"I heard a Fly buzz -- when I died"

One last really famous Emily Dickinson poem.  

"I heard a Fly buzz -- when I died"

by Emily Dickinson

I heard a Fly buzz - when I died - 

The Stillness in the Room 

Was like the Stillness in the Air - 

Between the Heaves of Storm - 

The Eyes around - had wrung them dry - 

And Breaths were gathering firm 

For that last Onset - when the King 

Be witnessed - in the Room - 

I willed my Keepsakes - Signed away 

What portion of me be 

Assignable - and then it was 

There interposed a Fly - 

With Blue - uncertain - stumbling Buzz - 

Between the light - and me - 

And then the Windows failed - and then 

I could not see to see -

Discussion Questions:

1.  Analyze this poem!  Why would a poem about death be focused on a fly?

"A narrow Fellow in the Grass"

Emily Dickinson loved gardening and nature.  She wrote a lot about flowers and wild animals, including this poem.  This one is not particularly famous, but I like it, so I'm including it.

"A narrow Fellow in the Grass"

by Emily Dickinson

A narrow Fellow in the Grass 

Occasionally rides - 

You may have met him? Did you not 

His notice instant is - 

The Grass divides as with a Comb, 

A spotted Shaft is seen, 

And then it closes at your Feet 

And opens further on - 

He likes a Boggy Acre - 

A Floor too cool for Corn - 

But when a Boy and Barefoot 

I more than once at Noon 

Have passed I thought a Whip Lash 

Unbraiding in the Sun 

When stooping to secure it 

It wrinkled And was gone - 

Several of Nature’s People 

I know, and they know me 

I feel for them a transport 

Of Cordiality 

But never met this Fellow 

Attended or alone 

Without a tighter Breathing 

And Zero at the Bone.

Discussion Questions:

1.  What is the narrator's attitude toward snakes?  Support with evidence from the text.

2.  What do you think "Zero at the Bone" means?

"'Hope' is the thing with feathers"

This might also be Emily Dickinson's most-famous poem.  I'm not sure whether this or yesterday's poem get quoted and shared more often.

"'Hope' is a thing with feathers"

by Emily Dickinson

“Hope” is the thing with feathers - 

That perches in the soul - 

And sings the tune without the words - 

And never stops - at all - 

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard - 

And sore must be the storm - 

That could abash the little Bird 

That kept so many warm - 

I’ve heard it in the chillest land - 

And on the strangest Sea - 

Yet - never - in Extremity, 

It asked a crumb - of me.

Discussion Questions:

1.  What poetic devices do you find in this poem?

2.  What is Dickinson saying about the nature of hope?

"Because I could not stop for death"

Many of Dickinson's poems had no titles.  Like earlier poems we studied, they are generally referred to by their first lines in lieu of a title.

This is probably her most-famous poem.  It shows up in collections of classic poetry a lot.

"Because I could not stop for death"

by Emily Dickinson

Because I could not stop for Death – 

He kindly stopped for me – 

The Carriage held but just Ourselves – 

And Immortality. 

We slowly drove – He knew no haste 

And I had put away 

My labor and my leisure too, 

For His Civility – 

We passed the School, where Children strove 

At Recess – in the Ring – 

We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain – 

We passed the Setting Sun – 

Or rather – He passed Us – 

The Dews drew quivering and Chill – 

For only Gossamer, my Gown – 

My Tippet – only Tulle – 

We paused before a House that seemed 

A Swelling of the Ground – 

The Roof was scarcely visible – 

The Cornice – in the Ground – 

Since then – 'tis Centuries – and yet 

Feels shorter than the Day 

I first surmised the Horses' Heads 

Were toward Eternity –

Discussion Questions:

1.  Why does she say Death "kindly" stopped for her?  How could death be kind?

2.  What is the "house that seemed a swelling of the ground"?

3.  Why do you think this poem is so popular/famous?

Introducing Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson
(1830-1886)

Emily Dickinson was, by all accounts, eccentric.  

She was born into a prominent Massachusetts family in 1830, and had a pretty typical childhood and teen years for the daughter of a New England lawyer.  She attended a local school as a child, though she missed school periodically because she had a tendency to be sickly.  In her later teens, she went to Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, one of the oldest women's colleges in the US.  She left college after less than a year and returned home, where she grew more and more reclusive.  By the end of her life, she refused to leave her bedroom at all, much less her home.  She also insisted on wearing only white for many years.  She sometimes refused to speak to people face-to-face, but would only talk to them through a closed door.  Definitely eccentric.

Emily Dickinson loved to write poetry -- we have almost 1800 of her poems still today!!!  She often sent poems to family and friends (she was also a prolific letter writer), but only ten of her poems were published while she was still alive.  Her sister Lavinia discovered a huge stash of poems after Emily died in 1886, and a heavily edited collection of them was published by some close friends.

The poems in that first collection were heavily edited because Emily Dickinson did not like to follow popular poetic conventions of the day, and she sometimes also didn't do things like capitalize the first word of a new line.  She loved dashes.  She wrote very short lines.  This seems pretty normal to us now, but at the time, it was new and weird and quirky.

It wasn't until 1955 that a full collection of her un-edited poetry was finally made available to the public. 

Dickinson loved the Romantic poetry of William Wordsworth and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, as well the poetry of her fellow American poet Ralph Waldo Emerson.  Both Emerson and Dickinson are often considered American Romantic poets.  She also loved Shakespeare's writing, and liked Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte so much, she named her dog Carlo after a dog in the book.

The deaths of several close friends when she was a teen and young adult caused Dickinson a lot of distress.  Today, we would probably say she became clinically depressed, though in her time, she was just called "melancholy."  This was part of why she gradually became more and more reclusive.  Her poetry focuses a lot on death, beauty, nature, and sorrow.  

We don't know why Emily Dickinson eventually withdrew so much into herself.  People speculate she may have suffered from agoraphobia (severe anxiety caused by being outside the environment you consider safe, often leading to an inability to leave your home) or from a chronic disease like epilepsy that caused seizures or had embarrassing side effects like tremors.  But that is only speculation.  She died at age 55, in 1886, after suffering for several years from what her physician called Bright's Disease.

It's uncertain if Emily Dickinson was a Christian.  She did attend church as a child, and attended a revival in 1845 that made her briefly quite religiously zealous.  But she did not attend church services as an adult.  Some of her poems have deeply Christian subjects and themes, while others reflect the Transcendentalism philosophy.  Transcendentalism teaches that people are inherently good and can work to transcend the corrupting influences of society and other people and attain true goodness.  It was very popular in New England in the first half of the 1800s -- if it sounds familiar to you, it's probably because Louisa May Alcott and her family were Transcendentalists and she espouses that philosophy in Little Women.

Random fun fact: Taylor Swift is reportedly Emily Dickinson's sixth cousin, three times removed.