Emily Dickinson . . . wowzers

The funny thing about misconceptions, aside from being baseborn blood relations to ignorance and assumption, is that they actually feel pretty good once they're shed. Case in point: I knew nothing about Emily Dickinson before this week. I had figured since she was a predecessor to Plath, she would be equally as well-written but lacking in depth. And, to be fair, she has her depth but since I am neither living in the late 50's/early 60's nor can be classified as a female, adolescent or not, I can never fully identify with Plath's work- technically, it's brilliant yet I have trouble connecting with it. I was ready to feel the same way about Dickinson, yet found her obsession with death so non-time or gender specific that I “got” it. What gives her poems a dimension missing from Plath's work is that they celebrate life, even if at a distance and even if they are sometimes lamenting it. Poems about unrequited love, or her jilted friendship with her sister-in-law, or funerals all resonated with me. Perhaps I should reread Ariel as I have a better understanding of how to read poetry now, more so than I did at 18 and, of all her work, The Bell-Jar is most fresh in my mind, but maybe I will walk away thinking Plath is second rate Dickinson. Or to quote Woody Allen from Annie Hall: Sylvia Plath - interesting poetess whose tragic suicide was misinterpreted as romantic by the college girl mentality.