A Man may make a Remark —

A Man may make a Remark —
In itself — a quiet thing
That may furnish the Fuse unto a Spark
In dormant nature — lain —

Let us deport — with skill —
Let us discourse — with care —
Powder exists in Charcoal —
Before it exists in Fire.

  

     -F913, J952, sheet 10, 1865


Slowly going through Dickinson’s poems feels like being adrift in an endless sea of surprises. Every poem has hidden aesthetic pleasures. Every one has secrets to reveal.

This one begins with one of those small aesthetic pleasures, the way the M and K sounds work together:

A Man may make a Remark —

The M is the softest of syllables, the K is the sharpest. Concentrated together they sound remarkable.

A Man may make a Remark —
In itself — a quiet thing

There is a short story I love by Haruki Murakami called Cream. In this story a boy gives up playing the piano because of a quiet remark:

“When we played that piece together, she gave me a sour look every time I hit a wrong note. She was a better pianist than I was, and I tended to get overly tense, so when the two of us sat side by side and played I bungled a lot of notes. My elbow bumped against hers a few times as well. It wasn’t such a difficult piece, and, moreover, I had the easier part. Each time I blew it, she had this Give me a break expression on her face. And she’d click her tongue—not loudly but loud enough that I could catch it. I can still hear that sound, even now. That sound may even have had something to do with my decision to give up the piano.”

I think that is what Dickinson is getting at here. One very quiet line can change a person’s life for better or worse.

a quiet thing
That may furnish the Fuse unto a Spark
In dormant nature — lain —

If one quiet remark can cause someone to “give up music,” it can also cause them to take it up. The spark that lays dormant in nature can be ignited by others.

My wonderful mother-in-law, Ada George, likes to say about teaching that you can only give students flammable material, but they have to provide the spark. But here Dickinson puts it the other way around. The flammable material is already inside, “in dormant nature — lain —,” and we can help provide the spark.

I love that “lain” set off there in between dashes. It highlights that the dormant spark has been "lain" there, by God or nature or what have you. For better or for worse we have the power to set that powder keg off. So...

Let us deport — with skill —
Let us discourse — with care —

“Deport” as Dickinson uses it here does not carry its contemporary meaning of sending someone out of the country. It means “to behave or comport (oneself) especially in accord with a code.”

The practice of this “skill” is a life-long pursuit. You could say that all of Dickinson’s poetry is an extremely careful discourse. 

The stakes are great. One “wince” as someone sings out of tune can be enough to stop them from ever singing again. One laugh at someone else's dancing, even if the laughter is meant to be in delight, can keep them off the dance floor. On the other hand one quiet remark may also be enough to keep them singing and dancing for life.

As a teacher, parent and friend, I don't think these words could be more meaningful.

Powder exists in Charcoal —
Before it exists in Fire.

Dickinson ends the poem with a tight little aphorism, dense as charcoal. Charcoal is an interesting metaphor because it is made by heating wood in the absence of oxygen. This process allows it to burn hotter, cleaner and with a longer duration than regular wood.

Goals.

      -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

a fascinating history of Charcoal

To my quick ear the Leaves—conferred—

To my quick ear the Leaves—conferred—
The Bushes—they were Bells—
I could not find a Privacy
From Nature's sentinels—

In Cave if I presumed to hide
The Walls—begun to tell—
Creation seemed a mighty Crack—
To make me visible—


    -F912, J891, sheet 10, 1865

There’s a crack in this poem. You can hear it in the very word, which comes at the climax of the poem, not just any crack, but a mighty Crack. It’s a great word. First of all, the word is onomatopoeic. It sounds like what it is, so you feel it in the body. The word has power. It winds up with CCCRRR then sails through AAA and ends on a resounding CKCKCK. I’m exaggerating to make the point felt, but if you say the word out loud, you can feel its power for yourself. Dickinson amps up this power even more by giving us an extra CR in the word “Creation,” which kickstarts the line.

 
Creation seemed a mighty Crack—

There’s also another Crack in this poem; the stanza break. The poem appears as if it has been rent in two. (There are other Dickinson poems that make a similar move, but I can’t currently recall them. If you do, please let me know.)

Like the audible Crack, this visual one serves a purpose. There are no words in that stanza break. There is only the white of the page (the screen), only silence. It reminds me of Leonard Cohen’s line, “There is a crack in everything/ that's how the light gets in." 

Notice that the poem begins with a hint of this mighty climactic "Crack" in the sound of “Quick.” 

To my quick ear the Leaves—conferred—

(See how quick Dickinson’s ear is? She heard the Crack even before it came. It was there in the quick.)

"Leaves" here might be read as the leaves of books. To read the leaves of a book of great poetry, such as Dickinson was attuned to, is to have a quick ear.

But the primary source of imagery here is nature itself, the leaves of the trees. Nature comes alive to speak to Dickinson, to confer to her ear. To confer can mean to exchange ideas, or seek advice, or to formally bestow an honor. All of this do the leaves confer to Emily.

The Bushes—they were Bells—

What a juicy line. How does Dickinson do it? The lines sing, each and every one, just as the landscape does, the very bushes themselves.

I could not find a Privacy
From Nature's sentinels—

The first question here is why would you want privacy from conferring leaves and ringing bushes? It reminds me a little of the line from F597, “The emperor with Rubies pelteth me.” It’s like being protected from being overwhelmed. The idea of these bushes and trees being “sentinels,” watching over the poet, adds a wrinkle too. Why would you want privacy from the thing that is watching out for you? Nature is presented, in this first stanza as wholly good: conferring, ringing, and protecting.

