Emily Dickinson on Anthony Weiner

Amherst College Archives and Special Collections

Today we have a guest column on the now resigned Representative, Anthony Weiner. However, our guest was reluctant to appear on YouTube, but maybe she can be lured out in the future.

Weiner, the G-rated version

Emily Dickinson on Anthony Weiner: The VideoBlog Transcript

Hi I’m Em, Belle of Amherst and all, and I might as well open with the Death thing:

Because I could not stop for Death

As you can plainly see, 

The world wide web has granted Cy-

Ber Immortality.

I need never leave the house

when tweeting is so cool

Short and jerky, to the point,

So why write more when texting rules?

You’d think you could explain yourself in a few words with hyphens and J. But no, I find I have to talk about that media mess and “gotcha” questions. You’d think I gone galavanting to Boston, real busy Not Running for office, in a bus with the Constitution plastered over it. Of course, I’m all over the Constitution and that voting thing. Except I didn’t actually get to vote.  But you can, right now. Vote for the Biggest Cad:

1)      Arnold Schwarzenegger

2)      John Edwards

3)      Jimmy Carter because he only lusted in his heart and not on hackable social media.

Back to me. I need to correct some misapprehensions.

First, that I’m shy. Ha! So OVER that. “The Soul Selects her own Society / Then takes a pill / Xanax! Well shut the door!”

The other—I’m too weird to be published.  And fixated on Death. Come on—weird? That death thing and weird thing, it’s everywhere. It sells That whole Team Edward and Team Jacob – who cares? (Although I’d lean “Edward”—I like a look of Agony, I do.) 

And do I ever even mention zombies! Zombies eating birdies? Zombies eating little flowers and snaking in the grass? Actually, I kinda like that concept. Maybe I AM a zombie, because I keep thinking I heard a fly buzz when I died, or felt a Funeral in my Brain.  Or is it I like brains on little things with feathers, buzzing? Am I buzzed? Inebriate of air am I.

Oh, all that stuff about how I have eye problems and write funny. How I write is pad-perfect. Fits my device exactly—see? Always ahead of my time.

Next, all those complaints about wearing the same dress. I have another, it’s made of meat, but I loaned it to Lady Gaga. Who hasn’t gotten it back to me yet! It will be full of maggot holes—oh, is that the death thing again?

I knew Lady Gaga when she was just “gaga,” nothing. In fact she came up to me and said “I’m nobody! Who are you?/Are you nobody, too?” Then she said she wanted to be public like a frog. I would have told her about my agent, but my agent’s crap—only published about six of my things and they weren’t even the hottest.

And that spinster thing. There was somebody, but I tell you, all you single ladies,

If he liked it then he should have put a ring on it
If he liked it then he shoulda put a ring on it
Don't be mad once you see that he want it
If he liked it then he shoulda put a ring on it

Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh

 By the way, Beyonce, it’s not plagiarism if you’re the one who died first.

But what I really need to address is the Truth, and I won’t be slant about it. My reputation has been shredded, vaporized, dropped from cable. Mention my name and Glenn Beck cries. I know my inner gangsta sometimes raps, “Yo, did that Harebell loose her girdle/ to the Lover Bee.” I said HAREBELL not that other H word that doesn’t begin with an H.

Then the egg that broke the camel’s back, there’s been talk of me and a politician. His having power is a turn-on for, well, him I guess, and I can be hard to pin down, I can be elusive, I’ve  shut the door, turned to stone, a time or two. But when you’re hard to get like I am (the dead thing again), it can be a tease. As I’ve said before, and it’s on record, “success is counted sweetest / by those who ne’er succeed. / To comprehend a nectar / Requires sorest need.” Well, someone’s been sore on me, for sure. Me, I haven’t touched nobody or done nothin’. I’m a poet and I know it, so I’ll explain in verse. "Press release, please" (handed from off camera). "That’s the wrong one." Interns.  It’s like I have dead Interns.

Anyway, here goes:

This is my twitter to the World

That speaks untrue of me

I never twittered Anthony,

Weiner that he be.

His message not platonic,

As any nerd can see

All buffed and puffed and self-besotted.

“No Way” I touch his tree…

Wait, something on my pad. Beyonce unfriended me!