Marilyn and Emily Dickinson Inspire Swedish Poet

Marilyn and the 19th century American poet, Emily Dickinson, are the dual inspirations for I tvillingarnas tecken (In the Characters of the Twins), a 2015 collection by Eva-Stina Byggmastar, a Swedish poet living in Finland.

‘She surprises us readers with poems addressed to Marilyn Monroe and Emily Dickinson,’ a review notes. ‘Monroe and Dickinson become trustworthy guides through the wandering of the soul’s landscape – a walk towards acceptance of an honest, more sensitive and more lively self.’ Unfortunately, the book is not available in English.

While on the surface, the two women may appear to be polar opposites (Emily was famously reclusive), Marilyn had more in common with her than meets the eye, as she also wrote poetry and owned a volume of Dickinson’s selected works, as catalogued by Christie’s in 1999.

Thanks to Jerker Bergstrom at Immortal Marilyn

53 Years Ago…

Marilyn by George Barris, July 1962

The world learned of Marilyn’s death on Sunday, August 5th, 1962.

“Her final Summer was it
And yet we guessed it not;
If tenderer industriousness
Pervaded her, we thought

A further force of life
Developed from within,
When Death lit all the shortness up
It made the hurry plain.

We wondered at our blindness
When nothing was to see,
But her Carrara guide-post
At our stupidity,

When duller than our dullness
The busy darling lay,
So busy was she, finishing,
So leisurely were we!”

– Emily Dickinson