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After yesterday's post, I was positive I'd not be choosing another Frost poem today - after all, I included not one, but two, poems: "The Tuft of Flowers" and "Mowing". I considered selecting a sonnet, but both "Mowing" and the one from the day before, "It is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free" by William Wordsworth. I felt ready to move on from rhymed couplets, at least for a day, so that left me with the themes and ideas in the poems - so many from which to pick, but as for the speaker in "The Tuft of Flowers", it was the butterfly that caught my eye.

My immediate thought was to talk about The Gentian Weaves Her Fringes by Emily Dickinson (which closes "In the name of the Bee-/And of the Butterfly-/And of the Breeze-/Amen!"), but I've talked about that poem more than once before, including during last year's "Building a Poetry Collection", so I opted for a different Dickinson poem mentioning a butterfly - there are so many from which to choose.

The butterfly obtains
by Emily Dickinson

The butterfly obtains
But little sympathy
Though favorably mentioned
In Entomology —

Because he travels freely
And wears a proper coat
The circumspect are certain
That he is dissolute —

Had he the homely scutcheon
Of modest Industry
'Twere fitter certifying
For Immortality —

Form: Like so many of Dickinson's poems, this one is based on a hymn form, and within each stanza, the short lines rhyme - or do they? sympathy/Entomology and Industry/Immortality seem just fine, but she goes to slant-rhyme in the middle stanza with coat/dissolute. This is the sort of rhyme that Dickinson's earliest editors considered an error or tried to "fix", thinking she didn't know what she was doing - foolish, foolish people.

Discussion: Dickinson was writing about the Puritan view of butterflies - such profligate creatures - so needlessly colorful and showy, without any obvious job. Dickinson loved the butterfly, and wrote quite a number of poems about butterflies (along with bees and other creatures). She seems to have appreciated their beauty and their freedom to come and go. Whereas butterflies are said to represent the soul in some cultures, and rebirth in others (based on observation of the caterpillar entering into a cocoon and coming out a butterfly), Dickinson's butterfly didn't hold those sorts of connotations, but was representative of the beauty of nature.

Here's hoping that at least some of you are able to see butterflies this Easter day, whatever they mean to you.

What has been lost, forgotten, or hidden about Emily Dickinson must be a lot. She's often depicted as a virginal poetess in white, but in the few photos of her, she's not in white. And I have reason to wonder about the virginal part. One has only to read the following poem to know that she was no complete recluse, and that she most certainly knew and understood passion, love and longing.

If you were coming in the Fall
by Emily Dickinson

If you were coming in the Fall,
I'd brush the Summer by
With half a smile, and half a spurn,
As Housewives do a Fly.

If I could see you in a year,
I'd wind the months in balls—
And put them each in separate Drawers,
For fear the numbers fuse—

If only Centuries, delayed,
I'd count them on my Hand,
Subtracting, till my fingers dropped
Into Van Diemen's Land*.

If certain, when this life was out—
That your's and mine, should be—
I'd toss it yonder, like a Rind,
And take Eternity—

But now, uncertain of the length
Of this, that is between,
It goads me, like the Goblin Bee**—
That will not state—its sting.

*Van Diemen's Land: Tasmania.
** Goblin Bee: a term created by Dickinson

The five stanzas use Dickinson's familiar hymn metre, and are chock full of metaphor and simile. She is writing either to or about a loved one (and, most likely, a lover). It appears that she is not certain when they shall see one another again, a notion which goads (or pains) her "like the Goblin Bee—/That will not state—its sting." Some poets, including Robert Pinsky, read those last two lines as indicating not only the uncertainty of not knowing when the bee will sting (i.e., when the lover will be seen), but also as a sexual pun (where a sting is some form of penetration). Frankly, I think they go too far. I think that there's longing, and sexual longing, implicit in the poem, but that the bee is simply a representation of uncertainty: knowing something will happen, waiting for it to happen, but not knowing precisely when it will occur. Or, feeling the sting of pain, but not seeing the bee (if the term "goblin bee" represents a phantom bee, rather than an actual bee).

