Okay, so, I gotta tell you about this little project I’ve been messing around with – the “Dickinson Suspension.” Sounds fancy, huh? It’s really not, but it’s been a fun ride.
It all started when I was reading some poems by Emily Dickinson. You know, that poet lady who wrote a ton of poems? I was just flipping through pages, and got this weird idea that I couldn’t shake off. I had no idea what I was doing, but I was like, “Let’s do this!”
First off, I grabbed all the Dickinson poems I could find. Printed them out, even. Yeah, I like the feel of paper, sue me. I started to read them, again and again. And then I started to ask myself some questions. Like, what was Emily really saying here? What’s the deal with all these dashes?
Then I did something a bit crazy. I started cutting up the poems. No, really, I took scissors and cut out lines, phrases, even single words. I put them in a big pile. It looked like a word salad, honestly.
Here’s how I messed around with them:
- Reading and Re-reading: I read every poem a bunch of times. Sometimes out loud, sometimes in my head.
- Question Time: I started jotting down questions about the poems. Like, “Why so much about death, Emily?” or “What’s with the weird punctuation?”
- The Big Cut-Up: This was the fun part. I cut up the poems into pieces and mixed them around.
- New Poems?: I started putting the pieces back together in new ways. Total chaos, but also kinda cool.
The goal? I don’t even know. Maybe to see the poems in a new light? To understand Dickinson’s style better? Or maybe just to do something weird and creative. I’m still not entirely sure. I even tried to make some sense of it, putting the pieces back together to form new, strange poems. Some of it was gibberish, but some of it was surprisingly… poetic. I was like, “Whoa, maybe I’m onto something here.”
I kept at it for weeks. My desk was a mess of paper scraps and scribbled notes. My family thought I was losing it, and maybe I was. But it was fun, in a weird, obsessive kind of way.
So, what did I achieve with my “Dickinson Suspension” experiment? Honestly, not much. I didn’t write a groundbreaking thesis or anything. But I did get a new appreciation for Dickinson’s work. And I learned that sometimes, it’s okay to just mess around and see what happens. You might surprise yourself.
Would I recommend this to others? Maybe not. It was a lot of work, and kind of frustrating at times. But if you’re into poetry and you’re not afraid to get a little weird, give it a shot. Who knows what you’ll discover?
Anyway, that’s my story. It’s not as wild as getting kicked out of my job during a pandemic, but it’s my little adventure. And that’s all for now. Gotta go sort through some more paper scraps. Peace out!
