Book Review: These Fevered Days

I wish I had what it takes to be a poet. Condensing ideas and images down to the bare bones doesn't come easily for me. Even though I'm a musician, when I attempt rhythm I often create a sing-song sound. I rarely select poetry when looking for things to read. Most of what I've read resulted from literature course requirements. After attempting to write poetry, this book on the "making of Emily Dickinson" stood out to me in the recent acquisition list at my library.

These Fevered Days outlines ten "pivotal moments" that changed Emily Dickinson and propelled some of her writings. She is definitely an interesting character. I had always imagined her seclusion was total. This book clarified times when she left her house, even living in a boarding house for treatment of her eyes when threatened with blindness. This is a perfect book for anyone intrigued by a writer with no desire to see any of her work published. The irony made me laugh. I'm a piss-poor poet passionately pursuing publication while she, a master wordsmith, held her words tightly and refused to release them to the world. I wept when I read that her instructions included burning all of her papers after her death. Thank goodness, her relatives ignored that decree.

So many things I cannot imagine: writing without dating her material, sending some poems to individuals in letters without recording them first for herself, and hearing praise yet fighting for privacy. Even choosing to live such an austere and limited life while her imagination and command of language soared boggles my mind. Some things make me chuckle in recognition: writing on odd scraps of paper and then losing track of those pieces or their importance, keeping some masters of letters sent to others, despising the commotion of guests and callers, and the immensity of fear when faced with failing vision (no reading? no writing? How could one live?). This book was a treat!