Walking a Well-Worn Path Is a Thing with Feathers

I have pages of notes that I thought were so fucking genius comparing the crow that lives inside the zombie's rib cage in It Lasts Forever and Then It's Over by Anne de Marcken and "'Hope' is the thing with feathers—," one of the most famous of Emily Dickinson's poems.

Luckily, before I committed any more of my genius to this potential essay, I remembered that this sounded so familiar to me because my idea was the title of an entire other book—Grief Is the Thing with Feathers by Max Porter—which I read ages ago.

Let's just consider this territory covered. But both of these books are truly excellent and worth your time.

And here is Dickinson's poem, because it's one of her best, especially for These Trying Times, or, as she would have it, on the strangest Sea:

"Hope" is the thing with feathers —
That perches in the soul —
And sings the tune without the words —
And never stops — at all —

And sweetest — in the Gale — is heard —
And sore must be the storm —
That could abash the little Bird —
That kept so many warm —

I've heard it in the chillest land —
And on the strangest Sea —
Yet, never, in Extremity,
It asked a crumb — of Me.

While I have The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson edited by Thomas H. Johnson open, I noticed that in another poem, "Grief is a Mouse," the poet has a lot of ideas about grief, but none of them have feathers. Here she compares grief to a mouse, a thief, a juggler, a gourmand, and someone who would rather be burned in the public square or tortured on the rack "before He'll tell." It's an interesting poem, but not one of her greatest. They can't all be bangers.

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