As you may have noticed from previous issues of ApisUK I am a great fan of this true genius of an American poet. Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (December 10, 1830 – May 15, 1886) was an American poet. Born in Massachusetts to a successful family with strong community ties, she lived an introverted and reclusive life. Although 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 and many also deal with nature; the bee and the butterfly (both of which she envied for their apparent lives of freedom) also featuring in many of her poems.
Bee! I'm expecting you!
Was saying Yesterday
To Somebody you know
That you were due --
The Frogs got Home last Week --
Are settled, and at work --
Birds, mostly back --
The Clover warm and thick --
You'll get my Letter by
The seventeenth; Reply
Or better, be with me --
Yours, Fly.
Emily Dickinson
If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!
