#AtoZChallenge ‘W’ #NationalPoetryMonth ‘Wild Nights’ by Emily Dickinson #amwriting #poem #NaPoWriMo

This year to celebrate National Poetry Month and to take part in the April A-Z Blogging Challenge, I’ll be posting two poems a day, one written by me and another poem written by one of my favourite poets. The title or first word of the  poem, or the author’s name will begin with the corresponding letter in the Blogging Challenge.

Today I offer you Wild Nights by Emily Dickinson and Wild Nights by Luccia Gray.

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Wild Nights by Emily Dickinson

 

Wild nights! Wild nights! 
Were I with thee, 
Wild nights should be 
Our luxury!

Futile the winds 
To a heart in port, 
Done with the compass, 
Done with the chart.

Rowing in Eden! 
Ah! the sea! 
Might I but moor 
To-night in thee!

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This short and intense, love poem by Emily Dickinson never ceases to astound me. The fact that a solitary and introvert recluse, who may have suffered agoraphobia, wrote such a passionate poem is amazing. Although the poem is allegorical, it is clearly about the poet’s yearning to meet, ‘were I with thee’, and make love ‘wild nights’ with ‘thee’, the person she has given her heart to. She compares meeting this person to ‘rowing in Eden’, and longs to ‘moor tonight in thee’. The experience is never accomplished and remains in the realm of her dreams, which is why she describes ‘wild nights’. Presumably, her desires were never fulfilled, so the contained and repressed sexuality is even more powerful in its tragedy.

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Emily Dickinson is a fascinating and enigmatic poet, read more about her here. From the age of thirty, Emily always wore white, and she was buried in a white casket, wearing a white dress. I was fortunate enough to visit Emily Dickinson’s Homestead some years ago. Her white house dress, exhibited on the top floor landing, just outside her bedroom, is one of the highlights of the museum. The dress impressed me at the time and inspired me to write this poem, which is a reflection on her unfulfilled desires, making use of the imagery in her poem, Wild Nights.

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Wild Nights! By Luccia Gray (After Emily Dickinson)

Wild nights! she cried, 

A tiny, frail figure,

Yearning for love.

Futile winds,

Rocked her boat,

Rowing to Eden,

Dressed in white.

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Wild nights, she cried

As she swayed in the sea,

Neither compass nor chart

Led the way.

Still she craved

Her Nirvana,

Dressed in white.

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Wild nights, she cried,

Her heart reaching its port,

Where she moored at last.

Finally resting,

In her casket,

Far from the sea,

Dressed in white.

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