Maybe poems, maybe snippets, still well worth reading. ( )

This book is a triumph, its worth well beyond the $30 listed on Amazon at the time of this writing. It is a treasure of my library very much akin to my Thames & Hudson edition of William Blake: The Complete Illuminated Books. Dickinson's envelope poems and Blake's handmade illuminated poems represent an eternal discourse on the marriage of medium and content. Yet while Blake's process was an arduous task of writing and illustrating backwards (so that his self-invented press would stamp everything in the proper direction!) to produce copies to distribute himself, Dickinson's envelope poems represent a mind bursting with thought and a hand desperate to keep up.

Read the full review here: http://www.chrisviabookreviews.com/2017/09/14/the-gorgeous-nothings-emily-dickin... ( )

The Gorgeous Nothings: Emily Dickinson’s Envelope Poems - Emily Dickinson
4 stars

Much better than nothings. This coffee table book reproduces the actual envelopes, full size photos, front and back. It feels as if you could almost lift the actual paper off the stark white background page. They look fragile, as if they might crumple with a breath of air. Some of the writing seemed almost polished poems. A few were meaningless fragments. Others showed experimentation with word choice and placement. It is fascinating to get such an intimate look into the mind of a genius.

Fascinating and frustrating. Much of the writing was done in soft pencil. The quality of the photography was very good, but I still found it almost impossible to read actual words. Fortunately, each bit of poetic writing is reproduced on the facing page in a lined graphic of the envelope fragment. This was very helpful. But, I don’t understand why, if the actual envelopes were reproduced full size, these transcriptions were so small. I was also disappointed in the academic essays that accompanied the book. They didn’t even begin to answer my questions. The essayist usually assumed readers would possess an academic’s knowledge of Dickinson’s personal history and efemera. I found the tone condescending when factual information was included. I need to find a good biography.

I don’t have an academic’s knowledge of Dickinson. I’ve read and reread her poetry and I’m familiar with the biographical information that is typically included in an anthology. These 52 scraps of reused paper are an amazing window into the obsessive process of a singular genius. (I thought of da Vinci’s notebooks and van Gogh’s frantic paintings.) She had to put words on paper. She must constantly play with their sounds, structure, and meaning. There’s playfulness in her use of the odd shapes of the paper. There’s persistence, and a search for perfection. I envy those well informed academics who get to study the real thing. I was sorry to return the book to the library. ( )

An excellent coffee table book.
Full of gorgeous nothings.
Aesthetically pleasing.
Beautifully cataloged.

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An excellent coffee table book.
Full of gorgeous nothings.
Aesthetically pleasing.
Beautifully cataloged.

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