You Got To Love Dickinson Day

So, last week for Emily Dickinson Day I created a Video Mash-Up, using archival footage set behind music and a reading of Dickinson's poem, My Life Had Stood-A Loaded Gun.

This Poem intrigued me, because the images in the poem were such a mystery to me-- they were both beautiful and violent. I ended up seeing an image of this tormented being, broken, so broken (possibly weakened by his past), that he can no longer trust himself. A loaded gun, but useless, because he does not have any way to release his bottled emotions. He is then picked up by someone or something, and ends up having a purpose; he reacts with actions of power, protecting a moral or a value or some person, because it is the only thing he has. He feels like he can never die, immortally cursed, while everyone, including his owner, dies around him.

So, I wanted to tell the story about the being after everyone has left him. Cursed with memories that scar his mind and always will, memories of his almighty power.The story of this being reminded me of a man with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Possibly in the war, inhaling the high from his own power, but eternally cursed by the death he has created. Returned to a loaded gun.

I ended up seeing an image of this tormented being, broken, so broken (possibly weakened by his past), that he can no longer trust himself. A loaded gun, but useless, because he does not have any way to release his bottled emotions. He is then picked up by someone or something, and ends up having a purpose; he reacts with actions of power, protecting a moral or a value or some person, because it is the only thing he has. He feels like he can never die, immortally cursed, while everyone, including his owner, dies around him.

So, I wanted to tell the story about the being after everyone has left him. Cursed with memories that scar his mind and always will, memories of his almighty power.The story of this being reminded me of a man with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Possibly in the war, inhaling the high from his own power, but eternally cursed by the death he has created. Returned to a loaded gun.