One of my favorite poems that Emily Dickinson wrote was "I felt a Funeral in my Brain". I discovered this poem and E.D. in my high school English class in the 10th grade. I had a friend named Tiff and we were both a little into macabre. Today, I guess we would be called goth, but this was an unknown term at that time.
I memorized this poem back then, but I only remembered 3 verses today. I looked up the poem so that you could read it all:
"I felt a funeral in my brain, and mourners to and fro, kept treading, treading till it seemed that sense was breaking through.
And when they were all seated, a service like a drum, kept beating, beating till I felt my mind were going numb.
And then I heard them lift a box and creak across my soul, with those same boots of lead again, then space began to toll.
As all the Heavens were a bell, and being, but an ear, and I in silence some strange race wrecked solitary here.
And then a plank in reason broke, and I dropped down and down, and hit a world at at every plunge and finished knowing then..."
I love this poem because of the way it ends, and because of the mystery and beauty of it. A lot of people think that thinking or talking or wondering about death is morbid, but I think that it helps us to remember to LIVE and not take things/people/events for granted.
2 comments:
It's so interesting, why are creative souls drawn to the maccabre, especially while there still in Hischool? For me it was Sylvia Plath and Frida Kahlo. I still love love love Frida .
Oh, Sylvia Plath...I read the Bell Jar around the same grade in school and truly felt like I was a little mad by the end of the book. She was an excellent writer. The creative/macabre link is a strange one to be sure...why can't all creative types just be bubbling with happiness? Maybe it's the introspective piece, or has something to do with all the alone time needed to feel creative...
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