#called back

The Grave of American poet Emily Dickenson. She was "called back" on May 15th, 1886.

"Because I could not stop for Death-

He kindly stopped for me-

The Carraige held but Ourselves-

And Immortality"

The grave of poet Emily Dickenson, said to be one of the most important figures in American poetry. Yet when she was "called back" as it says on her grave in 1886, she was unknown.

West Cemetery

Today marks the 139th anniversary of Emily Dickinson’s death.  She died on May 15, 1886 at the age of 55.  The last letter she wrote to her cousins consisted of just two words, “Called Back” – and those two words are etched into her tombstone.

I wrote about that yesterday, HERE.

Interestingly, Mabel Loomis Todd gave Dickinson’s poem “Just lost when I was saved!” the title “Called Back” when she published it in the “Second Series” of the poet’s “Poems” in 1891. 

For information about Dickinson’s death and funeral, check out this page from the Dickinson Museum’s site, HERE.

From that page, “Emily Dickinson was interred in a grave Sue had lined with evergreen boughs, within the family plot enclosed by an iron fence.”  Pictures of the family plot are below.

I also found this travelogue (HERE) written by someone who had visited Amherst – including Dickinson’s gravesite – in 2002, and it makes mention of the plaque on the iron fence dedicated to the “poetess”:  “‘The Dickinson Kinsfolk’ (members of the extended family, as no direct descendants of Squire Dickinson survived beyond 1943) enclosed the plot with an iron fence and affixed the plaque seen at right in 1954.”

Seriously?  Was the term “poetess” being bandied about in the 1950s?  I s’pose so! 

I looked up the usage of the word and – to be honest – I’m not so sure I’m picking up what Google’s putting down here!  LOL.  Here’s what I found – and it suggests that the usage of “poetess” from the 1950s to 2019 declined only slightly?  I mean seriously, who uses the word “poetess" these days?

And just FYI:  Dickinson was writing poetry at that time of peak usage for “poetess” in the chart above. However, she wrote eight poems that included the word “poet,” and not a single one with the word “poetess” – and in the eight poems, she used both feminine and masculine pronouns in regards to the “poet."   Just an observation. 

In closing, here are the opening stanzas to Dickinson’s “This was a Poet” – and surely, the lines describe Dickinson’s gift: 

This was a Poet – It is That Distills amazing sense From Ordinary Meanings – And Attar so immense From the familiar species That perished by the Door – We wonder it was not Ourselves Arrested it – before –

INFO FROM THE EMILY DICKINSON MUSEUM:

Today, we'll be remembering Emily Dickinson on the 139th anniversary of her death.

Here are a few ways you can honor the poet:

Share your favorite poem and tag the Museum on socials.

Plan your visit to the place she called home.

Make a supporting gift in honor of her poetic legacy.

In a remarkable obituary for The Springfield Republican, Susan Dickinson described her sister-in-law’s unique creative gift in these words: “A Damascus blade gleaming and glancing in the sun was her wit. Her swift poetic rapture was like the long glistening note of a bird one hears in the June woods at high noon, but can never see.”

Tomorrow, May 15, 2025, marks the 139th anniversary of Emily Dickinson’s death.  She died on May 15, 1886 at the age of 55.

She wrote her final letter to her cousins Frances and Louise Norcross a few days before her death, and it consisted of just two words,  “Called back.”

Dickinson scholar Thomas Johnson wrote this about her 1886 letter (and mentions an earlier letter from 1885):

“It was in a letter written to the Norcrosses in January 1885 (no. 962) that ED spoke of having read Hugh Conway's Called Back. During the second week in May (1886) she probably came to know that she had but a short time to live. This letter was evidently her last. On the thirteenth she went into a coma. Vinnie sent for Austin and for Dr. Bigelow, who remained with her much of the day. She never regained consciousness, and died about six in the evening, Saturday, 15 May 1886.”

Concerning the novel she mentioned in her 1885 letter, Wikipedia provides this information: " Called Back is an 1883 mystery/romance novel written by Englishman Frederick John Fargus under the pseudonym Hugh Conway."

In the letter to her cousins in 1885, Dickinson said, “Loo asked ‘what books’ we were wooing now - watching like a vulture for Walter Cross's life of his wife. A friend sent me Called Back,. It is a haunting story, and as loved Mr. Bowles used to say, ‘greatly impressive to me.’”

LOL – when I read that letter in full (as well as many others), I wondered if Dickinson had (undiagnosed) ADD.  The letter opens with this, “Had we less to say to those we love, perhaps we should say it oftener, but the attempt comes, then the inundation, then it is all over, as is said of the dead.”

Then she moves to the discussion of  the books, to information about an acquaintance who has died, to some information about someone’s move to Cambridge (with a religious reference), and then on to a call…to work? (i.e. housework?) to end the day?

She then closes the letter with another Dickinsonian  pearl of wisdom:  “That we are permanent temporarily, it is warm to know, though we know no more."

The complete letter from 1885 is HERE. Johnson’s notes on the 1885 letter are HERE.

Of course, her 1886 letter to her cousins consisted of just the two words, Called Back, taken from the title of Conway’s novel, and the two words also appear on the poet’s grave stone.

Called Back (2021) … poems by Emily Dickinson …