Amazing

Well, if the tears that fell from my eyes while reading are any indicator to go by, this was an amazing book. I feel a lot of kinship with Emily Brontë. She loved nature so much and found a way to escape hardship and process emotions through venturing into nature and inventing stories and writing poetry. I love that she perpetually seemed to toe the line between joy and sadness, life and death, saving grace and condemnation, hope and calamity. She experienced so much death and loss around her, even in her young life, that it isn’t surprising it’s such a big theme in her work, making her poems memento mori of sorts. It makes me happy (as she died so young) that in her poetry we can see she viewed death as a release of burdens and heaven (or hell) as a new beginning of sorts. It also speaks to the burdens and sadness she herself carried, that even hell seemed like a decent option, at least when she put pen to paper. This of course is a big theme in her novel Wuthering Heights too.

When reading I could picture Emily on top of a hill on the moors, gazing at the stars, pondering her otherness, figuring life out a little. It felt like a blessing to witness her, see my own feelings reflected and have someone so eloquently play with language in a way God intended. That may sound like over the top praise, but I promise this poetry is worthy of all of it. Emily’s poetry is so full of feeling and thought. It’s just very moving if you’re a lover of language and nature and are familiar with fighting battles in your life.

Oh, Emily, how I wish you’d have lived longer than your 30 short years, that we might have more of your poetry! Perhaps in the Heaven you so often spoke of we’ll get more of it!