User:ShadowWalker4/A still Volcano life

A POEM BY EMILY DICKINSON

A still -- Volcano -- Life --

That flickered in the night --

When it was dark enough to do Without erasing sight --

A quiet -- Earthquake Style --

Too subtle to suspect

By natures this side Naples --

The North cannot detect

The Solemn -- Torrid -- Symbol --

The lips that never lie --

Whose hissing Corals part -- and shut --

And Cities -- ooze away --

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ABOUT EMILY:

Although she was not known during her lifetime as great poet, Emily Dickinson is greatly respected today not only as a poet but as a muse to new poets and writers. Born in 1830 and dying in 1886, Emily Dickinson was America’s best-known female poet. Her poems were simply written but excited intense emotion in readers. She was born second child to a prominent lawyer in Amherst, Massachusetts. She attended Amherst Academy for seven years and the Mount Holyoke Female Seminary for one year after. She did not travel except once on a trip to Washington, D.C. and a few trips to Boston for eye treatments.

Emily Dickinson is known today to have been an extreme recluse. Even though absent from the sight of the majority, she did keep contact with family members and a few friends. She kept in contact with her editor by way of mail and was only known to have met him a few times. Many believe that in the reclusive years of her life, she dressed only in white (like the bride she would never be). She was known to greatly enjoy the poetry of people such as Charles Wadsworth and Samuel Bowles. However, there is no evidence showing any influence they had in her writing.

She never named any of her poems, but publishers today name them by their first line. Her most famous poem is "The Soul selects her own Society". Only a handful of her poems were published during her lifetime even though now as many as 500 have been published. Some believe that Emily Dickinson used her poetry to tell her feelings that she could not understand herself.

Above is the poem "A still--Volcano--Life". No one can know for sure what this poem's meaning is other than Emily Dickenson herself. Below are some thoughts of its symbolism.

THOUGHTS ON ITS MEANING:

This poem begins by making disruptive thoughts or feelings of "Life" with the metaphor of an erupting volcano.

The first stanza seems more general than the last:

The Solemn -- Torrid -- Symbol --

The lips that never lie --

Whose hissing Corals part -- and shut –

And Cities—ooze away--

In the second stanza, the poem seems to have a more personal take on "Life". Dickinson moves out from the abstract soul to the physical. Some believe the poem becomes "sexual" at this point:

"The multiple suggestive aspects of female sexuality in the final stanza's images (the speaker's undetected, clearly non-phallic, metonymic ability to "ooze"; the coral lips which might belong either to the mouth; and perhaps even the volcanic heaving bosom) point to the centrality of the body in imagining this Life's eruption."

It seems that this is a far stretch to assume that this simple poem is implying sexuality. It appears that Dickinson is just making a metaphor to the terrors and destructions of Life.

This stanza offers two surreal pictures. In the first, a speaker's "hissing Corals" part to release lava (perhaps words) so destructive that "Cities" are destroyed. The poem goes from destructive actions of a volcano to a body merely parting her/his lips in a smile (both of which result equally destructive).

The middle stanza:

A quiet -- Earthquake Style --

Too subtle to suspect

By natures this side Naples --

The North cannot detect

talks of the "subtle" actions of an earthquake. It tells of unsuspected evil or destruction that "The North cannot detect".

EMILY DICKINSON QUOTES:

1. Anger as soon as fed is dead - 'Tis starving makes it fat.

2. Forever is composed of nows.

3. Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul.

5. I dwell in possibility...

6. I hope you love birds too. It is economical. It saves going to heaven.

7. Success is counted sweetest by those who ne'er succeed.

8. They say that God is everywhere, and yet we always think of Him as somewhat of a recluse.



Click []to see a brief publishing history of Dickinson's work.

Click []to see a brief history of Dickinson.

REFERENCES:

Author: Gunnar Bengtsson

Publication Date: January 9, 2004

Title: Emily Dickinson A still-- Volcano--Life

Source: www.americanpoems.com

Date accessed: January 20, 2009

URL: http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/emilydickinson/10553

Author: Microsoft Encarta Online

Publication Date: 2008

Title: Emily Dickinson

Source: encarta.msn.com

Date accessed: January 23, 2009

URL: http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761574080/Emily_Dickinson.html

Author: Michael Moncour

Publication date: 1994-2007

Title: Quotations by Authour: Emily Dickinson

Source: www.thequotationspage.com

Date accessed: January 20, 2009

URL: http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Emily_Dickinson/