Outside the range of normality

I meant to note this great short, personal, article about Emily Dickinson by Holland Carter in last Tuesday’s (May 11) New York Times.

Just a couple of quotes to whet your appetite:

I ... discovered there a dynamic I had sensed but hadn’t been able to name: fluidity of gender. She spoke as a woman, a man, a little girl, a little boy, a lover active and passive. Suddenly she was throwing out a power-of-example lifeline. Not only was she an outsider, she was also, so it seemed, an outlaw, on the margins, where I felt I was too.

and

She was well aware that she was putting herself outside the range of normality. But I never had the impression that she yearned to be inside it. Just the opposite. When once asked whether she didn’t miss going out, seeing friends, living the life everyone else lived, she answered, “I never thought of conceiving that I could ever have the slightest approach to such a want in all future time.” Then she added, “I feel that I have not expressed myself strongly enough.”

I’ve mentioned before that my poetry reading is as close as I get to wrestling, and that I find Dickinson especially difficult. Carter has made me dig out my little volume and have another go, with a more open mind.

A wonderful piece.