Wlid Nights!

Gustavo Quintero
English 48B
January 11, 2007
Journal #3 Dickinson


Quote:
"Rowing in Eden-
Ah- the Sea!
Might I moor-tonight-
In thee!"(Dickinson 82)


Summary:
Dickinson is describing the intimate night that she and another woman had.


Response:
Dickinson sure had a wild night judging by the poem that she writes. In class we went over several ways that the poem could be interpreted but one sticks out clearly in my mind. I just find to much proof to read the poem as any other way but about a wild night of passionate lesbian love. The way she starts off the poem for me is a big tip off, "Wild nights-Wild nights!", this suggests that they had deeply passionate sex for the whole night. Dickinson goes on to explain that these wild nights are a luxury. She is by no means a nymphomaniac but rather a person who is deeply in love with her partner. This says a lot about Dickinson as a person because she puts extra value and emphasis on love and love making by treating it as a luxury. As most of us know luxuries are often expensive, rare and precious. Therefore we must make the most out of the luxury so that we can get the most satisfaction from it. In Dickinson's case her luxury comes on the form of a woman. The last stanza acts as further proof that this poem is about a night of sex. The first line of the third stanza describes the love making as being from Eden. Eden is where Adam and Eve stayed after they were created but Eden can also be a place of pure happiness and bliss. What more blissful feeling than the bliss of passionate love. "Ah- the Sea!", is the rush and waves of orgasm's that Dickinson experiences. Furthermore Dickinson even says how she wants to be "in thee" surely a woman cannot be in a man, but what about a woman? After giving the other interpretations of this poem some thought I just can not help but to feel that this poem is not about the act of love-making. What strikes me as most incredible is just how classy and unimposing Dickinson puts her experience into words. There is nothing filthy or raunchy in this poem rather it is beautiful and full of life.