First Post

This is my first post here, so a proper hello is in store. So, HELLO ALL!

I have not had a weblog since I was in middle school, but I felt compelled to try something new. I am currently enrolled at James Madison University and I am taking a course on Emily Dickinson. The course has opened my eyes to her as a poetess, writer, and person in general. I feel that I have a lot to say about her, and I feel like I might be able to shed some light on her for those who came from the same relationship I first formed with her.

My first impressions of her were not very satisfactory, I must admit. Like so many other authors (Hemingway is a fine example) I did not understand the hype associated with her. I could not understand her work: the dashes, capitalizations, odd and often morbid subject material. She was frustrating for me. Unlike other poetry, I could not dissect her works. I could not see the deeper meaning, understand the metaphors, or really even understand the point to a certain extent. She was just "there" for me, if that makes any sense. She was an writer whom I was supposed to adore as someone who has a concentration and passion for literature and writing in general. But she was nothing more than that though, someone who I was supposed to like.

Throughout high school and some of college, I had heard the typical stories about her. She was a shut in, unmarried, childless, lonely, atheist, wrote about nature and dead, etc, etc, etc. I just accepted that, read the poems, and was done with it.

Now I have a greater opportunity to understand and appreciate her complexity. Having an opportunity to be completely emersed in her work and nothing else, in addition to learning more about her life and seeing what I can and what has been able to be identified in her psychology, I have begun to realize the connection Dickinson has formed with people. I can see how even those who do not enjoy poetry or literature often flock to her. I can see the appeal now, and I am beginning to nurture a true appreciation for her not as an icon of literature, but more as a human being who tried as hard as she could to put down in words the emotions and thoughts in her mind. Sometimes she failed, but other times she captured something that I only wish I could describe in writing as she has.

In this blog, my plan is to look further into Dickinson. I want to pick two to three poems a week to look at and discuss my thoughts on them, while also discussing parts of her life and biography. I want to try to piece together the fragments of thought that are contained in her work, and what they say not just about her state of mind but also how she manages to capture the state of mind in so many other individuals overall.

I am in no way an authority on her, but she has moved me enough to want to write about her and keep her as a focus in this blog. I want you to be able to come to see what I have seen. Hopefully somewhere out there in internet world I can find another individual like myself, once lost in Dickinson and to Dickinson, and shed a little winking light of understanding on her.

I am happy to be here blogging, and I am happy to meet all of you!