I think “privacy,” in this first stanza at least, is meant to be ironic. There can be no privacy when all of nature rings and sings along with us.

But after that visual Crack between stanzas the tone changes a bit. The need for privacy, the hiding, takes one into the darkness.

In Cave if I presumed to hide
The Walls—begun to tell—

The self wants to hide, puts itself in a cave. But even the cave walls begin to tell. One thinks of Plato’s cave here. (I wonder if Emily did?) Plato’s cave is a metaphor telling us that we can’t know outside reality from within our own mental caves. We can only see shadows on its walls that hint at the truth. In Dickinson’s cave it’s more like the walls themselves are dissolving into light. The “walls began to tell.” Maybe those cave walls are echoing the poet's song back to herself?

The idea of nature “telling” is a revelatory one. We see this idea play out often in Shakespeare. The line "stones have been known to move and trees to speak" is spoken by Macbeth after seeing Banquo's ghost, suggesting to us that nature itself exposes the truth behind his hidden actions.

Creation seemed a mighty Crack—
To make me visible—

This idea of the poet becoming visible in the “crack” is resonant on many levels, though we can start with hearkening back to that Leonard Cohen line: the "visible," the light, gets through the Crack in the stone of the cave. The truth comes through in the very place where there has been violence and injury.

A certain level of irony can be seen in this poem when we know a little about the poet. She was famously reclusive. I think in this poem she may be calling herself out for this tendency. She’s admitting to herself that it is in her vulnerability that she sings as a poet. Her poems are often the result of heart-break.

The tell is also in the scars. This poem is the second one written on “sheet 10” (as Miller numbers them.) If we look at the first poem Dickinson wrote down on that sheet, F911, then we see the result of this crack. It is presented there as a permanent"gash," a "crease" and a "stain."

When you read these two poems together you get a bigger picture. You see the reason for wanting to hide in the first one, whereas this subsequent poem presents the problem with hiding. 

     -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

Yellowbells: Harbingers of Spring

As Frost is best conceived

As Frost is best conceived
By force of its Result —
Affliction is inferred
By subsequent effect —

If when the sun reveal,
The Garden keep the Gash —
If as the Days resume
The wilted countenance

Cannot correct the crease
Or counteract the stain —
Presumption is Vitality
Was somewhere put in twain.


     -F911, J951, Sheet 10, 1865


The Lexicon of this poem is largely in latin. The result is a dry and academically abstract tone. This cold legalistic language seems to be part of the freezing effect of the subject in the poem. Frosty words for a frosty poem.

The wonder is the way she makes these sharp-angled words flow so smoothly within the confines of the common hymn meter.  

This poem is a cold counter-example to the aphorism, “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.” Where there are wilted flowers, there’s been frost. 

This is a gardening metaphor, and it is understood that the frost in question is one that is out of season. It’s one of those late unexpected frosts that destroy the early bloomers. 

Frost is best conceived
By force of its Result —

When we see that plants aren’t making it, we can understand the full import of the reason, we can then  “conceive of the force” of frost.

The metaphor is, I think, meant to tell us that when we see someone who is depressed, who has a “wilted countenance,” drooping like a frost-damaged dahlia, there is a “force” behind it. We didn’t fully understand the strength of this force until we saw the “subsequent” damage.

Affliction is inferred
By subsequent effect —

The garden (and all that word implies) cannot be completely healed. It “keeps the gash.” The wilted countenance (face) of the damaged person cannot correct the crease created by the damage, nor counteract the stain. Gash, crease and stain here are violent words. Notice that they are all both verbs and nouns. When you gash, crease and stain, you are left with a permanent gash, crease and stain. Perhaps Dickinson is alluding to emotional cruelty, but there may be something even worse implied here, a physical effect of violence that far outlasts the emotional intensity of the moment.

Presumption is Vitality
Was somewhere put in twain.

In other words, we presume there is a real reason, some invisible frost, that has caused a person’s Vitality to weaken. The depression is a symptom of real, or perceived, violence. PTSD.

I think of all that icy imagery in Dickinson’s poetry here, like in the famous poem that ends, “As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow –/ First – Chill – then Stupor – then the letting go –.”

I also think of those tragic lines from F841, “Sun—withdrawn to Recognition—/ Furthest shining—done—”

Our actions can effect serious permanent damage upon the growth of others. Have patience with those who are having trouble thriving. Take care of your people and your plants, and take care of yourself. Grow indoors when the temperatures threaten to take a downward spike.


      -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

tips on how to handle a late frost

P.S. Aside from the deft handling of the latinate, there are some other shining moments of Dickinson's craft that are worth noticing in this poem. 

There is the way that the steady iambic tri-meter (3 beats) in the first 10 lines sets up the push into tetrameter (4 beats) in the 11th, creating extra emphasis on that word “Vitality,” and then, the way this tension resolves back to tri-meter in the final line, “Was somewhere put in Twain.” It’s like the breath was held a bit longer at the climax of the poem and then released.

Another impressive moment is in the consonant cluster of C T N and R sounds in “countenance/ Cannot correct the crease/ Or counteract.” 

P.P.S. The subtle use of the word "force" here reminds me of Sylvia Plath's poem, "The Rabbit Catcher" which begins, ominously, with a very Dickinsonian line of iambic tri-meter, replete with a dash, 

It was a place of force—