I have a closet full of books. I open it sometimes. Taking a random book and nudging other books with the help of this random book to make them orderly is also something that I do sometimes, unconsciously. Today also I opened the closet, picked up that random book, and was just about to nudge those disorderly storybooks when suddenly I changed my mind. Keeping that closet open, I reclined on the sofa nearby and started reading that random book. That random book, this time, was a book of Emily’s poems after all. How could I just use her book as a nudger? I started reading it and told the other books. “Give me a nudge after 15 minutes; I will be back to arrange you in order…. I am reading Emily.” I know how to talk to books.
Emily was known as ‘recluse.’ In my preliminary study about her years ago, I came across this term often. A recluse is one who loves solitude and avoids people, who lives alone. But for a writer and a poet, I personally feel that it’s not a trouble but rather a virtue. How will a poet create his or her own inner world if he or she is tangled in the already existing outer world? Reclusion is a must for all creative people; however, in the case of Emily, I find the repetitive usage of this word. It was not that sort of general recluse that creative people usually adopt. It has been reported that for almost 20 years she had been in that so-called ‘recluse.’ During that period she remained reclusively in her family’s homestead. She had limited the people around her. It’s not that she avoided everyone. There were a few people she was fond of, perhaps. Dickinson told her cousin Louise Norcross that she was “one of the ones from whom I do not run away” when she wanted her to come for a visit in 1858. People have called her “hermit” and “recluse.”
What would have been the exact reason for this? There is no clear evidence. Was it because of some medical condition or just a self-imposed isolation? Was she maddened by the male-dominated society of her time, or was it just the creative genius within her that coerced her to imprison herself in her own fancy bubble? What may have been the exact reason?
What do you think?
Here is a poem from her pen,
Banish Air from Air –
Divide Light if you dare –
They’ll meet
While Cubes in a Drop
Or Pellets of Shape
Fit –
Films cannot annul
Odors return whole
Force Flame
And with a Blonde push
Over your impotence
Flits Steam.
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