Longenbach on Dickinson

Longenbach on Dickinson

James Longenbach, [from] The Virtues of Poetry, on Dickinson:

“People were scared of Emily Dickinson, and rightly so.”

“Mental and emotional acuity of that level is frightening because people have no way of explaining its source.”

“Solitude is not a state merely to be chosen. The space between any two human beings, however proximate, is as immense as an ocean, and Dickinson lived and wrote in order to honor that immensity.”