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Good books, old friends

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By Kara Kvasnicka

Tuesday, November 29, -0001

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Once I defined reclusive for her, the book's engaging introductory biographical section might well intrigue Lauren. Told from the point of view of Dickinson's sister Lavinia, it relates the essential facts about Dickinson a reader requires before plunging into her poetry. Young readers will not help but want to follow along to see whether Lavinia, in the wake of her sister's recent death, can succeed in unlocking the secrets to Emily's hermit-like existence.

As dramatized by Winter, it was Lavinia who discovered the manuscripts for Dickinson's 1,775, mostly unpublished poems shortly after the poet's death, according to my Oxford Companion to English Literature (Oxford University Press, 1985, fifth edition).

Yes, given her own voracious appetite for life, Lauren would undoubtedly be curious about a woman who "never went anywhere," whom "townsfolk thought … strange."

How could a girl be content to never leave her own house and garden, Lauren would justifiably wonder? Who could possibly prefer reading a dictionary to a storybook? Exactly, "what did Emily find in all those words?"

Lauren would also enjoy Winter's lively illustrations. They, after all, boast several shades of Lauren's favorite color — purple.

Darting quickly between the slender tome's unnumbered pages, Lauren's sharp, young eyes would zero in on all those added extras which lend an endearing cuteness to the overall ladylike loveliness of Winter's paintings.

In the bleak depiction of Lavinia weeping openly over her sister's grave, Lauren would more likely be amused by the mouse at the base of Dickinson's tombstone than saddened by Lavinia's tears.

In Winter's visual interpretation of a verse in which Dickinson imagines "Ships of Purple" on "Seas of Daffodil," Lauren would giggle with sheer delight at the flower blossoms with barely discernible arms, legs and smiling faces.

Lauren may look total askance at Dickinson's claim that "The Mermaids in the Basement/ Came out to look at me …" Nevertheless, she would be utterly captivated by the long-haired mermaid gracing the same page as this preposterous assertion.

In short, my niece would be thoroughly caught up in the book as long as the woman who only wore white dresses remained the center of its attention. But, as soon as winter shifts her narrative focus to that same woman's puzzling poetry, I have a clear vision of Lauren's brows beginning to furrow in bewilderment.

Patient and polite, Lauren might hear me through the first of the 21 Dickinson poems Winter includes in her tribute to an artist who has obviously significantly influenced her own spare wording and quirkily punctuated graphic designs.

But before I could move on to Emily's next "letter to the world," Lauren would have long since determined she had humored her librarian aunt long enough.

Gently prying the book from my hands and stuffing it under a sofa cushion, Lauren would look plaintively at me and ask, "Aunt Kara can I paint your fingernails?"

I would be the last person to blame Lauren for this hypothetical reaction. My first exposure to Dickinson was in my 10th grade American Literature class. Although not quite as literal minded at the age of 16 as my niece is at 9, I had no idea what to make of Dickinson's obscure syntax. I duly read the verses I was assigned having no clue as to what, thematically, they were trying to tell me.

If my teacher said Dickinson was referring to death in a particular instance, I took her word for it. Likewise, if the far-wiser-than-me instructor said an "Arc of White" was the moon, I was not about to raise my hand to argue.

Fearing I would in college have to give intelligent, original and informed readings of Dickinson's murky meditations, I took only one American poetry course. If by luck I received an A in that class, it could not be attributed to any profound observations I made on the baffling woman poet in white.

I do not recall what induced me to buy this book when I chanced on it in a local bookstore three years ago. Consciously, it was probably grudging admiration for both author and publisher's valiant attempt to pique children's interest in a poet whose rhymes most adults cannot unravel.

Subconsciously, it must have been guilt. How arrogant of me to expect Dickinson to lower herself to my level while I made no effort to raise myself to hers.

Whatever the now forgotten impulse that led me to buy this sweet homage "the size of some of the paper on which Emily wrote," I am deeply indebted to it. Set against Winter's apropos images, I can no longer fathom how I could not have seen the exquisite beauty in every line Dickinson penned.

Without consulting the writings of scholars who have devoted their whole lives to deciphering Dickinson, I am sure many of my interpretations of her poems would still fall well shy of the mark. But I no longer need anyone, expert or otherwise, to point me in the right direction of the context for her carefully encoded compositions.

I have enough knowledge and experience of the real world to understand perfectly why someone would choose to live in her own self-made realm apart from it. Although only an amateur scribbler, I know too what it is like to feel as though you speak a separate language for which there is no translation.

And then to be forced to leave your house every day and try to converse, without sounding awkward and stilted, in that vernacular which comes so naturally to everyone else.

That cursed cloak of self-awareness is none the lighter for being invisible.

Perhaps I am a slow learner to only recently be able to declare myself ready to "Judge tenderly" and derive comfort from Dickinson's cryptically-worded, yet plain as day, insights. But, somehow, I cannot help but hope my niece will not be prepared for the poetry portion of Winter's unlikely picture book any sooner than I was.

Kvasnicka, a former East Village Magazine news editor, has been the magazine's contributing editor and research consultant since 1989. She is the librarian at the Genesee District Library's Goodrich Branch.

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