Emily: An Anthology edited by Nicci Mechler

Emily: An Anthology

Nicci Mechler, Ed.

Porkbelly Press, 2015

Limited Edition of 125

40 p.p.

When I heard the anthology’s title, Emily, I was instantly attracted. I wasn’t sure if the collection was an homage to Emily Dickinson, but knowing it was a poetry anthology did spark the thought. I sheepishly asked the editor if there was any connection. That’s the omnipresence of Dickinson in American poetry—just the utterance of her common first name is enough to call her into the room. Emily Dickinson was a woman of many roles—a thoughtful correspondent, a loving sister and daughter, a radical worshipper, and of course, a transformative poet. Since her death, “Emily as myth” has only grown.

On the very first page of this hand-sewn limited edition, readers are called to look at Dickinson differently. Sarah Nichols uses Dickinson’s master letters as source text to beg readers to: “Listen again for the heart in me: / my breath.” Indeed the book brings Emily into the new age, surrounding her with synthesizers, stickers, travel bags, but also sets her against familiarities—her em dash, her natural world, her fascicles. Thus, there is the aura of a Wunderkammer in this book. The “best of” Emily—the lines readers love—even appears, arranged in centos by Robin Turner. And, Emily Dickinson’s presence slows us from the expected narrative, as it always has. This is partly due to the fact that many of the poems are erasures from Dickinson’s lines and letters.

Still, the book rushes to outline the mystery Emily embodies in our minds. The anthology fills in the blank “Emily as _______” in inventive ways. Essentially, readers are presented with “13 Ways of Looking at Emily Dickinson.” Jeremy Pataky sees Emily as void embodied: “You are the form the sky is against.” Hilda Weaver paints Emily as the passive aggressor: “Not even love provides an exit key for this.” Perhaps Emily is the portrait of missed opportunity? E. Kristin Anderson tugs this idea from erasure of a letter to Austin, “I am yesterday, affectionate.” Or does Emily exist only in relationship with readers? “We smile a language / only the two of us understand— / a dialect born from urgency,” Loretta Diane Walker suggests affirmatively. Most of all, Emily is who we perceive her as. Laura Madeline Wiseman reiterates this in her “Emily’s Fairies”: “I can only bring… no society.”

I recommend you add a copy of this anthology to your Dickinson shelf. In addition to the contemporary poets mentioned above, the collection contains electric lyrics from Sonja Johanson, Nicole Tong, Sarah Feldman, and others. This is a book of beauty, carefully crafted within and without. Emily is delicate in its pain, tracing life, death, and influence with great timelessness, like the woman herself.

Buy Emily HERE

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Nicci Mechler is a graduate of Northern Kentucky University (BFA Studio Art, Masters in English). Between research, novel revisions, poetic alchemy, reading, retreats, and caring for roomies, rescue dogs, and rescue kitties, she makes art, edits the literary magazine Sugared Water, and runs Porkbelly Press (a micro press in Cincinnati, OH). She is also the editor and maker of several zines, including the body image zine LMLMB.