This is a small poetry club that started as a poetry email exchange between two friends. Our goal is to read a poem everyday, and this blog is one way to help keep us accountable. There is only one valid rule in poetry club: there are no rules in poetry club. Read any poem, in any order, with any or no interactions. You decide. We only suggest you read poetry!
17 Aug: "'Faith' is a fine invention..." by Emily Dickinson
I want more. I like the criticism of men with faith, and the microscope is perfect for the metaphor, but the emergency??? Did people of faith then really turn to faith in times of emergencies over medical advancements like a microscope?
I see the biggest fault in the invention of faith is all the non emergencies that occupy our lives. We miss out a lot more during our day to day lives, and that is the real tragedy. If you believe this is your one and only life, you can't accept faith.
I love the dualistic nature of "faith"(in quotations...assumingly undefined to Miss Dickinson, reader take it as you will!) and microscopes. Faith supposed to be invented and microscopes as more of a Truth- an inverse relationship to normative current culture. Use of italics in the word "see"...so beautiful what she does here....almost purposefully blurs the word that is supposed to help us understand this line. I wonder if this punctuation was her original thought or added after publication? She allows both philosophies to live...one almost in play during day to day life and the microscopes or a different type of objective knowledge to come through. Dickinson is famous for the switch between the two throughout her life.
I love your comment "if you believe this is your one and only life, you can't accept faith"...and I struggled to reread that a few times. I think faith is a funny thing. So many of the Hindus and Buddhists I have met who believe in reincarnation are some of the most faith-filled people I have ever met. They realize that this life as we know it is transitory and thus allows them to have a greater amount of faith within the literal circles and cycles of life. Others, a majority of Christian believers show a different form of faith- faith in a sense of doom...if you don't "BELIEVE" now, you are doomed...but if you believe then the faith shines through. I can't quite understand the two, but I love the feeling of the reincarnated understanding much better.
I want more. I like the criticism of men with faith, and the microscope is perfect for the metaphor, but the emergency??? Did people of faith then really turn to faith in times of emergencies over medical advancements like a microscope?
ReplyDeleteI see the biggest fault in the invention of faith is all the non emergencies that occupy our lives. We miss out a lot more during our day to day lives, and that is the real tragedy. If you believe this is your one and only life, you can't accept faith.
I love the dualistic nature of "faith"(in quotations...assumingly undefined to Miss Dickinson, reader take it as you will!) and microscopes. Faith supposed to be invented and microscopes as more of a Truth- an inverse relationship to normative current culture.
ReplyDeleteUse of italics in the word "see"...so beautiful what she does here....almost purposefully blurs the word that is supposed to help us understand this line. I wonder if this punctuation was her original thought or added after publication?
She allows both philosophies to live...one almost in play during day to day life and the microscopes or a different type of objective knowledge to come through. Dickinson is famous for the switch between the two throughout her life.
I love your comment "if you believe this is your one and only life, you can't accept faith"...and I struggled to reread that a few times. I think faith is a funny thing. So many of the Hindus and Buddhists I have met who believe in reincarnation are some of the most faith-filled people I have ever met. They realize that this life as we know it is transitory and thus allows them to have a greater amount of faith within the literal circles and cycles of life. Others, a majority of Christian believers show a different form of faith- faith in a sense of doom...if you don't "BELIEVE" now, you are doomed...but if you believe then the faith shines through. I can't quite understand the two, but I love the feeling of the reincarnated understanding much better.