The Luniferous Gazette #9: What Emily Knew About Pearls

 In Pursuit of Ink "Gem-Tactics"

I must confess that I can only recite three poems off the top of my head, all mercifully short! My first and favorite memorized strand of syllables is Emily Dickinson’s ink gem, “We Play at Paste.” Today, I want to dive into the nitty-gritty luster of Poem 320, and how it’s helped to shape me as a writer. 

This poem is deceptively simple in both structure and subject matter. When read aloud, the sentences slip easily off the tongue like falling water, each em dash a subtle eddy that lilts softly into the next phrase. It took me barely eighteen seconds to recite eight tidy lines whose meaning is open to endless interpretations by the reader.

In the first stanza, the paste pearls, once so satisfying in their allure, are eventually reduced to objects of frustration and shame that are tossed aside in favor of real pearls. Yet in the second stanza, Emily asserts that “gem-tactics” are learned precisely because we’ve practiced with the lesser, imperfect version first, gaining a familiar feel for these spherical “sands.” Now, our hands are capable of tracing a similarity in shape that runs deeper than the mere surface level of a faux pearl—

Perhaps because a true pearl also holds a grit at its core? 

As an English Major, it’s rather expected that I make confident claims while pontificating on literary icons. However, I can’t glimpse into the rolling facets of Emily’s mind and know for certain that she was penning metaphors about such weighty topics as the transition between childhood innocence and adult maturity. Her dust has slept peacefully beyond human questioning in Amherst, Massachusetts for 139 years now, and yet we still try to nacre her thoughts and intents to fit our narratives.

What I can say is that the first time I read this poem, I was instantly drawn to her enigmatic concept of “gem-tactics.” For me, the pearls in her poem shimmer with the essence of revision. They represent the tedious act of plodding, plotting, and pearling my way to story completion. Of constantly rolling a stubborn little grit over in my mind like a ball of paste and pages until I polish it into the rarest of jewels: the finished draft, the final revision—the flawless ink world, an orb entire to itself!

Sometimes, we carry our half-formed pearls with us for years until the nacreous bolt strikes and we know exactly how to layer our dreams just so. I inked this wispy little poetry fragment as a teenager:

Linear time makes a line, and the angels keep singing.

I never wrote the rest of the poem that went with it, but I always carried it in the back pocket of my brain. Decades later, I snapped a picture of the sidewalk during a stroll through my neighborhood. It didn’t occur to me until a while later that I’d finally found it: The missing iridescence that perfectly pearled my fragment:  

Linear time makes a line, and the angels keep singing  . . . 

Other times, the writing process proves far more painstaking and uncertain, and I, too, am left feeling “a fool.” I’ve been scribbling my current work in progress, Agent Regalia, since 2018, and at times I desperately wish to toss my quill and quit—but I can’t. Not with Emily’s wisdom glimmering in the back of my mind. Now, whenever I am mired in the muck of drafting and revisions, I try to remember that I’m not merely “practicing sands.” I’m in my Pearling Era! For even the tiniest mote of an idea holds semi-precious potential and may yet gain luster if we persist in our ink gem-tactics. 

INK of Others:

When Elizabeth and I announced the closure of Young Ravens Literary Review earlier this February, we received a kind farewell email from a frequent contributor whose poetry was always a true pleasure to see pop up in our inbox. Anne Whitehouse also graciously gifted me a copy of her newest poetry collection, Steady. It took me several months to finish it as I lingered over each poem, and I know I will be reading it again! It’s hard to choose a favorite piece from this collection, but I was absolutely hypnotized by the haunting beauty of “Bernadette.” I would like to add my humble review of her gorgeous work:

Praise for Steady:

Anne Whitehouse’s poetry wrestles with the exuberant, lonesome ache of human existence. She lingers over the promise of dormant wildflowers while challenging the edge of “elsewhere” with questions about what may come and how love survives after the last page turns. Her ink traces a clear, indelible line deep into the reader’s heart that gleams “(. . .) like twinkling / light between dark trees at twilight.”

  

-S.E. Page, Co-editor of Young Ravens Literary Review

 

 

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