When the mind leaves the brain. Subjectivity outside the writer…

“I taste a liquor never brewed” (214) by Emily Dickinson

I taste a liquor never brewed —

From Tankards scooped in Pearl —

Not all the Vats upon the Rhine

Yield such an Alcohol!

Inebriate of Air — am I —

And Debauchee of Dew —

Reeling — thro endless summer days —

From inns of Molten Blue —

When “Landlords” turn the drunken Bee

Out of the Foxglove’s door —

When Butterflies — renounce their “drams”

I shall but drink the more!

Till Seraphs swing their snowy Hats —

And Saints — to windows run —

To see the little Tippler

Leaning against the — Sun —

Four stanzas conform the poem. The first two express a present moment and the direct actions of the lyric subject, at the same time, we know her state: “I taste a liquor…” and “Inebriate of Air — am I — “ The second two express something in the future or a possibility, (maybe a consequence for coming): “When “Landlords” turn the drunken Bee” and “Till Seraphs swing their snowy Hats — “. So, the poem is divided in two moments. To each moment corresponds a kind of confession. The second part includes a more imaginative images and something close to a fantastic ideas or effects of the inebriation.

It is interesting to consider that the first part uses a technical language of the process for to produce the drink. The description of the process is more or less clear: “From Tankards scooped in Pearl — / Not all the Vats upon the Rhine…” The second part refers to the imagination in working: “When Butterflies — renounce their “drams”… / Till Seraphs swing their snowy Hats — “

The lyric subject says: I´m drinking this, but I will keep drinking till… The vision or the atmosphere starts in one level and goes up to the sky. The nouns that are “flying” are Bee, then Butterfly, Seraphs and Saints. We can compare the inebriation with a metamorphosis of the objects that are been seeing. The meanings of the metaphors are complex but the irony is wonderful. We as a readers think in Saints when the voice sounds “drunk”. The drunk of she is the poetry that she is writing. Poetry then is a kind of intoxication: this liquor.

We can think of the ancient wine rituals. «I take the tankard and call the goddess or the gods». By analogy we may think that the pen is taking in the same way. I’m going to write. Since this moment I’m the poet, drinking words and taking the risk for to speak with the reader. The first statement crate an atmosphere like a state of grace.

This kind of alcohol is not for everyone. «Not all the tongues can taste this». The poem takes the form of growing spiral, round and round to the top. Every ascendant circle is an imaginary place and writing is the center of multiple experiences. The state of inebriation involves the “axis-mundi” of the writing experience. The relationship of the voice of the subject and the world at the first sight looks as a celebration, but the tone changes and derives to a state of uncertainty because the absolute freedom stops the normal statements of the world.

One of the next ascendant circles of the verbal spiral is the memory of the summer time. The space opens its circuits of communication from the earth to the heaven and vice versa. The plenitude of the inebriation is here and now, just at the center of the experiences of language, the open spaces, the only kind of freedom for a woman for to drink and speak without care for the constraints of the cultural vocabulary that built the generic images of the speaker. Thus, the poem creates the “dreams”, all the dreams, including the imaginary dreams of a butterfly. If they stop “I shall but drink no more”.