Emily Dickinson is America’s finest poet, said Associate Dean of the Van Andel Graduate School of Government Matthew Mehan during a seminar hosted by Hillsdale in D.C. and Career Services on March 7.

The discussion, “Emily Dickinson and Truth’s Winding Way to Our Hearts: A Discussion of the Poetic Arts of Persuasion,” centered on three of the American poet’s compositions: “Tell all the truth but tell it slant,” “The Brain, within its Groove,” and “The Brain–is wider than the Sky.”

Mehan read each poem, welcomed insights and questions from the group, and offered an analysis of each selection. He said Dickinson’s work and poetic legacy encapsulate the virtues of the American tradition.

“One of the things that I think is most beautiful about Emily Dickinson’s poetry is its particularly American character of both simplicity and good old American friendliness, but in a particular ethical framework,” he said. 

Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massachusetts, on Dec. 10, 1830. Now widely regarded as one of the most influential poets of all time, her work was only recognized after her death in 1886. 

“Her first 10 poems that were published during her lifetime were published anonymously and without her permission,” Mehan said. “She was very private and didn’t like being published.”

Dickinson masterfully used physical symbols to convey philosophical concepts like the law, human dignity, and friendship, Mehan said.

“The art that works with symbols to communicate with sensible and intelligible things is poetry,” he said. “It winds up being absolutely fundamental, and it’s an art of liberty. If you cannot do it, you cannot have shared things that are not merely property.”

The discussion centered on the general themes and connections between the poems, as well as the particular words, punctuation, meters, and poetic devices Dickinson employed.

Mehan said Dickinson understood the power that poetry holds to make a moral claim or suggestion in an artful, enjoyable way.

“Horace says in the ‘Ars Poetica’ that good poetry must delight and instruct,” Mehan said. “In the ‘Tell all the truth but tell it slant,’ she’s pointing the way to poetry as a means by which you might consider a softened approach to the deployment of truth.”

Senior Katrien Langedyk took Mehan’s Continental Literature class during her Washington Hillsdale Internship Program semester, and said she loved the chance to revisit poetry analysis.

“Dr. Mehan is great at illuminating the kernel of our American culture through the study of literature and poetry,” she said. “It was so enjoyable to continue to discuss the tie between literature and citizenship, as we did during his class in D.C.”

Junior Gardner Coates said she enjoyed the discussion and appreciated Mehan’s analysis of Dickinson’s poetry.

“I hadn’t read much of Dickinson’s work before, despite being an English major, and I was struck by how creative her wordplay is,” she said. “The event was a great opportunity to learn from Dr. Mehan again after taking his class on WHIP. He always leads productive discussions, but it was great to discuss Dickinson’s poems with a larger group.”

Mehan argued Dickinson’s thoroughly American poetry has significant implications for the political sphere.

“A proper understanding and study of poetry has implications on communication, friendship, ethics, and politics, particularly for the American character of republican self-government,” he said. “We have to be candid with one another, because we have to continue to make sure we’re helping each other become good citizens and good friends. We pick our representatives, we vote, we sit on juries, and we have to become masters of communication, so that we can ‘tell all the truth but tell it slant’ to one another.” 

Dickinson’s powerful use of the poetic arts provides insight into human nature and community and remains an important perspective in how to achieve political stability and human flourishing, Mehan argued.

“There’s a lot at stake in rediscovering people like Emily Dickinson, our finest poet, in being able to actually achieve these goals,” he said.