tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4029797379711350813.post1055988982443296323..comments2024-03-28T18:48:28.471-07:00Comments on the prowling Bee: It will be Summer—eventuallySusan Kornfeldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05384011972647144453noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4029797379711350813.post-83785512676912690452024-03-07T12:41:38.207-08:002024-03-07T12:41:38.207-08:00Because I can't quite get enough of ED, I own ...Because I can't quite get enough of ED, I own a shelf's-worth of books about her life and work. But the Prowling Bee remains my favorite resource. Seriously! So, at the risk of seeming a nitpicky ingrate, in the 2nd stanza, 3rd line, the word "thro" should be "tho." Because I trust the Prowling Bee, I checked this fact against the ED archive. https://www.edickinson.org/editions/1/image_sets/12174568Ira Faderhttp://wowofpoetry.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4029797379711350813.post-67573119583935237402023-07-06T14:34:53.293-07:002023-07-06T14:34:53.293-07:00Franklin dates ‘It will be Summer’ “about 1862” bu...Franklin dates ‘It will be Summer’ “about 1862” but also says ED sent Bowles a few lines “about early 1862”. The poem’s first 18 lines feel quotidian, mere warm-ups for Lines 19-20 where she posits priests might “adjust the symbols / when sacrament is done”. For ED to suggest "adjusting religious symbols" should be heresy for good Christians, but it happened; south of the Mason-Dixon Line ministers justified slavery with the Biblical “Curse of Ham” (Wikipedia):<br /><br />“The explanation that black Africans, as the "sons of Ham", were cursed, possibly "blackened" by their sins, was sporadically advanced during the Middle Ages, but its acceptance became increasingly common during the slave trade of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The justification of slavery itself through the sins of Ham was well suited to the ideological interests of the elite; with the emergence of the slave trade, its racialized version justified the exploitation of African labor.” <br /><br />Even north of the Mason-Dixon Line, fear of alienating deep pockets in their congregations led ministers to tiptoe carefully around the Curse of Ham, especially at large conservative churches like Arch Street Presbyterian in Philadelphia, home base for Charles Wadsworth, 1850-1862. It wouldn’t surprise if a religious skeptic like ED raised this topic in correspondence and enclosed ‘It will be Summer’ as a teaser.<br />Larry Bhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02810899482852120751noreply@blogger.com