Emily Dickinson, "I can wade Grief" (252)

“I can wade Grief… Whole Pools of it… I’m used to that.”

Dickinson's darkly comic opening should rankle us. Really? You can wade grief? We're submerged in it, if not drowning. I've got a Facebook feed filled with friends losing their mothers on or about Mother's Day. The news from Gaza gets ever more grim–here's NPR on what a lack of hospital supplies in a war zone means–and if you want to hear a protestor detail the gravity of what's at stake, play the video below:

I'm tempted to say Dickinson's is the wrong poem for the moment. It's too light for thousand pound bombs striking hospitals, for families facing hunger, or for disasters worsened by climate change. But then she brings into focus a pressing, contemporary problem. What of joy? Can we handle it at all? “The least push of Joy… Breaks up my feet… And I tip — drunken.” She loses control, stepping where and how she shouldn’t, utterly disoriented. “Let no Pebble… smile…’Twas the New Liquor.”

This, I believe, is where we can begin a conversation. I'm in the vicinity of "push of Joy." I should be happier, but I'm not. Certainly not "drunk" with joy. I feel more insecure than Dickinson presents herself, but we share a common concern. It seems neither of us know how to handle happiness.

I can wade Grief (252)
Emily Dickinson

I can wade Grief —
Whole Pools of it —
I'm used to that —
But the least push of Joy
Breaks up my feet —
And I tip — drunken —
Let no Pebble — smile —
'Twas the New Liquor —
That was all!

Power is only Pain —
Stranded, thro' Discipline,
Till Weights — will hang —
Give Balm — to Giants —
And they'll wilt, like Men —
Give Himmaleh —
They'll Carry — Him!

Here’s Dickinson, with a little bit of joy. Something’s gone right or feels right. Immediately, she imagines a pebble laughing as she stumbles.

Maybe Dickinson is as insecure as I am. Many nowadays could say that "the least push of Joy" fails to break their stance. They obtained the $80,000 truck with a custom body kit and luxurious interior. They were accepted at Stanford or the dream job reached out to them. They're dating and actually having fun. How could any of that be disorienting? Happiness, in each of those cases, has guideposts built in. You know where you have to step.

I don't think Dickinson speaks to insecurity because, well, she's drunk on fun. For myself, I have to stop and note in my gratefulness journal that yes, my 2005 Corolla's speakers do work. I have to document happiness as if I'm doing some kind of CYA thing for a bad retail job. None of this is terribly happy. This is happiness as defined by an exercise for a therapy session. Dickinson, on the other hand, has received some smutty letter by a woman who also gardens and weird come-ons are rendered in iambic pentameter. Dickinson's joy is by definition beyond control.

This makes the second stanza that much more interesting. "Power is only Pain"–wait, what happened to drunken joy? Why does Dickinson suddenly sound like the worst coaches we've ever had? I can't help but think she's confessing that joy is not terribly productive for her. I guess you could say that joy/happiness, as an end in itself, forecloses creative possibilities, but that is a bit superficial. Rather, pain contains structure. It presents motivation and accomplishment, ordering them so that discipline is possible. "Stranded, thro' Discipline.... Give Balm – to Giants... And they'll wilt, like Men." In her steroidal rage, Dickinson rejects healing and comfort as weakness.

The comedy of the poem hides a tougher truth. Dickinson may not confess insecurity, but she is saying she needs to identify a difficulty in order to act. That's... not great. If my students ask about adulting, I'll say that there are a few times it does exist, when those of us who are older aren't just big kids making things up. One of those times involves happiness. You know something makes you happy and you can get others on board. In fact, you're motivated to bring others to it and plan on giving options if they don't see it the same way. That's a vision of happiness as communicable, and it takes a discipline internal to joy to get there. That discipline, ironically enough, parallels that of dealing with grief. We grieve knowing things were better and could be better. There are specific goods at stake, not just moving "Himmaleh," i.e. moving mountains because we can.