In a Dark Time … The Eye Begins to See

Having gotten to poem number 1113 in The Complete Poems, I’m beginning to see some differences between what Dickinson seems to have believed and how she’s often presented to the public. The “nun of Amherst,” is quite often presented as supremely confident of her relationship to God and assured of her place in heaven: I [...]

After finally finishing all 1,175 of Emily Dickinson’s poems, I’m still left trying to make sense out of what I read. Too bad I’m no longer interested in formal education because I suspect I could actually have written a PHD thesis on Dickinson’s poems. Joe Duemer’s response to one of my earlier comments on Dickinson’s [...]

I’ve finished reading Emily Dickinson for a while, but I didn’t want to leave without noting what seems to me, though I haven’t seen it mentioned anywhere else, the importance of the “bird” symbol, or motif, in her poetry, and, in particular, the “robin.” The robin first appears in poem number “5:” 5 I [...]