Swimmer's Dividing Water

Journal No. 7
English 48B
Dr. Scott Lankford
Author I Chose: Emily Dickinson

From Billy Collins' Poem "Taking Off Emily Dickinson's Clothes"

I. "Then the long white dress, a more complicated matter with mother-of-pearl buttons down the back, so tiny and numerous that it takes forever before I can part the fabric like a swimmer's dividing water, and slip inside."

II. Billy Collins is using many similes to illustrate Emily Dickinson's femininity. He describes items that she is wearing as though they are the same delicate items that another very feminine, very sexual woman might possess.

III. As many texts have declared, Emily Dickinson was a highly educated, opinionated, talented woman who most see as a person without much depth to her sexuality. Mr. Collins is attempting to describe the ultimate feminine being as the hidden Emily Dickinson. He describes her clothing, movements, and actions in an almost endearing fashion. He is taking his time with the words and descriptions that he chooses, just as he might if we were watching him seduce her right in front of our eyes. His intended pauses and slow-on-the-tongue phrases make you feel almost drunk with the passion and tenderness. I do realize that this poem is almost tongue-in-cheek, deliberately telling readers and critics that she has more to her than what you first perceive, but I do really feel his careful scrutiny of her buttons in this quote. When Mr. Collins says "I can part the fabric like a swimmer's dividing water, and slip inside," he is conveying both beauty and eroticism at the same time. He is describing his tenderness for her by saying that what she is wearing is as though it were a dividing water. In addition, the parting of something and then "entering" is obviously a very sexual connotation. This is a very effective technique in bringing to light a very different woman than the strong, firecracker, asexual woman that we were led to believe that she was. This is by no means your mother's Emily Dickinson!