Feb 4th assignment: Response to Poetics reading.

It’s never before occurred to me to connect Gertrude Stein with Emily Dickinson.  While I am not an expert on either, I am still familiar with both, and have read a few pieces from each one.  That said, I am really only familiar with a few of Emily Dickinson’s more popular poems, and I don’t have very much information on what other kinds of writing she did aside from those.  As for Gertrude Stein, I must admit I am not really a fan of her work, and so my exposure to it is rather limited in scope.  However, the texts of hers that I have read were analyzed in depth, so I have always felt like I had a decent idea of what she was about.

Apparently though, the two have a lot more in common than I had originally thought they did.  Reading Susan Howe's My Emily Dickinson revealed a lot of information about her that I did not already know about.  I find it incredibly interesting that she was able to accomplish so much towards exploring the difficulties of the writing of her time, yet this is a very unknown facet to her writing.  I really look forward to learning more.