Curt, abrupt, call it what you will, Emily Dickinson’s poetry is anything but bland. It is best read alongside one of Pure Cremation’s fliers.
That startling poem beginning ‘Because I could not stop for Death, He kindly stopped for me’ is not only abrupt; it is disturbing. We are reminded of the casual nature of the event we call death. It is random, unaccountable and unavoidable. Whether we like it or not, it is our lot. Whether it comes at a convenient time or not, the timing is not ours.
‘Ah, but’ – somebody will say, ‘that is not altogether true nowadays. We do have a measure of choice.’ True, but the major choice, the choice to have nothing to do with it is not ours. As in so many things, we have only a restricted range of options.
Emily Dickinson found herself in Death’s carriage with one other occupant – Immortality. What he was doing there we don’t know. But we do know that Immortality is beyond our grasp – and we do not care to spend much time thinking about that.
A curious likeness appears when we set Pure Cremation’s prospectus alongside Emily’s poem. Both have a stripped-down approach. Death is reduced to its peremptory nature. It is, to quote PC, fuss-free. It is a move from presence to absence. But whereas PC is bashful and allusive rather than specific, the poem names horrors and faces unpleasantness.
UNRECOGNISED POET
Unrecognised during her lifetime, Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) has become one of the most respected religious poets of the USA. Her poems are puzzling, tantalising musings upon life’s mysteries. She lived a quiet life in Massachusetts, never marrying, though having a distant friendship with an ordained minister, and becoming a recluse in her last days. She was plagued by ill-health. Unlike her life, her poetry is highly combustible and curiously modern.
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