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How To Write Poetry Biography

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EMILY DICKINSON - BIOGRAPHY

Emily Dickinson (December 10, 1830 – May 15, 1886) was an American poet. Though very few poems were published before her death in 1886, she is considered one of the great American poets. Though most of her poetry was written in the middle of the 19th century, she has come to be regarded as a predecessor of the Modernist movement in poetry. Her writing, of which critic Thomas Bailey Aldrich wrote, “…was deeply tinged by the mysticism of William Blake, and strongly influenced by the mannerism of Ralph Waldo Emerson,” did not conform to the poetical or grammatical rules of the period. With the advent of Modernist poetry, Emily Dickinson’s status in the poetic canon changed from an eccentric loner who did not understand style to a bold stylist who carved her own path in American poetry.

Born in 1830 in Amherst, Massachusetts where her paternal grandfather, Samuel Dickinson, had been integral in the founding of Amherst College. The family lived in Samuel Dickinson’s household, called “The Homestead.” At the age of nine, Emily moved, with her family, to a house on North Pleasant Street in Amherst. Growing up in an academic family, Emily Dickinson’s father saw that her education was well rounded. Despite his desire that his children receive an education, however, her father was also very strict about the types of literature allowed into the house, Walt Whitman, for example, was not allowed and was considered “inappropriate” by Emily Dickinson’s father. Emily Dickinson developed an independent streak, which evidenced itself in her writing for the rest of her life in response to the literary stifling of her father.

During her teenage years she discovered poetry through the works of William Wordsworth and Ralph Waldo Emerson, having been introduced to both by a lawyer named Benjamin Franklin Newton who had been in the employ of her father. Newton, who died of tuberculosis when Emily Dickinson was still young, encouraged her to continue writing poetry which had great effect on Emily Dickinson.

Calvinist revivals swept the nation during Emily Dickinson’s youth. While she was initially overjoyed to take part in these religious gatherings, she soon found that worshiping in her own home was more satisfying. In a poem written around this time she wrote, “Some keep the Sabbath going to Church – / I keep it, staying at Home.” Her privacy and relationship with God figured heavily into her writing from that point onward.

As a young woman, Emily Dickinson was vibrant and hopeful. She wrote that she hoped to be the, “Belle of Amherst,” at seventeen. As time progressed, however, Emily Dickinson became more and more melancholy, preferring to stay indoors at her family’s home in Amherst. She spent one year away from Amherst at the Mount Holyoke Female Seminary but left abruptly after sending a message to her brother, Austin, to retrieve her “at all events.” Biographers differ on the rationale behind Emily Dickinson's flight from Mount Holyoke. Whatever the reason, it marked the last instance of any prolonged absence from her home in Amherst.

By the age of 20, Emily Dickinson had begun the path to seclusion that would define the rest of her life. The deaths of several friends and mentors had begun weighing heavily on Emily’s mind. The death of Leonard Humphrey, the principal of the Amherst Academy, who had been both a friend and tutor to Emily Dickinson, furthered her depression. She wrote to a friend, “…the hour of evening is sad – it was once my study hour – my master has gone to rest, and the open leaf of the book, and the scholar at school alone, make the tears come, and I cannot brush them away; I would not if I could, for they are the only tribute I can pay the departed Humphrey.”

The year 1855 brought several upheavals into Dickinson’s life. First, she journeyed to visit her father who was a congressman in Washington D.C. and from there to Philadelphia where she met a Presbyterian minister named Charles Wadsworth with whom she would consult regarding her thoughts on life and religion until his death in 1882. That same year, Emily Dickinson's father moved the family back to his father’s home, “The Homestead,” where Emily would live for the rest of her life.

The following year, Emily Dickinson's brother, Austin, married Emily’s longtime friend Susan Huntington Gilbert and purchased the house next to “The Homestead” which he named, “The Evergreens.” Emily and Susan remained lifelong friends and, despite their proximity, Susan was Emily’s favorite correspondent, receiving some three hundred letters from Emily throughout their friendship. Susan, who was also a writer, would, from time to time, offer Emily Dickinson editorial advice and was the recipient of more than two hundred and fifty poems from Emily Dickinson. While initially involved with the social gatherings that took place at “The Evergreens,” Emily Dickinson continued to become more and more reclusive as the 1850s wore on.