But I'll start at the beginning and work back through. In the first stanza, a single season is contemplated. It's summer (or, at earliest, spring), and Dickinson says that if she knew the loved one was coming in the fall, she'd swat summer aside like a fly.

In the second stanza, she contemplates what she'd do if she knew for certain the loved one would come in a year, using a metaphor based on balls of yarn: she'd "wind the months in balls", and then she'd put each ball into its own storage place to keep them from fusing together (or possibly, from tangling). She's not only indicating that she'd be occupying herself, but that she'd be counting the months, as well as trying to dispense with them quickly.

In the third stanza, where centuries are involved (real or representing lengthier amounts of time), Dickinson says she'd count them backwards in a form of finger play. I envision her holding her hands before her, one above the other, fingers extended, bending fingers one at a time from the top down, until the pinky on her left (or right) hand is last to bend, there, at the bottom. Were you to visualize a globe, "Van Diemen's Land" or Tasmania would be on the underside of the globe from where Emily lived, so when that last finger moves, it would be on the underside. Miss Emily was punny, I think.

In the fourth stanza, she indicates that if their souls were guaranteed to meet in the afterlife, she'd "toss it yonder, like a Rind". The "it" to which she refers is her life, which she says she'd readily forfeit if she were guaranteed to meet her loved one. Pretty heady, heavy stuff, no?

The final stanza gets us to the real crux of the matter. Because she doesn't know how much time will pass until she sees her loved one - as little as a season, as long as centuries - and because she isn't positive they'll meet in the afterlife, she is left to wait and fret: how long will it be? Knowing that they are to meet again but not knowing when goads her (causes her pain, as if by pricking). She feels the stinging pain of absence, and doesn't know when it will cease. Her sense of longing and agitation is nearly palpable, just like that Goblin Bee.

Since I'm still jousting with the gnomes, my Poetry Friday post is up quite late. The following poem sprang to mind as I was sucking wind taking my morning walk and checking out the bustle in the hedgerow, of which I was not alarmed. The morning shadows are longer now, and some of the trees here are just starting to turn. Although you can't tell that from a distance, if you are actually walking under the trees, you can see spots starting to form as the trees begin to prepare for their long winter's nap.

Today's poem is a reprise of a poem I posted one Saturday almost a year ago. It is untitled, and it's by Emily Dickinson:

The morns are meeker than they were —
The nuts are getting brown —
The berry's cheek is plumper —
The Rose is out of town.

The Maple wears a gayer scarf —
The field a scarlet gown —
Lest I should be old fashioned
I'll put a trinket on.

Bonus points to anyone spotting allusions to other pop culture references in the lead paragraph. Hint: there are two.

This week's short post should help to compensate for last week's very long post about Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind".

In other poetry news: the poetry panels for the CYBILS were announced this morning. I'm delighted to be working with such a fine group of folks!

Here in the U.S., we've begun the process of selecting our next President. And today, nearly half of the states in the country will be holding primary elections, in which members of political parties (and sometimes independents, as well) select the candidate they'd most like to represent their party when the general election rolls around in November.

I thought it fitting to mark the day with a poem by Emily Dickinson. Emily didn't give her poems titles (or numbers), but they have been collected up and assigned numbers, and are traditionally called by their first line. Here, then, is number 73, "Who never lost, are unprepared":

Who never lost, are unprepared
A Coronet to find!
Who never thirsted
Flagon, and Cooling Tamarind!

Who never climbed the weary league —
Can such a foot explore
The purple territories
On Pizarro's shore?

How many Legions overcome —
The Emperor will say?
How many Colors taken
On Revolution Day?

How many Bullets bearest?
Hast Thou the Royal scar?
Angels! Write "Promoted"
On this Soldier's brow!

History and some analysis:

The above poem was written circa 1859, and was first published in 1891. Dickinson was a proponent of the idea that experiencing negative things (e.g., loss, thirst) made appreciation of the positive things (e.g., success, something to drink) possible, and/or richer. It can be read as meaning that one can still triumph after loss, or that one can ultimately triumph after death. Perhaps the "Soldier" is simply a person leading a good life. Perhaps this poem is just one more of Emily's works that asks or seeks to answer the questions "is there meaning to suffering and death? is there the possibility of transcendence?"

