Emily Dickinson and N

Emily Dickinson: "… to N's I had an
especial aversion, as they
always seemed
unfinished M's."

A world of the
unfinished
next to the finished. A
world, for

her, alive and
emotional, full of
seeming, all the way
down

to where a letter is never
fulfilled
no matter where
it appears.

A Speck of Suspense, or, The Fate of a Particular K

Few people read a poem for the
what next, what next sense of
suspense. For example, to find out

what will happen to the sound of a
particular letter as it journeys
through the poem. The suspense of

hearing, say, the fate of a k
that started as captain
(k at the steering wheel)

and was rebuked, then kicked
by cruel kismet, and knuckle-
headed knaves, onto the deck, onto a k's

knees

then made to walk the
plank
to the concluding kerplunk

 

Copyright © John Levy, 2004.