Poem dedicated to my friend Kelly Hale who is forced to study Emily Dickinson

Studying Emily Dickinson, in Her Style

Because I had to take this course
I had to read her verse
Where every poem scans like this
And many are much worse

And Random Words are capitalised
As if people with breath
Like Destiny and Providence
And her best buddy Death.

She spent her life, 'most in her bed
And not shared with another
She scorned the kindly publisher
Who might have been her lover.

Her thoughts turned to philosophy
The kind that gets called high
And that's without the use of drugs
You purchase on the sly.

In other ages she'd have graced
the Reader's Digest or
The local papers (second-placed)
Behind some other bore.

PPH has upon his site,
A comic sketch he wrote
About a similar poetess
And the fans who on her dote.

Though to be fair, I have to add
She's all right by SBJ
He loves to find a poet
Who's so Ripe for Parody.


Simon BJ [Post for 15th May 2009]