Artistic Language

Artistic Language

Emily Dickinson was an artist with words, creating images with nothing but letters and punctuation. Poetry is often categorized under literature, not visual arts, but the short verse with which Dickinson creates a picture in the reader’s mind should certainly be considered an art. Much like how drawing an image is composed of lines, shades, and final details, Dickinson’s poems are a drawing of her thoughts, but use words, imagery, and punctuation.

The first and arguably most important part of drawing comes with the outlines of the artist’s image. This is the skeleton for the final piece, and sets the scene for the artist’s image, similar to how the first few lines act as a blueprint for a poem. An outline for a drawing could be anything from a set of circles and lines, to a quick sketch that merely puts each part of a drawing into its place. It sets up the rest of the image. This same idea can be found in many of Dickinson’s poems, such as poems 24 (“The way I read a letter’s this”) and 32 (“Hope is the thing with feathers”). Each one has a few lines at the beginning that give the reader an idea of what the main point of the verse will be without giving too much detail. The reader can then infer that, in 24, Dickinson is going to explain how she chooses to read letters, and that, in 32, hope is easily comparable to a bird. The first few lines are the basis for the entire poem, and they structure the piece without incorporating the imagery that the rest of the poem uses.

A more in depth stage of drawing would be the details, or the parts of the drawing that are pulled out of the outline. The details are what refine a drawing and make it unique, and the same could be said for description in poetry. Adding adjectives to a poem and using imagery will draw the reader into the piece and make him or her see how the poem compares with real life, instead of literary life. When in poem 32 Dickinson states, “And sore must be the storm//that could abash the little bird//that kept so many warm,” she is expanding on the kind of storm that could do such a horrid thing to a warm bird. The lines would not have as much power if she had not personified the storm, or even if she had used another word. With help from an adjective, Dickinson shows that not even a normal storm could harm a bird whose goal is to keep others warm, but only an angered or “sore” storm could. Examples of description can be found in many of her other poems, such as poem 359 (“A Bird, came down the Walk”). In this, Dickinson uses different adjectives to give the reader a better feel for the characters or objects in the poem and to enhance her story’s sense of reality. She compares the Bird’s eyes to rapidly moving beads, thus making it easier for the reader to visualize the eyes of the Bird by linking them to something seen in everyday life. Not only does her use of adjectives enrich the weight of the poem, but it links the reader back to real life by connecting him or her to items that they may be able to picture in their mind. However, details are not the final step of drawing just as adjectives do not finish a poem.

The last part and way to finish a black and white drawing is the addition of shading, or the drawn out the lights and darks of the image. In poetry and writing, punctuation brings out the features of a poem that would otherwise go unnoticed similar to how shading can expand a drawing into something 3-dimensional. The punctuation created the final boundaries for the piece as well as create a tempo for the poem. The punctuation in poetry is particularly important because it is a hint as to how the poet wanted the verses to be read and interpreted. Dickinson is especially famous for her use of punctuation, both common (semi colons, commas, and periods) and uncommon (exclamation marks, dashes, and colons) punctuation. She crafts the poems to say different things with the punctuation, much like how shading can create an atmosphere in an illustrated image. In her poem 202 (“‘Faith’ is a fine invention”) she uses exclamation marks at the end of both sentences to show the tone in which the poem should be understood: “‘Faith’ is a fine invention//For Gentlemen who see!//But Microscopes are prudent//In an Emergency!” The two exclamation marks draw attention to the two lines they are used in, showing that they should be read with more vigor or energy. The tone of the poem becomes brighter. But in 32, she used only the common punctuation, showing that the tone throughout the poem is more monotone, with one flowing idea and no times where there is more or less excitement. It is not a dark tone, but it is not as bright as a sentence with an exclamation mark.

Despite poetry and drawing being two independent forms of art, their creative processes are similar, even if each of the three stages has a different name. The outline and first few lines of poetry set the stage for what the piece will explore, the details and description make that topic more appealing and straight-forward, and the shading and punctuation fill out the piece and turn it into something that seems real. In both cases, the creator is left with a finished piece that can be analyzed and interpreted in more ways than one, but still expresses its creator’s purpose from the first step. Even though creativity is amorphous, the stages of creating a piece will always follow the same patterns.