But I think it not only possible, but likely, that Emily's poem has something to do with the events of 1859, and with John Brown's actions at Harper's Ferry. In October of 1859, John Brown, an abolitionist, led a group of men to seize the federal arsenal at Harper's Ferry. His long-term goal was to distribute the weapons to freed and escaped slaves throughout the Appalachians, and to set up a revolutionary force ready to declare war on the slave states of the American South.

Brown and his men managed to hold off the local militia at first through their taking of hostages and use of weapons. When the U.S. military arrived (under the command of General Robert E. Lee), they punched holes through the armory walls and fired. Brown lost two of his sons, with eye witnesses saying that he felt the dying pulse of one of his sons with one hand while weilding a rifle in the other, all the while commanding his men. Brown was captured and, later, hanged. He remains one of the most controversial figures of the 19th century — hero to some, "misguided fanatic" (or so President Lincoln called him), or villain to others.

I'm not saying that Emily was an abolitionist, per se, but that she seems to have disliked slavery, and she is certainly known to have friends among the abolitionist movement (although it is likely that she was opposed to extremes within the movement). Only a few years later, Emily became a lifelong friend and correspondent with Thomas Wentworth Higginson, a reformer whose sermons she had read before she ever met him. Higginson, a minister, was one of the Secret Six who plotted John Brown's actions at Harper's Ferry; he later volunteered to fight in the Civil War, and eventually commanded the first troop of African-American soldiers.

Thus, it's likely that Emily is commenting on the plight of people like John Brown's sons, who died in pursuit of a noble cause. She's looking for purpose and reason for their deaths, and for transcendence for them as well. Then again, I could be wrong.

Many people have worked hard on ALA’s I Love Libraries website. I know this because I was (in a small way) one of them.The site was advertised in the State of America’s Libraries published by ALA in April but didn’t go live until this week, just in time for Annual. In the intervening time we got what can only be described as a sub-par “coming soon” page which is really amazing to me considering that the URL had already been widely distributed.

I don’t see much need to pick apart the website page by page, but I do have some critiques that I hope will be illustrative or helpful.

1. Who didn’t learn anything about long URLs? ALA didn’t. There is no reason in 2007 to have that much extra junk in a URL.
2. In 2007, a “find your library” page should not go to a list of links of how you can find your library. It should go to a search box or a map.
3. Don’t hide your blog. Don’t bury new content at the bottom of your main page.
4. Things professional websites have that this one doesn’t: favicons, copyright statements in the footer or on the legal page not up top looking defensive, an overall design sensibility, content (not just links to content), an about us page with the names of real people on it, valid markup, alt text for images, accessible coding, valid security certificates, copyright statements that word wrap appropriately.
5. The rules for adding content to the Ilovelibraries.org Flickr group exclude humans and allow only institutions. Which 2.0 guideline does this violate? I asked to join. I never even heard back from the group moderator. Why is this restriction necessary?

In short, this is a 1.0 site that is pretending to be a 2.0 site and is a perfect example of how all the blogging tools in the world won’t make your organization responsive and interactive if your corporate culture is restrictive and controlling. Put another way, I’ve been clicking around this site for half an hour and I don’t even know what it’s trying to do. It’s all over the place. Is it to raise money for ALA and libraries in various ways? Is it a way to ask questions and get information about libraries? Is it a way to share content and/or my love of libraries with other people? Is it a way to push ALA content at more than the usual suspects? Is it a way to make ALA seem hipper and more “with it”? The about this site page is unrevealing: “Simply put, you love libraries, and we hope this Web site will keep it that way!” Huh.

I feel like if we could understand why ALA thinks ilovelibraries.org is a good, well-designed website for achieving their goals, we might understand more about why people have a hard time with technology and why there is such a digital divide in librarianship, much less among the public at large. For now it remains a bit of a mystery, at least to me.