Stuff on Research

Our final paper is research based, and is a doozy of a length at 8-10 pages. Not to worry though, as an English major I am used to this and it is going to be absolutely no problem. I was given some suggestions in class last week to narrow down my pretty broad spectrum paper choice of "death" in regards to Emily Dickinson. I have decided to go with one of my suggestions and pick a single fascicle (27) and focus on her discussion of death inside the limits of that fascicle. I think this makes sense because if I was left with just "death" it would probably be possible for me to fill thirty pages with that content. I realized later that people have written entire books on that idea, so maybe i was biting off more than I could chew. I have picked some research materials (Lunacy of Light, Trying to Think with Emily Dickinson, Dickinson's Misery, and the concordance to Emily Dickinson's poetry) to use in the writing of my paper, and I plan on bringing them to class to get opinions from my class mates about their use. I started to read this books yesterday, and I think I have some good ideas for talking about death coming out of Lunacy, and Misery. I am going to continue reading and hope to be starting the writing of my paper by the end of the week. Keeping you posted.

Creative Work Finished

My creative work for my Emily Dickinson class is officially finished. I meant to make this post last night, but I was up until 2am or so this morning getting my editing done, so here we are. The filming went well, with surprisingly few hiccups over the last few days. Did you know that hanging out of a moving vehicle while holding a video camera can technically be counted as reckless endangerment? I did not know this in fact, and a Shenandoah County sheriff's deputy was kind enough to bring me up to speed on that principle. Anyway, the shot I ended up using for the visual part of my short film was not the exact one that I had planned on using originally, but I decided to go a different way while editing, and I think it worked out for the best. My original plan had been to do the run during the daylight, but seeing as how the poem is about Death picking someone up and continuing on towards final Judgment, daylight hours did not seem to be appropriate for my use. It is a little dark, but I can explain exactly what is happening, and the important parts are still able to be seen, so I think it all worked out for the best. I will post here again to inform you all of the grade I recieve on it.

Creative Work

Haven't been here in a while, and I do have an explanation. As an assignment for my class, we (as in all of the students separately) have to come up with some form of "creative work" that is influenced by the work of Emily Dickinson. This can be anything; song, dance, poetry of your own, a film, basically anything that you can do to express your creativity, and the influence that Dickinson has had on your work. I decided to do the video, and have been using every free second of the last week to the effect. For the first few days I was trying different concepts with the filming, along with a vast number of Dickinson's poems, and my results were turning out to be less than satisfactory. Last night however, I had a break-through, and one of the techniques I tried ended up turning out perfectly. Of course I have a complaint about my work; I have this thing about demanding that my own things can always be better. I'm afraid that the one I liked turned out far too dark, but my friend who is editing for me says he can work with that to make it better. So, my small film is almost done, and will be long before I present on Tuesday.

Big ole' Paper

Last night I started work on my research paper for my Emily Dickinson class. It's on the fascicle's, in the sense that you pick a poem, and compare it to the rest of the fascicle it exists in using it's themes and imagery. I have chosen fascicle #20, and poem #401 in the franklin edition which starts out as "Dare you see a soul at the White Heat?" From this poem I am going to discuss Dickinson's recurring themes of anti religious sentiment, and her own case of extreme self-reliance. More on my progress as it happens.

October 15th

Today in my major author class on Emily Dickinson we discussed her fascicle #16. This fascicle contains mainly poems that have to do with Dickinson's concept of death and what may lay beyond it. This fascicle also contains poem #337 "of nearness to her sundered things" which contains the reference of Dickinson to a "mouldering playmate" which I personally imagine as Dickinson sitting there playing at a tea party or something with this across the table from her. In the poem it seems as if she is referring to a playmate who has passed on, and then comes back from the dead, but is changed by death, because death itself leaves a very lasting mark. All in all this was an enjoyable fascicle, but I do not think I'm going to go in this direction with my paper. I mean, Dickinson has a lot of darker material, but this is a bunch of it all crammed together.....it seems a bit much.

Intro: a little ink

As this is my first post, I decided to kick things off with a bang. One of my co-workers said the other day that it is only a certain type of person who would think to get a tattoo. She then went on to list the many (and none desirable) attributes of such people. After listening to my co-workers badmouth tattoos as being skin decoration for bikers, drug addicts, rock stars, and prostitutes (among allusions to combinations of these) I politely informed her that not all tattoo fans are of that caliber. Most of us do read, and some of us have even decided to get things from books put onto our skin permanently, mostly due to love of the work. And this got me to thinking: What about the lovers of Dickinson's work? Surely I would be able to find some pics of people who loved her work enough to immortalize it on skin.......and I was not disappointed.
Dickinson Tattoo #1
Dickinson Tattoo #2
Dickinson Tattoo #3
For those interested in more information, that first link is a full printing of "How happy is the little Stone" which falls in the Franklin Edition of her work at #1570. The second and third links are none other than the Belle of Amherst herself.