Poetry. Hole by Nancy Iannucci. Image: the word 'hole' with the letter 'o' entirely blacked out.

Hole

What would Emily say

if she could see

the movie adaptations of

Wuthering Heights?

Would she think

Hardy was the proper

Heathcliff, more so

than Fiennes or

Dalton? Would she

accept Emma Mackey’s

portrayal of her in

Emily? I wonder what

she would think of Kate

Bush yowling on the

moors in a red dress.

What would she do if

she knew that one of

her poems was read at

Emily Dickinson’s

funeral, but that her

dog was named Carlo in

homage to her sister’s

novel? Would she care

if we knew Ellis Bell was

bullshit? Would she tell

Harold Bloom to fuck

off, he’s nowhere near

what I was thinking?

Nowhere near!

She had a temper.

What advice would she

give writers? Emily

Brontë On Writing.

Chapter 1: Let your

thoughts pour out

wild and selfishly!

Oh, and exercise helps

tremendously. Walking

around your writing table

a few times will do the

trick. I tend to lose

my way around the

table like Cathy on the

moors. It gets ever so

dark, wind howling, I

can’t think, and in that

moment, I open Emily,

and like a rope, her

little ice-cold hand pulls

me out of this hole.

Nancy Byrne Iannucci

Nancy Byrne Iannucci lives in Troy, New York with her two cats, Nash and Emily Dickinson.

 

Nancy is published widely in poetry journals, and she is the author of three chapbooks: Temptation of Wood (Nixes Mate Review, 2018), Goblin Fruit (Impspired, 2021), and Primitive Prayer (Plan B Press, fall 2022).

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