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nat-lipstadtPoems
“If I read a book [and] it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry. These are the only ways I know it. Is there any other way?” — Emily Dickinson, Letter to Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1870) in The Letters of Emily Dickinson <> oh, let’s say 1000 times, have I read this, always nodding, always agreeing, but not necessarily smiling, laughing even my nod is doggedly varied, some, fiercely bobbing up and down, as if to assure myself, my poetic head is still securely and yet attached! some, an ever so slight tilting, lilting modest swaying side to side, for the recognition of the emotional hit, is softly softly perceived, an all knowing, in-full-agreement deep socket eyed glinting of comprehension for rare bird is the poem that just is plainly read, dispatched, eliciting a chain reaction negligible but, MY GOD, when the chest is bested, split and sundered, lips sputtering, hairs Gumby electrified, hands releasing the tablet, employed to press my heart back into vacated cavity simpatico, who could have said it better, than thou, dearest Emily
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Mar 12
Mar 12, 2026 at 5:26 PM UTC
Letter to Emily: If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry
“If I read a book [and] it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry. These are the only ways I know it. Is there any other way?” — Emily Dickinson, Letter to Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1870) in The Letters of Emily Dickinson <> oh, let’s say 1000 times, have I read this, always nodding, always agreeing, but not necessarily smiling, laughing even my nod is doggedly varied, some, fiercely bobbing up and down, as if to assure myself, my poetic head is still securely and yet attached! some, an ever so slight tilting, lilting modest swaying side to side, for the recognition of the emotional hit, is softly softly perceived, an all knowing, in-full-agreement deep socket eyed glinting of comprehension for rare bird is the poem that just is plainly read, dispatched, eliciting a chain reaction negligible but, MY GOD, when the chest is bested, split and sundered, lips sputtering, hairs Gumby electrified, hands releasing the tablet, employed to press my heart back into vacated cavity simpatico, who could have said it better, than thou, dearest Emily
Emily Dickinson is celebrated for her profound, concise, and often haunting poetry, with iconic lines such as “Hope is the thing with feathers” “I dwell in possibility” and “Because I could not stop for Death” 5:55pm 3/12/26 Version #1
#emily#top#head#taken#off#poetry#nat#lipstadt
nat-lipstadt
Written by
nat-lipstadt
99/M/NYC/Lippstadt/Kraków
Mar 12
Mar 12, 2026 at 5:26 PM UTC
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