Poems

by Emily Dickinson

This is a compilation of poems by Emily Dickinson. Emily Dickinson was virtually unknown during her lifetime, but now is considered one of American's greatest poets of the 19th century. Emily spent most of her life in Amherst where she attended school and lived in her family home. Dickinson has a unique lyric style encompassing the use of hymn meter and ballad form.

Genres: Poetry

96 pages, Paperback

Published September 27, 2007

About the author

Emily Dickinson was an American poet who, despite the fact that less than a dozen of her nearly eighteen hundred poems were published during her lifetime, is widely considered one of the most original and influential poets of the 19th century.

Dickinson was born to a successful family with strong community ties, she lived a mostly introverted and reclusive life. After she studied at the Amherst Academy for seven years in her youth, she spent a short time at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary before returning to her family's house in Amherst. Thought of as an eccentric by the locals, she became known for her penchant for white clothing and her reluctance to greet guests or, later in life, even leave her room. Most of her friendships were therefore carried out by correspondence.

Although Dickinson was a prolific private poet, fewer than a dozen of her nearly eighteen hundred poems were published during her lifetime.The work that was published during her lifetime was usually altered significantly by the publishers to fit the conventional poetic rules of the time. Dickinson's poems are unique for the era in which she wrote; they contain short lines, typically lack titles, and often use slant rhyme as well as unconventional capitalization and punctuation.Many of her poems deal with themes of death and immortality, two recurring topics in letters to her friends.

Although most of her acquaintances were probably aware of Dickinson's writing, it was not until after her death in 1886—when Lavinia, Emily's younger sister, discovered her cache of poems—that the breadth of Dickinson's work became apparent. Her first collection of poetry was published in 1890 by personal acquaintances Thomas Wentworth Higginson and Mabel Loomis Todd, both of whom heavily edited the content.

A complete and mostly unaltered collection of her poetry became available for the first time in 1955 when The Poems of Emily Dickinson was published by scholar Thomas H. Johnson. Despite unfavorable reviews and skepticism of her literary prowess during the late 19th and early 20th century, critics now consider Dickinson to be a major American poet.

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Reviews

[Linda Arnoldus · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favorite poems:

- In A Library
- IX in Love section (“Have you got a brook in your little heart…”)
- A Service of Song
- The Grass
- The Wind
- Setting Sail
- X in Time and Eternity section (“I died for beauty…”)
- Emancipation
- XXXIX in Time and Eternity Section

My favorite quotes:

“Much madness is divinest sense”
—
“To fight aloud is very brave,
But gallanter, I know,
Who charge within the bosom,
The cavalry of woe.”
—
“Oh, sacrament of summer days,
Oh, last communion in the haze,”
—
“There’s a certain slant of light,
On winter afternoons,
That oppresses, like the weight
Of cathedral tunes.”
—
“The smallest housewife in the grass,
Yet take her from the lawn,
And somebody has lost the face
That made existence home!”
—
“No rack can torture me,
My soul’s at liberty
Behind this mortal bone
There knits a bolder one”
—
“Except thyself may be
Thine enemy;
Captivity is consciousness,
So’s liberty.”

My #1 favorite poem from this book:

A Service of Song

“Some keep the Sabbath going to church;
I keep it staying at home,
With a bobolink for a chorister,
And an orchard for a dome.

Some keep the Sabbath in surplice;
I just wear my wings,
And instead of tolling the bell for church,
Our little sexton sings.

God preaches,—a noted clergyman,—
And the sermon is never long;
So instead of going to heaven at last,
I’m going all along!”