Many of the most quoted, and quotable, lines in Emily Dickinson’s poetry are her opening lines. Perhaps no other poet has produced so many memorable first lines to poems in all of their oeuvre. And it’s worth remembering that Dickinson (1830-86), an American poet who lived much of her life […]
‘Success Is Counted Sweetest’ is not as famous as some of Emily Dickinson’s other poems, but she was a prolific poet, and this one is well worth reading. Indeed, it has a peculiar place in Dickinson’s oeuvre, being one of just seven poems which were published during her lifetime. (It’s […]
This is the second version of a poem which Dickinson wrote in two different drafts in 1864. This version opens, ‘The wind begun to rock the Grass’, and describes the chaos that a storm wreaks upon the world. Worth reading for the following two lines alone: ‘The Dust did scoop […]
By Dr Oliver Tearle ‘They shut me up in Prose’, whilst not one of Emily Dickinson’s best-known poems – it certainly isn’t up there with ‘I’m Nobody! Who are you?’, ‘Hope is the thing with feathers’, or ‘A narrow Fellow in the Grass’ – is nevertheless sometimes anthologised, and occasionally […]
‘You cannot put a Fire out’ is a short poem by Emily Dickinson, who wrote many short poems. Like many of her poems, it’s baffling – bordering on the cryptic – so a few words of analysis are necessary to (try to) penetrate the poem’s meaning. You cannot put a […]