The Emily Dickinson Collection (2021) compiles some of the best-known
works of an icon of American poetry. Out of nearly two-thousand poems
discovered after her death, less than a dozen appeared in print during
Dickinson's lifetime. Drawn from such influential posthumous volumes as
Poems (1902) and The Single Hound (1914), The Emily Dickinson
Collection captures the spiritual depths, celebratory heights, and
impenetrable mystery of Dickinson's poetic gift. "Fame is a fickle food
/ Upon a shifting plate, / Whose table once a Guest, but not / The
second time, is set." Deeply aware of the fleeting nature of fame,
Dickinson--whose reputation in life was as a lonely eccentric who
rarely, if ever, left home--seems to provide some clarity as to why
publication so often eluded her. Having published just ten poems in her
lifetime, Dickinson continued to write in solitude until her final
years. Her final word on fame is a warning, perhaps, for poets whose
fate would differ from her own: "Men eat of it and die." Despite her
admonishing tone, she found space elsewhere to muse on the nature of
literary achievement, recognizing that obscurity could incidentally
produce the conditions for a poet to produce their most vital work:
"Success is counted sweetest / By those who ne'er succeed. / To
comprehend a nectar / Requires sorest need." Throughout her life, Emily
Dickinson showed a profound respect for the mysteries of worldly
existence. In her poems, this creates an atmosphere of prayer and
contemplation, a search for something beyond the simple answers: "Some
things that fly there be, -- / Birds, hours, the bumble-bee: / Of these
no elegy." Amid such fleeting things, she catches a glimpse of eternity.
With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript,
this edition of The Emily Dickinson Collection is a classic of
American poetry reimagined for modern readers.
