PAD Day 22: Reconstructing Emily

 Today's prompts from Write Better Poetry and NaPoWriMo: (1) Write a poem with the title "What _______," and (2) "Find an Emily Dickinson poem – preferably one you’ve never previously read – and take out all the dashes and line breaks. Make it just one big block of prose. Now, rebreak the lines. Add words where you want. Take out some words. Make your own poem out of it!"

I started by looking up all the Emily Dickinson poems beginning with the word "What." (There were fifteen of them in the Wikipedia list I consulted, plus one "Whatever.") I picked one more or less at random which I hadn't already read, which is this one:

215 What is—Paradise 

What is — “Paradise” —
Who live there —
Are they “Farmers” —
Do they “hoe” —
Do they know that this is “Amherst” —
And that I — am coming — too —

Do they wear “new shoes” — in “Eden” —
Is it always pleasant — there —
Won’t they scold us — when we’re homesick —
Or tell God — how cross we are —

You are sure there’s such a person
As “a Father” — in the sky —
So if I get lost — there — ever —
Or do what the Nurse calls “die” —
I shan’t walk the “Jasper” — barefoot —
Ransomed folks — won’t laugh at me —
Maybe — “Eden” a’n’t so lonesome
As New England used to be!

 So I dutifully eliminated the many dashes and line breaks, as the prompt suggested, to create a paragraph, and then began analyzing and dissecting the poem. I took "Paradise" and "Eden" to be synonyms for "Heaven" in this poem - some visualize Heaven as equivalent to the Garden of Eden.       I thought the poem had a certain childlike curiosity to it - the word "Nurse" (an old-fashioned word for "nanny" or "child care provider") was an indicator of the speaker's point of view. (I substituted "Nana" as in "Grandmother.") The poem is rather straightforward and "modern" in its language, but I had to look up the significance of "Jasper" - it is a type of stone that has been used for tombs and such. "Ransomed" in this poem seems to mean "redeemed from sin", as perhaps an angel or saint might be (or perhaps even someone "holier-than-thou.") So that explains some of the changes in my version of the poem. I tried to modernize it a bit more, play up the "child" qualities, and personalize it a little bit in terms of the geography. It also thought a child might be just as likely to say where they live is "boring" as "lonely."  I didn't do much as far as the line breaks were concerned, except to combine a couple of lines and make the poem two lines shorter. It's not a radical rewrite, but I thought it might be more relatable in this day and age.

What Is Heaven?
(after Emily Dickinson)
 
What is Heaven? And who lives there?
Do they give you lots to do?
Do they know that I'm from Cherry Hill,
and that I am coming too?
 
Do they wear new shoes in Heaven?
Is it always sunny there? 
Will they scold me when I'm homesick,
or tell God  that I don't care?
 
Are you sure that there’s a person
called a Father in the sky?
And if I should get lost there,
or like my Nana, "die,"
 
walking barefoot on the tombstones,
will no angels laugh at me?
Maybe Heaven's not so boring
as New Jersey seems to be!