As her mother’s health began to fail, Emily Dickinson spent more and more time in the family home. Emily Dickinson’s father, Edward, had a conservatory added to “The Homestead” to facilitate Emily Dickinson’s love of gardening year round. Emily Dickinson also had her own room in which she spent much of her time writing poetry and letters. The conservatory and a quiet place for writing enabled Emily Dickinson to stay busy while remaining close to her ailing mother as she was in constant need of attention.

Withdrawing even further into seclusion, Emily Dickinson began the most productive part of her writing career in 1858, reviewing and rewriting poems she had already written as well as beginning many new poems. From 1858 to 1861 Emily Dickinson also wrote what have come to be called “The Master Letters,” in which she addresses an unknown “Master” with whom scholars have theorized Emily Dickinson had a tumultuous romantic relationship.

In addition to her sister-in-law, Susan, Emily Dickinson also began sending many of her poems to literary critic Thomas Wentworth Higginson whose piece “Letter to a Young Contributor” in The Atlantic Monthly had done much to inspire Emily Dickinson to continue her writing. Higginson served as advisor and editor to Emily Dickinson as well as helping her through some of her darker moments. Emily Dickinson, in 1862, went so far as to tell Higginson that he had, “saved her life.”

Undergoing several painful surgeries in the middle of the 1860s, Emily Dickinson spent several months at a hospital in Boston. These were the last times she left Amherst. Upon her return she retreated further into the seclusion of “The Homestead,” rarely leaving and speaking with visitors through her closed door. She also became known as “the Woman in White,” due to her proclivity for wearing all white on the rare occasion she was seen outside “The Homestead.”

Despite her reclusive nature, Emily Dickinson had several suitors including Otis Phillips Lord, who had worked with her father. Lord and his wife had been frequent visitors to “The Homestead,” and the newly widowed Lord visited Emily Dickinson often. They shared a prolific correspondence, and some scholars speculate that there is evidence that Emily planned to marry Lord, although these plans never came to fruition.

Toward the end of her life, Emily Dickinson began to write less and less poetry. Still a fervent letter writer, she now focused on caring for her ailing mother, tending to her garden and performing household tasks. Several local poets encountered Emily Dickinson’s work at this time and attempted to convince her that she should publish. She declined, however, although several of her poems were published anonymously during this period.

Her garden became her primary focus. Dickinson biographer Judith Farr writes that Emily Dickinson, “was known more widely as a gardener, perhaps, than a poet,” until after her death. She enjoyed being able to travel the world simply by tending to the various strains of flowers and plants, which occupied the conservatory in her household. She also would frequently include a verse with a bunch of flowers sent to a friend, although she speculated that the flowers were enjoyed more highly than the poetry.

The final years of Emily Dickinson’s life were marred by many deaths. Her father passed away suddenly while on a trip to Boston in 1874. Though his funeral was held in “The Homestead,” Emily Dickinson did not attend, opting to remain in her room with the door ajar. Her mother suffered a paralyzing stroke in 1875, which rendered her immobile and in an impaired mental state. Her favorite pastor, Charles Wadsworth, died in 1882 only five months before her mother. Otis Taylor Lord died in 1884 after a prolonged illness, prompting Emily Dickinson to write that Taylor was, “our latest lost.”

The youngest son of her brother Austin took ill and died in 1883, at which point Emily Dickinson wrote, “The Dyings have been too deep for me.” Her health began to decline after the death of her nephew and never returned. Emily Dickinson died on May 15, 1886 of Bright’s disease. After her death her younger sister was tasked with organizing and destroying Emily’s letters. She carried out this task and in doing so discovered seventeen hundred of Emily’s poems, which were subsequently organized and published with the help of Emily’s longtime friend Thomas Wentworth Higginson.

