundation website. The first line is a direct quote that just stayed in my head for quite a while after I read it. The title is borrowed from a book by Susan Howe. Sometimes a draft needs a little something to stand on/borrow before it can find its feet.

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedParticularly annoying were the number of calls expected of women in the Homestead. The frequent placement of self in society,all hours and all welcomed --bolsters to her father's reputation,scissors cutting away her own precious time. Is it any wonder she retreated into illness and selective domesticity? Bake bread, tend the garden -- but neither dust nor visit.Removed from the frequency of polite conversation,allow the mind to wander, pause, consider, and resettle.Rising like bread on the breaths of unseen organisms. Spreading like the garden over space of unattended earth.