Prof. Alan Helms
October 13th, 2004
October 20th, 2004
November 3rd, 2004
6:00 - 7:30 pm
Senior Minister’s Study
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The Wednesdays get going this fall with a follow-up to its SRO June meeting devoted to Emily Dickinson. Bring friends, food, dogs: All are welcome!
Let me remind you of two absolutely, totally, completely essential things: always read aloud and always reread the poems until they're coming out of your ears, which is to say lots. Poems are the most condensed form of human utterance (save perhaps for “Maybe” & “No”); it’s thus impossible to get much out of them on a single reading. Rereading will reward you immensely. Who doesn’t like immense rewards?
Readings for the Emily Dickinson Wednesdays
N.B. Dickinson’s poems are titled after their first lines. Here are those lines/titles, followed by the number of the poem in the recommended edition (Final Harvest, a selection edited by Thomas Johnson) followed by the number in parentheses of the poem in the authoritative The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, also edited by Johnson.
For October 13th:
- “I read my sentence—steadily—” 161 (414)
- “We grow accustomed to the Dark—” 164 (419)
- “Much Madness is divinest Sense—” 168 (435)
- “God made a little Gentian—” 173 (442)
- “This was a Poet—It is That” 176 (448)
- “I heard a Fly buzz—when I died—” 184 (465)
- “With my Garden, rides a Bird” 201 (500)
- “This World is not Conclusion” 202 (501)
- “It was not Death, for I stood up” 204 (510)
- “The Soul has Bandaged moments—” 206 (512)
- “Beauty—be not caused—It Is—” 208 (516)
- “I started Early—Took my Dog—” 209 (520)
- “To hear an Oriole sing” 211 (526)
- “I’ve seen a Dying Eye” 224 (547)
- “I measure every Grief I meet” 230 (561)
- “I like to see it lap the Miles—” 243 (585)
- “There is a pain—so utter—” 248 (599)
For October 20th:
- “The Brain—is wider than the Sky—” 262 (632)
- “The Way I read a Letter’s—this—” 264 (636)
- “I cannot live with You—” 265 (640)
- “Pain—has an Element of Blank—” 269 (650)
- “I dwell in Possibility—” 270 (657)
- “The Soul that hath a Guest” 277 (674)
- “Because I could not stop for Death—” 290 (712)
- “My Life had stood—a Loaded Gun—” 307 (754)
- “My Faith is larger than the Hills—” 313 (766)
- “The hallowing of Pain” 316 (772)
- “The Wind begun to knead the Grass—” 339 (824) both versions
- “There is a finished feeling” 348 (856)
- “Split the Lark—and you’ll find the Music—” 351 (861)
- “Of Consciousness, her awful Mate” 362 (894)
- “The Heart has narrow Banks” 374 (928)
- “The Missing All—prevented Me” 388 (985)
For November 3rd:
- “A narrow Fellow in the Grass” 389 (986)
- “Crumbling is not an instant’s Act” 392 (997)
- “Further in Summer than the Birds” 410 (1068)
- “At Half past Three, a single Bird” 419 (1084)
- “Tell all the Truth but tell it slant—” 427 (1129)
- “A Spider sewed at Night” 431 (1138)
- “The Props assist the House” 432 (1132)
- “Ourselves we do inter with sweet derision” 433 (1144)
- “The Mushroom is the Elf of Plants—” 474 (1298)
- “A little Madness in the Spring” 479 (1333)
- “A Route of Evanescence” 508 (1463)
- “Mine Enemy is growing old—” 518 (1509)
- “As imperceptibly as Grief” 523 (1540)
- “The Bible is an antique Volume—” 525 (1545)
- “There is a solitude of space” 558 (1695)
- “My life closed twice before its close—” 563 (1732