Natalie’s Blog

In our H.D. reading for yesterday, “Loss” was the poem that reminded me most of ED.  As I’ve indicated at other times, one of the most prominent qualities I see in ED is her continuous attempt to lure us into her world and, to borrow Prof. Emerson’s words, to get us “to stay a while.”  I don’t generally see H.D. that way, but in the special instance of “Loss,” I did pick up on some of that sentiment.  Besides the titular theme that is easy enough to find in ED’s poetry, I think H.D. does some formal things to engage us in a style similar to ED’s.  The second stanza, first line, “The heavy sea-mist stifles me” uses 3-4 “s” sounds that I think onomatopoetically “stifle” and/or hold back the reader in vocalizing the sounds.  The rest of the stanza is fragmented by a dash at the ends of lines two and three.  I think fragmentation and/or varied manifestations of thought are pretty standard H.D., but can be named as a Dickinson trait too if you think of the variants she included in her manuscripts.  And then of course they both use dashes for distinct purposes.

Another interesting thing I noticed, maybe less clearly like ED, was the beginning of the fifth stanza: “I am glad the tide swept you out, / O beloved,” which I guess is an apostrophe, as she speaks to someone who is not there, but what was interesting to me was that it is the addressee’s absence that in fact sparks the subject matter and title of the poem.  Even if she’s glad the addressee has gone and escaped, she clearly is still holding onto their spiritual presence.  And finally, general mentions of being “hemmed” and “want[ing] you back” also sent me back to ED.  Did anyone else pick up on ED similarities in this poem or others?