Poem-A-Day/April 21
(Johnson 280)
I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,
And Mourners to and fro
Kept treading — treading — till it seemed
That Sense was breaking through —
And when they all were seated,
A Service, like a Drum —
Kept beating — beating — till I thought
My Mind was going numb —
And then I heard them lift a Box
And creak across my Soul
With those same Boots of Lead, again,
Then Space — began to toll,
As all the Heavens were a Bell,
And Being, but an Ear,
And I, and Silence, some strange Race
Wrecked, solitary, here —
And then a Plank in Reason, broke,
And I dropped down, and down —
And hit a World, at every plunge,
And Finished knowing — then —
**
We discussed this poem briefly in class, but it merits a fuller consideration/revisit. It is certainly among Dickinson's most powerful and disturbing poems. It's often taken as a metaphorical account of a mental collapse or even a seizure; its one sentence, knit together by "ands", makes it feel as though it was written from inside the frightening conditions it describes. It's a little parable, almost an allegory, of the split self (its rival for the best poem ED wrote about self-estrangement is "My life had stood--a loaded gun")
One of the variants in this poem (written on the same sheet and marked with a plus sign) has "soul" for "brain"--a fascinating choice, since those two words are among Dickinson's most powerful.
(Johnson 280)
I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,
And Mourners to and fro
Kept treading — treading — till it seemed
That Sense was breaking through —
And when they all were seated,
A Service, like a Drum —
Kept beating — beating — till I thought
My Mind was going numb —
And then I heard them lift a Box
And creak across my Soul
With those same Boots of Lead, again,
Then Space — began to toll,
As all the Heavens were a Bell,
And Being, but an Ear,
And I, and Silence, some strange Race
Wrecked, solitary, here —
And then a Plank in Reason, broke,
And I dropped down, and down —
And hit a World, at every plunge,
And Finished knowing — then —
**
We discussed this poem briefly in class, but it merits a fuller consideration/revisit. It is certainly among Dickinson's most powerful and disturbing poems. It's often taken as a metaphorical account of a mental collapse or even a seizure; its one sentence, knit together by "ands", makes it feel as though it was written from inside the frightening conditions it describes. It's a little parable, almost an allegory, of the split self (its rival for the best poem ED wrote about self-estrangement is "My life had stood--a loaded gun")
One of the variants in this poem (written on the same sheet and marked with a plus sign) has "soul" for "brain"--a fascinating choice, since those two words are among Dickinson's most powerful.
When I first read this poem it reminded me of the little people I used to imagine living in my head; I doubt i'm the only one who has ever pictured microscopic humans filing my memories, retrieving them from the back room when needed, keeping and discarding information that passes through my head–after determining its importance, of course. In this way, I kind of thought my mind, run by these minuscule brain dwellers, functioned separately from the rest of my body. It was more of an autonomous extension/branch.
ReplyDeleteWhen reading this poem, I think of the 'mourners' as those tiny people, pacing 'to and fro,' growing increasingly concerned as they are faced with some difficult issue for which they must find a solution. They are trying to make their environment normal again, restore the 'sense,' which does begin to '[break] through].' And then they congregate formally, "they all were seated," to discuss their continued plan of action. Without the consent/consultation of the/her "Soul" they rearrange stuff in her brain to see what will work– "I heard them lift a Box." She doesn't really have control over this part of her, and it shows in the poem. All she can do is wait until the little brain people have worked through the chaos of her thoughts/reasoning ("a plank of reason broke"), which might manifest for them as a missing floorboard in her brain or leaky ceiling.
This sounds kind of ridiculous now that I read it again, but in class we talked a bit about how this poem is more difficult to visualize, so I thought I would share this weird imagining of it.