The Death of the Urdu Script

Can Microsoft and Twitter save the dying Urdu nastaliq script from the hegemony of the Western alphabet and an overbearing Arab cousin?

ali eterazali eteraz in Writers on Writing

A few years ago the Swedish store IKEA changed its font from Futura to Verdana and the Futura loyalists, fifty years faithful, created a veritable media storm. But most of us didn’t care, because to us both fonts are very similar.

Now imagine if the Futura loyalists had been faithful for hundreds of years; had produced poets of Shakespeare’s caliber that had written in Futura; and had institutions and schools where the stylish rendering of Futura script was mastered over the course of a lifetime, only to one day be told that not only could they no longer write in Futura, but they had to write in Braggadocio, and if they didn’t like that then they could write in Chinese. Would it be justified for the Futura people to be angry then?

Well, when it comes to the digital world, this exact scenario is playing out for Urdu, a South Asian language spoken by anywhere between 100 — 125 million people in Pakistan and India, and one of Pakistan’s two official languages. Urdu is traditionally written in a Perso-Arabic script called nastaliq, a flowy and ornate and hanging script. But when rendered on the web and on smartphones and the entire gamut of digital devices at our disposal, Urdu is getting depicted in naskh, an angular and rather stodgy script that comes from Arabic. And those that don’t like it can go write in Western letters.

Here’s a visual comparison taken from Wikipedia.

Nastaliq v. Naskh. Courtesy Wikpedia.

Looking at the picture, the discerning eye may immediately realize why naskh trumps nastaliq on digital devices. With its straightness and angularity, naskh is simply easier to code, because unlike nastaliq, it doesn’t move vertically and doesn’t have dots adhering to a strict pattern. And we all know how techies opt for functionality.

Utility being the mother of expansion, naskh is quickly phasing out nastaliq on the web. BBC-Urdu and Urdu Voice of America both use naskh; so does Alarabiya Urdu. And if you want to write an SMS in nastaliq, you must use naskh as well. Same holds true for social media: Facebook, naskh; Twitter, naskh; blogs, naskh.

In fact, naskh is so dominant now, that when the appropriately named D.E.I.T.Y. — The Department of Electronics and Information Technology of the Government of India — released an Urdu keyboard app for Windows and Android, they released twelve naskh fonts and only one nastaliq font.

When I read about that, I was thoroughly deflated. New Delhi, the seat of the Indian government, is one of the long-standing hearts of the Urdu language. It is where Ghalib, the Urdu Shakespeare, was from. And yet there in Delhi, naskh, this pretender font, was in ascension, all because it was easier to code.

Utility had defeated tradition.

It reminded me of a couplet by Ghalib.

Poetry by Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib.

“I can get another if I break it/so a clay cup trumps a grail.”

The ease of naskh hasn’t meant that those who wanted to keep nastaliq in circulation simply gave up. In one of the most fascinating instances of online writing, nastaliq writers started making websites where they used specialized software to produce image files, which were then uploaded to the webpage. One of Pakistan’s leading newspapers, Jang Urdu, is a very good example of how this image-based-writing works. You can’t copy and paste their text. But if you wanted to save some of the text, you could download the image file. This tactic has worked quite well and has spread to the lowest level. Many an Urdu poet on Facebook, rather than typing his ghazal into the status update (because that would mean writing in naskh script), will instead upload an image file in nastaliq. People even e-mail entire books to each other, in individual images.

Constantly uploading image files to communicate maybe romantic (or it can make you feel like a second class digital citizen), but it is not practical. As a result, like the enterprising people Urdu-speakers are, when it comes to the web, most write Urdu in Western transliteration. In other words, entire SMS conversations, to websites, to blogs get written in Western letters. In Roman Urdu, if you wanted to say “Long Live Wikipedia!” you would simply write, “Wikipedia Zindabad!” It just works.

This Romanized Urdu dominates smartphones and Facebook and Twitter. Writing in Roman letters also makes it easier to switch in and out of English. As an example, take a recent Tweet by the human rights activist Sana Saleem: “If you’ve read my tweets, or my work, I hardly ever cuss. Sorry about that, par bus boat hogaya, buss kardo bass.”

