I Felt a Cleaving in my Mind

“Poem 315“ by Emily Dickinson (1858?)

An early poem, with different dates attributed to its composition, which reflects the tensions and joys of Poem 937. Here the moment of unexpected and unanticipated emotional wrenching is described not as an ax attack but rather as a scalping from which the soul never recovers. She describes her emotional moment as though delivered by an “ethereal hammer,” the metaphor capturing the sense of an emotional and spiritual moment that nevertheless registers physically. The poem also underscores how desperately alone the poet feels despite the tectonic emotional moment that has left her devastated—the larger universe about her is quite still.

“There Was a Child Went Forth” by Walt Whitman (1855)

Whitman and Dickinson have come to be regarded as the sort of grandfather and grandmother of American poetry, their styles so different (Whitman broad and expansive; Dickinson claustrophobic and introspective), their poetic constructions so unique and so American. Dickinson was familiar with Whitman, although she professed disdain with his uncouth poetic lines, his unapologetically bawdy tone, and his risqué subject matter. But this iconic Whitman poem suggests more of an alignment. Published in the years leading up to Poem 937, the poem suggests the same sort of devastating emotional moment that Dickinson records.