Poetry Picnic Week 9 : Longing, Loss, Loosing and Failure

My friends, I am Shashi and the host for the 9th week of creativity and enjoyment at The Gooseberry Garden for Poetry Picnic WK 9. This is going to be my last week of hosting and I am sure, next week you will have someone far better than me to host this Picnic at Gooseberry Garden.

It was great week to really read most of the posting’s this time as I was able to take out time to do that. And what I realized is that we have great talent among our selves... and I must congratulate all of you. This week is again going to be very great as we are going to talk about and share an interesting topic i.e. ‘Longing, Loss, Loosing and failure’

But before that let me tell you what we are going to do next week...

Well next week will be choice of the new host to decide about the topic so I will leave it open, may be if I can suggest, how about “Nature: Forest, Rivers & Mountains”

Now coming back to our topic this week....

POETRY PICNIC WK 9: Longing, Loss, Loosing and Failures

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

As early as 1891, William Dean Howells wrote that "If nothing else had come out of our life but this strange poetry, we should feel that in the work of Emily Dickinson, America, or New England rather, had made a distinctive addition to the literature of the world, and could not be left out of any record of it"

EXULTATION IS THE GOING
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Exultation is the going
Of an inland soul to sea,
Past the houses -- past the headlands --
Into deep Eternity --

Bred as we, among the mountains,
Can the sailor understand
The divine intoxication
Of the first league out from land?
___________________________
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson
(December 10, 1830 – May 15, 1886)

Emily was an American poet. Born in Amherst, Massachusetts, to a successful family with strong community ties, she lived a mostly introverted and reclusive life. Thought of as an eccentric by the locals, she became known for her penchant for white clothing and her reluctance to greet guests or, later in life, even leave her room. Most of her friendships were therefore carried out by correspondence.

Seeking literary guidance that no one close to her could provide, Dickinson sent Thomas Wentworth Higginson a letter in 1862 which read in full...

"Mr Higginson, Are you too deeply occupied to say if my Verse is alive? The Mind is so near itself – it cannot see, distinctly – and I have none to ask – Should you think it breathed – and had you the leisure to tell me, I should feel quick gratitude – If I make the mistake – that you dared to tell me – would give me sincerer honor – toward you – I enclose my name – asking you, if you please – Sir – to tell me what is true?
That you will not betray me – it is needless to ask – since Honor is it's [sic] own pawn –"

Dickinson valued his advice, going from calling him "Mr. Higginson" to "Dear friend" as well as signing her letters, "Your Gnome" and "Your Scholar". His interest in her work certainly provided great moral support; many years later, Dickinson told Higginson that he had saved her life in 1862.
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Text and Image source :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_Dickinson

Alfred, Lord Tennyson's Maud: A mono drama was written in July 1855 and reviewers were alarmed by the hysteria and morbidity of central character that they sneeringly called it Mad or Mud. But it was a huge financial success.

One evening after publication of Maud, while staying with Brownings, Tennyson drank TWO bottles of port and became disconsolate about the poem's critical reception and his virtual neglect before 1842. In a bid to distract him, Elizabeth Browning, urged him to read Maud aloud to them, which he happily obliged with tremendous vigor and tears running down his cheeks...

FROM MAUD
Part 1 Section XI
__________________
O let the solid ground
Not fail beneath my feet
Before my life has found
What some have found so sweet;
Then let come what come may,
What matter if I go mad,
I shall have had my day.


Let the sweet heavens endure,
Not close and darken above me
Before I am quite sure
That there is one to love me;
Then let come what come may
To a life that has been so sad,
I shall have had my day.
______________________
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
(Aug 6, 1809 - Oct 6, 1892)

ॐ नमः शिवाय
Om Namah Shivaya

Thanks for joining us to support poetry, poetry promotion, and poetry sharing here at The Gooseberry Garden Monday Poetry Picnic!!!

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Weekly poetry collection starts on Sunday, 8pm (CDT), and will stay open till Wednesday, 8pm (CDT), 72 hours for you to share your poetry with us...

Please share your poetry, comment below and read some very talented artists and have fun! 

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Shashi 
ॐ नमः शिवाय
Om Namah Shivaya