To me, as a writer, that is an astonishing piece of text. Not only are we looking at two languages collapsed into one, but the Romanized part is a language that has not yet been formalized; it is literally under construction due to the pressure exerted by the exigencies of the internet. What’s even more interesting about this tweet is that in the Roman Urdu part of the Tweet, Sana is actually making a veiled reference to an anti-terrorist advertisement that was popular on GEO TV, an Urdu language station. In the ad a little boy is yelling at the adults for all their violence, using the words, “bass kardo bass” or “enough is enough.” So by appropriating anti-terrorist tropes to bash the trolls attacking her, Sana is also acting like an ironic translator. And Urdu speakers do this kind of thing constantly. It is pretty remarkable. Sana even rhymed the English and the Roman Urdu.

Obviously, part of the reason that Roman Urdu has taken off is because of the hegemony of the Western alphabet in our world today. The Roman alphabet is darn near universal. Indonesians and Turks recognized this long ago and forcibly converted their alphabet to Roman letters under the hands of enlightened despots. Urdu, however, is being pushed into the same position, except by the hand of Silicon Valley.

The second reason that Urdu-speakers are turning to Roman transliteration is because we — can I use that pronoun? — hate writing and reading in naskh. See the above comparison to Braggadocio in English. It isn’t that you can’t make the letters out; but it is cognitively dissonant and interferes with the essential ease of language. The disinterest in naskh creates a feedback loop to Roman Urdu. And the whole thing is happening in silence.

I admit that as a “Fusion” or “ABCD” — which is what native Pakistanis pejoratively call Americans of Pakistani descent — my obsession with writing on digital devices with nastaliq is extremely unusual. I am not an Urdu writer; I write fiction and non-fiction in English. My canon is Poe, Emerson, Wallace Stevens; not Ghalib, Iqbal, and Faiz. And Urdu is not even my mother tongue. However, what is true is that Urdu is intrinsically connected to the “Pakistan” side of my Pakistani-American identity and I have every intention of fighting for its preservation.

There is also a political dimension for opting for the traditional nastaliq. In short, naskh carries an “Arab” connotation because it is the preferred script for the Arabic language (ironically invented by a Persian). Due to recent geo-politics, such as the enthronement of the Saudi backed Wahhabi dictator Zia ul Haq in 1980's Pakistan, as well as the politicization of the history of Arab imperialism over India, Arab intrusion in South Asian matters is always contested. One of the quickest ways to create an argument among Pakistanis is for one person to say the Arabic “Allah Hafiz” for goodbye instead of the Urdu “Khuda Hafiz.” By fighting for nastaliq in the face of naskh, then, I feel that I am rejecting the cultural Arabization of South Asia.

There is one more reason why nastaliq matters. It is, literally, calligraphy become language. Until recent decades, young boys and girls in Indian and Pakistani schools carried around rectangular wooden board called a takhti. On these, using a bamboo reed pen and an inkwell filled with a little gauze to make the dipping easier, they practiced writing every letter of the Urdu alphabet with painstaking care. Then when the lesson was over they washed the ink off the board and smoothed the surface with a bar of stucco clay and started on the next lesson. I worked on a takhti when I was living in Pakistan. The earthen smell of a freshly washed and resurfaced board haunts me to this day.

And I am not alone in the love of the takhti. The Pakistani-American poet Shadab Zeest Hashmi describes the experience of producing nastaliq on a takhti like this:

Penmanship was a dying art even in my school days, but luckily I learned to use a traditional bamboo pen at home; forming letters of the nastaliq script of Urdu in jet-black ink. Layering the hand held wooden board with white clay paste, drying it in the sun, and writing with a reed pen that needed to be filled every few minutes, was messy and frustrating. As I fumbled with the materials, I began to acknowledge the muscles that are engaged in the physical work of writing. Forming letters became a fascinating study of lines and curves, symmetry and alignment. Soon I began to have a deeper appreciation for the calligraphic pieces hanging in the house. I noticed how well the artists conformed to rules and how gracefully they deviated, playing with form to create visual effects that influenced the meaning of the words. In learning to see patterns and variations, I was learning to extend myself, to make imprints of my inner life onto the outer reality of the page. Words had created visual fields for me—allowing endless possibilities for expressing meaning.