Hope Is the Thing That Sorta Like Has Feathers, You Know?

This is Human Rights Day, saith the U.N., not that anyone else is paying attention. This is the kid at Holiday Island High who gets beaten up a lot.

It is also the 178th anniversary of Emily Dickinson's birthday. One of my favorite poems of hers stands up very well in present day arguments over science and religion, over which there should not be any argument at all, but you know how people are.

At right we have a marvelous image from MTV showing Daria as Emily Dickinson, with Emily's sister Hortense ("Is that Hortense?" "She does look a little nervous."), on a country walk in medieval Massachusetts or England or somewhere. Emily and Hortense used to go out into the country on picnics, and because this was before iPods were invented Emily would bring some poems to read aloud, which Hortense would then wad up and throw away. Hortense eventually disappeared on one of these walks, and Emily claimed her sister had been carried away by Indians, though none lived in their neighborhood, which was gated. Emily was left to finish writing her poetry undisturbed and become famous, or rather she would have except she was a woman and no one listened to her back then. We carry on that excellent tradition by not listening to her today.

This has been your History of Literature Minute.