Poetry Friday: I’m Hosting, and we're having conversations with poems (or in my case, with a poet)

I was out of town last week and missed Poetry Friday but I wouldn't dare duck out today — I'm your host!

Last month, the inimitable Tanita Davis shared the August challenge:

Poetry Peeps! You’re invited to our challenge for the month of August! Here’s the scoop: If poetry is a love letter to readers, this month, we’re writing back. Using Nikki Giovanni’s “Talk to Me, Poem, I Think I Got The Blues” as a mentor verse, we’re writing poetry directly in conversation with a poem. Whether you talk back directly to Ms. Giovanni’s work, or choose another poems to pass notes to is up to you, as is length and form. Are you in? You’ll have a month to craft your creation(s), then share your offering on August 29th in a post and/or on social media with the tag #PoetryPals. We hope all of you will join the fun!

I cheated a little and broadened the rubric: I'm in conversation with a poet (and a smattering of her poems) rather than addressing my plea to a single selection. I couldn't wait to talk to Emily Dickinson and ask her to reveal her secrets. Even though I'm nobody, I knew she would indulge me. She hasn't written me back, but I'm a patient correspondent. 

(The lines in italics are either taken directly from Dickinson's poems, or are a rearrangement of her words.) 

Talk to Me, Emily D.  

(with thanks to Nikki Giovanni) 

"In this short life that only lasts an hour

How much—how little—is within our power."

            ~ Emily Dickinson 

I have a few questions, Miss Dickinson. 

(May I call you Emily? I’m nobody, but 

I feel like we’re friends.) 

I have questions, Emily. 

The first is the easiest 

and also impossible. 

How do you do it? 

How much—how little—do you do?

Do you dream a poem? 

Does it waft in, fully formed, 

gorgeous in its shape and complexity? Or, 

does it hover tantalizingly near you, 

a shape-shifting cloud 

informing image and imagination? 

 

Or is it baking that inspires 

the rising of precise words? 

While your hands are kneading, 

is your inscrutable mind churning? 

Cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, cloves—

Is the secret, instead, 

in the scent of gingerbread? 

You dwell in possibility but in 

the impossibility of this world too, 

its planks of reason broken. 

Still. 

Still, you conjure 

that Stop-sensation on my Soul, 

and Thunder in the Room. 

Talk to me, Emily D.

How much—how little— do you do, 

do you know? 

Dazzle me gradually with your truth. 

~ Karen Edmisten 

References: 

• "How much—how little—" (from "In this short Life that only lasts an hour," 1292)
• "I’m Nobody" (from "I'm Nobody! Who are you?" 260) 
• "I dwell in Possibility" (466)
• "planks of reason broken" (adapted from “I Felt a Funeral in My Brain," 340: "And then a Plank in Reason, broke,")
• "that Stop-sensation on my soul and thunder in the room" (from “I got so I could take his name,” 293) 
• "Dazzle me, gradually, with your truth" (adapted from “Tell all the truth but tell it slant,” (1263): "The Truth must dazzle gradually/Or every man be blind—")

Mr. Linky awaits your dazzling contributions this week. Thanks for sharing in the conversation. 

Photo courtesy of Pexels.