D articles

Because I could not stop for Death--
He kindly stopped for me--
The Carriage held but just Ourselves--
and ...

Wild nights--wild nights!
Were I with thee,
Wild nights should be
Our ...

Go and catch a falling star,
Get with child a mandrake root,
Tell me where all past years are,
Or who cleft the devil's foot,
Teach me to hear mermaids singing,
Or to keep off envy's stinging,
And find
What wind
Serves to advance an honest ...

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries Japanese arts made a considerable impact on the West. The traditional Japanese esthetic of understatement, subtlety and refinement had great appeal for a generation that was rebelling against romantic excess. Japanese prints influenced impressionist painters, Japanese music influenced impressionist composers, and compact art of the Japanese haiku transformed the thinking of many western poets. Particularly strongly influenced were the Imagists, a group of English and American poets who strove for a highly compressed yet natural kind of poetry. One of the more prominent Imagists was the American Hilda Doolittle, who in her collection Sea Garden published a series of poems about flowers beside the ocean. The result is both longer and more elaborate than a waka or haiku, but strives for the same concentrated attention to simple but beautiful elements of nature. ...

Emily Dickinson wrote a highly idiosyncratic poetry on the joy and pain of existence. Her poetry is compressed, sharp, but sometimes ambiguous. She is exciting because she combines passion with intellectual wit. In "After Great Pain" she refers to nerves sitting like tombs and uses "hour of lead" and "quartz contentment" as metaphors of special awareness of emotional hurt. In "Because I Could not Stop for Death," she personifies death as a kindly gentleman taking a lady for a ride and on their journey they pass the vitality of life en route to eternity.  In "Wild Nights" she displays a desire for love which combines the security of a harbor with the passion of a storm. Moored safely in her love's arms she would have no need for the tools of travel: compass, sailing chart, or winds for the sails. ...