The poet’s message

Oasis

"I wrote a letter to the world which never wrote back to me," writes Emily Dickinson the 19th-century poet in one of her lyrics. Frustration, deprivation, self-pity? —I don’t think it was any of these feelings that prompted Dickinson to pen this poignant line.

Dickinson grew up in Amherst, leading a lonely life in the picturesque University town of America. She remained single, locked down in self-chosen isolation all her life. Like many others of her calling, she believed that silence and solitude were necessary prerequisites for creativity. Dickinson devoted her entire life to the wonderment of Nature and its inexhaustible variety, becoming a keen observer of the change of seasons, of the habits of the most humble of Nature’s creatures, of the worm in the grass and the tiny bird that hopped across the grass with lighthearted steps. Nothing was too small or insignificant for the poet in the scale of God’s creation. The small flower at her feet became an emblem for her of the grandeur of God’s plan. Life and death were the warp and woof of her visionary poetry. Beyond death was the Christian promise of immortality. Rooted in the belief of a life after death, Dickinson‘s faith never faltered. She gave herself fully to the reflections of joy and sorrow, revelling in what she could give rather than what she could receive. Hence the line, I wrote a letter to the world which never wrote back to me. It did not matter at all for the joy was all in the giving. She wrote poem after poem, hundreds of them in total self-discipline, lyrics of the utter simplicity of diction but of profound philosophical depth.

She was hardly recognized as a poet during her lifetime. It was only after her death that fame came to her. What then is the lesson learnt from lives of poets like Dickinson? The fact that humanity has landed itself in this mess can inevitably be traced to man’s greed for more power, more money, more land. Man has forgotten the simple joys of Nature. During the lockdown when machines had fallen silent and the environment was free of pollution we heard stories of people’s innocent experiencing of birdsong and the music of rustling leaves which they had long forgotten.