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Billy Collins “Taking off Emily Dickinson’s Clothes”

“Taking Off Emily Dickinson’s Clothes”- Billy Collins

First, her tippet made of tulle,
easily lifted off her shoulders and laid
on the back of a wooden chair.

And her bonnet,
the bow undone with a light forward pull.

Then the long white dress, a more
complicated matter with mother-of-pearl
buttons down the back,
so tiny and numerous that it takes forever
before my hands can part the fabric,
like a swimmer’s dividing water,
and slip inside.

You will want to know
that she was standing
by an open window in an upstairs bedroom,
motionless, a little wide-eyed,
looking out at the orchard below,
the white dress puddled at her feet
on the wide-board, hardwood floor.

The complexity of women’s undergarments
in nineteenth-century America
is not to be waved off,
and I proceeded like a polar explorer
through clips, clasps, and moorings,
catches, straps, and whalebone stays,
sailing toward the iceberg of her nakedness.

Later, I wrote in a notebook
it was like riding a swan into the night,
but, of course, I cannot tell you everything –
the way she closed her eyes to the orchard,
how her hair tumbled free of its pins,
how there were sudden dashes
whenever we spoke.

What I can tell you is
it was terribly quiet in Amherst
that Sabbath afternoon,
nothing but a carriage passing the house,
a fly buzzing in a windowpane.

So I could plainly hear her inhale
when I undid the very top
hook-and-eye fastener of her corset

and I could hear her sigh when finally it was unloosed,
the way some readers sigh when they realize
that Hope has feathers,
that reason is a plank,
that life is a loaded gun
that looks right at you with a yellow eye.

 

For full credit, craft your response as you would a thoroughly developed paragraph. Refer to the RUBRIC for this Forum Post regarding how it will be evaluated!

Include a topic sentence which contains the author and title of the poem or short story, and use specific details and examples as well as two direct quotes/lines from the poem as you develop the central idea and focus within the topic sentence. 

Don't forget to include a Works Cited entry at the end of your response for the lines taken from the poem you use. Refer to the information regarding the correct MLA format for the inclusion of a direct quote if you have questions about this. (250 words minimum/50 pts.)

 

    1. "Taking off Emily Dickinson's Clothes" by Billy Collins: What does Collins suggest about reading poetry in his exploration of Emily Dickinson's clothes? Consider the parallels between "undressing" and learning.
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