Research Article

Spaces of restorative healing in the poetry of Emily Dickinson, Elizabeth Bishop, and Mary Ruefle

Number: 25 December 21, 2021
  • Carl Jeffrey Boon *
TR EN

Spaces of restorative healing in the poetry of Emily Dickinson, Elizabeth Bishop, and Mary Ruefle

Abstract

Recent scholarship suggests that Emily Dickinson, Elizabeth Bishop, and Mary Ruefle—three giants in the world of poetry who flourished in different centuries—should be more seriously considered as feminist writers that they previously have been. The present work makes a specific case to that effect by examining one poem of each, and argues that the poems offer and inscribe spaces in which readers (especially women readers) might reflect on their own experiences as women and, in doing so, encounter possibilities for emotional healing in a world still dominated by sexist or patriarchal modes of thought. Such readers are able to recognize themselves and their own stories inside the work. Healing becomes possible when that self-recognition is transformed into a sense of self-worth. In this sense, these three poets might be re-evaluated in terms of their contributions to feminist thinking owing to how they created their poems (form), and not merely what the poems say (content). Taken together, form and content in Dickinson’s “I dwell in Possibility,” Bishop’s “In the Waiting Room,” and Ruefle’s “Keeping It Simple” offer spaces for restorative healing. The analyses here are augmented by new looks at old poetic concepts, including self-discovery, memory, nature, and the sublime.

Keywords

References

  1. Bishop, E. (1979). “In the Waiting Room.” The complete poems 1927-1979. Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
  2. https://poets.org/poem/waiting-room......................................................
  3. Dennis, H.M. (2000). "Bishop and the Negative Sublime." In Kelly Lionel (ed.) Poetry and the sense of panic: critical essays on Elizabeth Bishop and John Ashbery. Rodopi.
  4. https://www.modernamericanpoetry.org/criticism/helen-m-dennis-waiting-room.
  5. Dickinson, E. (1999). “I dwell in Possibility” (466). The poems of Emily Dickinson. Harvard University
  6. Press. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/52197/i-dwell-in-possibility-466.
  7. Garland, M. (2020). “The Poetry of Memory.” Iowa Summer Writing Festival, June 2020.
  8. https://iowasummerwritingfestival.org/poetry-memory-0.

Details

Primary Language

English

Subjects

Linguistics

Journal Section

Research Article

Authors

Carl Jeffrey Boon * This is me
0000-0002-4355-8990
Türkiye

Publication Date

December 21, 2021

Submission Date

October 19, 2021

Acceptance Date

December 20, 2021

Published in Issue

Year 2021 Number: 25

APA
Boon, C. J. (2021). Spaces of restorative healing in the poetry of Emily Dickinson, Elizabeth Bishop, and Mary Ruefle. RumeliDE Dil Ve Edebiyat Araştırmaları Dergisi, 25, 1174-1184. https://doi.org/10.29000/rumelide.1039115