While my husband was hogging, I mean using, our shared computer this morning to watch the Olympics (not my thing), I was playfully sharing aloud winter activities I *would* watch. One idea: competitive found poetry. Obvi, not a sport of snooping and prying and not-so-accidentally reading found poems. That would be immediate disqualification!
"It is a ‘wild, melancholy and elevating’ freedom being academically unaffiliated" Yes! And thank you for continuing to take us along as you follow your own point(s) and rabbit holes. Looking forward to your future discussion of EJB's poems (loved Stars).
I despise the Olympics. To a disturbing degree. Oddly...I joyfully watch the Tour de France for the entire month of July--but these weeks of the Olympics are just brutal.
Competitive found poetry: absolute disqualification, indeed! (I am often shuffling around the house muttering "Charlotte, Charlotte, Charlotte," in a "Marcia, Marcia, Marcia" manner when I read virtually *anything* about EJB's eldest sister.
Funny Story: I prefer Jessica (certainly never, *ever* Jessie). I use Jessica Leigh in my online writing and socials because I dare not be confused for the adult film star. Although, come to think of it...
I've been using Jessica Leigh for so long now, perhaps she has retired? I like it though...EJB and JLA...we're both *really* incensed if you find and read our private poetry. And if we are going to publish, we're going to use our middle names. ♡
Wonderful piece - thank you. I am just starting to look at her poems, they are intense and as you say, deeply personal. I am curious about Charlotte prying - as a big sister myself its a dynamic I'm familiar with and only as I have got older, understood the impact on my brother. Would Emily have published do you think, if Charlotte hadn't found her poems?
Interesting question! You know, as an only child, I cannot imagine life-with-siblings. Emily Jane was the five child in a family in which she really ended up being the third child--as her two oldest sisters died at age ten. I always imagine EJB very *alone* but she was close to her sister Anne (they initially wrote the Gondal poems together). When Anne went away it seems she outgrew the Gondal narrative and EJB *never* abandoned it. She was writing a Gondal narrative until she died--it was a continuing story for her and (honestly) I *get* it.
When you think about it, every story (like a number line) can go in both directions infinitely. I think EJB recognized that and could never really conclude her Gondal narrative. Wuthering Heights is inspired by it (I believe) and I sometimes wonder if her next novel, too, would have been a *piece* of the Gondal narrative?
As for her poems...personally, I do not think she would have pursued publication quite in the same way (as she did after Charlotte found them). By copying her poetry into the notebooks it seems as if she might have been finalizing them "for publication," but, I wonder what *she* had in mind exactly?
While my husband was hogging, I mean using, our shared computer this morning to watch the Olympics (not my thing), I was playfully sharing aloud winter activities I *would* watch. One idea: competitive found poetry. Obvi, not a sport of snooping and prying and not-so-accidentally reading found poems. That would be immediate disqualification!
"It is a ‘wild, melancholy and elevating’ freedom being academically unaffiliated" Yes! And thank you for continuing to take us along as you follow your own point(s) and rabbit holes. Looking forward to your future discussion of EJB's poems (loved Stars).
P.S. Do you prefer Jessica or Jessica Leigh?
I despise the Olympics. To a disturbing degree. Oddly...I joyfully watch the Tour de France for the entire month of July--but these weeks of the Olympics are just brutal.
Competitive found poetry: absolute disqualification, indeed! (I am often shuffling around the house muttering "Charlotte, Charlotte, Charlotte," in a "Marcia, Marcia, Marcia" manner when I read virtually *anything* about EJB's eldest sister.
Funny Story: I prefer Jessica (certainly never, *ever* Jessie). I use Jessica Leigh in my online writing and socials because I dare not be confused for the adult film star. Although, come to think of it...
I've been using Jessica Leigh for so long now, perhaps she has retired? I like it though...EJB and JLA...we're both *really* incensed if you find and read our private poetry. And if we are going to publish, we're going to use our middle names. ♡
Happy to follow you down these rabbit holes. They tend to turn up quite interesting things.
Wonderful piece - thank you. I am just starting to look at her poems, they are intense and as you say, deeply personal. I am curious about Charlotte prying - as a big sister myself its a dynamic I'm familiar with and only as I have got older, understood the impact on my brother. Would Emily have published do you think, if Charlotte hadn't found her poems?
Interesting question! You know, as an only child, I cannot imagine life-with-siblings. Emily Jane was the five child in a family in which she really ended up being the third child--as her two oldest sisters died at age ten. I always imagine EJB very *alone* but she was close to her sister Anne (they initially wrote the Gondal poems together). When Anne went away it seems she outgrew the Gondal narrative and EJB *never* abandoned it. She was writing a Gondal narrative until she died--it was a continuing story for her and (honestly) I *get* it.
When you think about it, every story (like a number line) can go in both directions infinitely. I think EJB recognized that and could never really conclude her Gondal narrative. Wuthering Heights is inspired by it (I believe) and I sometimes wonder if her next novel, too, would have been a *piece* of the Gondal narrative?
As for her poems...personally, I do not think she would have pursued publication quite in the same way (as she did after Charlotte found them). By copying her poetry into the notebooks it seems as if she might have been finalizing them "for publication," but, I wonder what *she* had in mind exactly?