Poem of the Day: ‘Before the ice is in the pools’

Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) remains a favorite of the Sun’s Poem of the Day feature. And why not? The poems are short enough to fit through the window of a morning’s reading, but strong enough to make a pause in the reader’s rush through the news — and rich enough in their braided language to stay within the mind throughout the day.Here in December, we return to Dickinson, with the 1858 poem “Before the ice is in the pools.” It’s a strange, knotty thing. Back in the 1950s, the school of literary interpretation known as the New Criticism insisted on reading poems in themselves, without extraneous elements of interpretation drawn from the author’s biography. After all, if the poem is a genuine work of art, it needs to stand on its own. Over the long years of the decline of that stern school of interpretation, critics have increasingly taken biographical elements — especially, in recent years, the author’s race and gender — as fundamental to the reading of a poem. In the case of “Before the ice is in the pools,” modern critics suggest we need to know that Dickinson had a (lukewarm) admirer whose planned early winter visit is the “Wonder upon wonder” that “Will arrive to me.” And should she wear what she wore as he left before? “Will the frock I wept in / Answer me to wear?”Maybe. But what the New Critics understood is that every turn to biography — Poor Emily, unrequited in love! — is a diminishment of the actual art that a powerful mind produced. The phrase “answers me” is a deep linguistic play on “answer” as “be fitting for” and “answer” as “reply to.” Picked up from the play on “hems” in the third stanza, the image of her frock becomes one of Dickinson’s many profound reflections on time.Before the ice is in the poolsby Emily DickinsonBefore the ice is in the pools, Before the skaters go,Or any cheek at nightfall Is tarnished by the snow,Before the fields have finished, Before the Christmas tree,Wonder upon wonder Will arrive to me!What we touch the hems of On a summer’s day;What is only walking Just a bridge away;That which sings so, speaks so, When there’s no one here, —Will the frock I wept in Answer me to wear?___________________________________________ With “Poem of the Day,” The New York Sun offers a daily portion of verse selected by Joseph Bottum with the help of the North Carolina poet Sally Thomas, the Sun’s associate poetry editor. Tied to the day, or the season, or just individual taste, the poems will be typically drawn from the lesser-known portion of the history of English verse. In the coming months we will be reaching out to contemporary poets for examples of current, primarily formalist work, to show that poetry can still serve as a delight to the ear, an instruction to the mind, and a tonic for the soul.

Poem of the Day: ‘Before the ice is in the pools’

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