love

“Is It True Dear Sue?”

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In the Spring of 1862, Emily Dickinson wrote the words “The heart wants what it wants, or else it does not care” in a letter to her friend Mary Bowles. She was offering Mary consolation, as her husband was going abroad for an extended period of time. At the same time, Emily admits that there is really no way to console her friend, because the heart has a mind of its own and the friend’s husband will still be missed, even as she is assured of his return.

Throughout Emily’s 55 years she was never known to have a romantic relationship, but the letters she left behind suggest she did have several intimate relationships, which she “tells it slant” about in her poetry. “Tell it slant” was a phrase used in another poem of hers, whose first line is “Tell all the truth, but tell it slant” which seemed to suggest that rather than shocking a person with the whole big truth at once, one should start from a circuit around it and gradually reveal the whole picture. The phrase “tell it slant” has come to be associated with Dickinson and each year the Emily Dickinson Museum in Amherst holds a Tell It Slant poetry festival and gives a Tell It Slant award.

In researching analysis of “Is it true dear Sue?”, most agree that those words were directed to her lifelong friend, love and sister-in-law, Susan Huntington Gilbert with regards to Emily’s brother Austin, whom Sue would go on to marry. Emily is questioning whether or not there are now two who love her, and competing for her love.

Todays Carol and Emily poem is based on a real experience that I had at the end of a long term relationship, one that ended slowly, and slant, but led us both to where we belonged, with another.

“The world is round, and the place which may seem like the end, may also be the beginning.”

Ivy Baker Priest.

Imposter Syndrome?

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It’s said that before her death, Emily Dickinson made her sister Lavinia promise to burn all her poems and letters. While she did burn some of her letters, Lavinia broke the promise and chose not to destroy the almost 1800 poems that she discovered. How lucky we are that she made that choice and went on with the help of others to see that they were published. Dickinson biographers agree that Emily made very few efforts to be published before her death. After being told that her style was untraditional of the time and just didn’t fit, she may have been discouraged, but even if that were true, it certainly didn’t stop her from writing prolifically.

Could she have had “imposter syndrome”? That evil green eyed monster of a virus that attacks our confidence and tells us that we aren’t good enough at whatever it is that we want to do? I had a serious bout with that this morning as I was trying to choose which Carol and Emily poem to share on today’s post. I probably read 20 different poems and found something wrong with every one of them, even the one I posted below. I know I’m my own harshest critic and the battle not to be is constant and real.

Above my desk , I keep the card I received with my award certificate from the Story Summit last year. It has 4 all important words on it. “You are a writer!” It’s there to remind me on days like this, when I doubt myself, that I really am.

No matter what field or life stage you’re in, the imposter syndrome can slither its way into your brain. The trick is to surround yourself with encouragers and encouragements in whatever form works for you. Emily apparently had few encouragers, but we have to believe that she found encouragements and inspiration everywhere in the rich microcosm of her secluded life. Her 1775 poems tell us that.