Those Crazies

You guys, prior to reading Emily Dickensen’s poems, I knew nothing about her. Perhaps it was a flaw in my education, or my individual studies, but for realz, nothing, nada, everything we talked about in class surprised me.

Which brings me to, THOSE CRAZIES. Do you have to be crazy to write good poetry?

I can’t even imagine living Emily’s life, but also I view her life from a completely different context. Of course living in a time when women’s only job was to be home maker and not a intellect could make it easy for a writer like Emily to be a recluse.

More importantly if she wasn’t a crazy would her poetry be as genius as it is?? I say no. My evidence to support his claim is… name a poet who isn’t crazy!

This is how I imagine crazy writers.

Part of being a crazy poet I think just lends to the theme of death in said poetry, which there is plenty of in her poetry. What interests me most is her first and last poems in out collection, 39/49 and 1773/1772… incidentally the first and the last seem to me to be saying the same thing… having come close to death twice but never made it. In her last it makes sense that she is further speaking to her third experience with death: “if Immortality unveil/ A third event to me” (91).  Her focus on the next encounter with death is much different than her first account of the first two, when she feels robbed having been twice so close, but never reaching heaven: “Angels- twice descending/ Reimbursed my store-/ Burglar! Banker – Father!/ I am poor once more!” (78).

These quotes bring me to my final thought, GOD I WISH I COULD THROW MY DASHES AROUND LIKE HER. Dashes are so brilliant but aren’t used enough! I was so thrilled to find a writer who likes them, seemingly, as much as I do! 

He looks so happy being a dash! ... That's because they're awesome.

Not So Big

I was thoroughly amused by all of Twain's stories, I think my favorite story so far of his has been: Letters From The Earth. This story was my favorite I think because the perspective that he took was very surprising. It feels like during this time there wouldn’t be many writers who describe Earth as being a speck in the universe, instead of the center of their lives. It’s a rare thought to imagine ourselves as seemingly minute, and nothing to the outside, but in this story it is exactly how Satan describes Earth’s existence.

Earth looks so big and beautiful...

I had never thought about the general perception of heaven, though it is quite evident even in the media and the movies that it is imagined to be light, fluffy and full of music. Satan makes it clear the hilarity of this classical image of heaven.

Perfect heaven, cause everyone is making music.

Heaven is just one of the several pieces of his Earth “break-down” that is hilarious. Satan really finds everything ridiculous about the human race. Which makes this seemingly satirical story all the better. Every part of our religious culture taken from a seemingly outside perspective and thrown the microscope makes me think of every other part of our society that could be broken down and made hilarious. If only there were a series of stories, where the main plot line was: “people are weird”—I would read it!

Twain’s story I felt just exemplified that we’re not so big after all.

Of course Twain as it seems is a professional at making jokes at the expense of everything that not in line with himself and his beliefs. Beginning with his “Whittier Birthday Speech”, and then later the hilarious “Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offences”.

Hey look! There we are!

Jokes at the expensive of everyone else are pretty entertaining—though apparently not to all those present at Whitter’s birthday dinner, ooops Twain. ;)