Dickinson's System Poem by Nathan Coppedge

The poem was first published on poemhunter. I constructed it around five in the morning, having had trouble going to bed. The topic of the poem is the specific genius of Dickinson. Any concept, such as a quantum leap, can be undone by referring to Dickinson's verse. At least this was her ambition- -and it became her grammar. In some ways the Dickinson we know, or fail to know is an unrealized genius, and a purely potential writer. In other ways her work is the only evidence of startling realizations much beyond the ordinary sense of everything, including genius. In some ways Dickinson's greatest failure is this poem that I wrote in her honor. But it is also the kind of thing that would have inspired her, even if she wrote it herself.