Emily Writes: Emily Dickinson and Her Poetic Beginnings by Jane Yolen
2020; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 73; Issue: 7 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/bcc.2020.0225
ISSN1558-6766
Autores Tópico(s)Poetry Analysis and Criticism
ResumoReviewed by: Emily Writes: Emily Dickinson and Her Poetic Beginnings by Jane Yolen Elizabeth Bush Yolen, Jane Emily Writes: Emily Dickinson and Her Poetic Beginnings; illus. by Christine Davenier. Ottaviano/Holt, 2020 40p Trade ed. ISBN 978-1-250-12808-9 $18.99 R* 4-8 yrs Three-year-old Emily Dickinson sifts through her father’s trash basket for the perfect scrap, and with a discarded pencil stub composes a poem. No matter that she can neither read nor write yet; she knows what a poem is—words that rhyme—and what her squiggles signify. She reads it to her father, to little response. She reads it to Mrs. Mack, whose family owns and shares the house where the Dickinsons reside, and receives an enthusiastic hearing, a good conversation about her “frog and bog” poem, and a plate of cake. She reads it to her ailing mother, “who makes her feel rainy” but listens politely before shushing her from waking the baby. She reads it to the flowers in the garden that “makes her feel all sunny, like a poet.” Back indoors, she discovers yet another “chance slip” of paper—an envelope—and takes it for a consult to Mrs. Mack. “What rhymes with this?” Mrs. Mack suggests “hope.” Drawing from Dickinson’s adult years and poetry, Yolen reverse engineers a possible scene from a childhood about which little is known in contemplative and lyrical writing. Poems in which the “frog/bog” rhyme and the house-shaped envelope and “hope” appear are included in end matter, along with an extensive note that points to other biographical information from which Yolen’s fictionalized details derive and a bibliography. Davenier’s ink and watercolor illustrations capture a sunny, spirited moppet whose outdoor world is rife with inspiration. This may not pass stern muster as biography, but it winningly portrays a young writer who appreciates approbation but takes genuine, confident delight in her own accomplishment, and it could provide an occasion to rediscover Michael Bedard and Barbara Cooney’s lovely Emily (BCCB 1/93). [End Page 326] Copyright © 2020 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois
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