Emily Dickinson

Presentation by Elishka Alberto

Biography

List of Works

Sample Poems

Inspired Poems

Original Poems

Bibliography

BiographyEmily Dickinson- Stealing Poetic Hearts since the First Sentence

"If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can warm me I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only way I know it. Is there any other way (Emily Dickinson Museum)?”

These very words come from the gifted poet herself, Emily Dickinson, who describes poetry as somewhat that you don’t only read, but feel deep inside you. Edward Dickinson and his wife, Emily Norcross, gave birth to their second child, Emily Elizabeth Dickinson, on December 10, 1830 at the family Homestead in Amherst, Massachusetts. Her father was a politician and a lawyer and her mother was a hard-working, religious housewife who endured depression throughout her life. Around 1840, the family moved out of the Homestead where Dickinson’s grandparents had resided and moved into a new home because of her father expanding political career. Dickinson would often keep herself busy by baking and gardening while attending school too. She also did many other activities outside home chores like attending church occasions, reading books, playing music, taking walks, and writing letters. She attended Amherst Academy for seven years before entering Mount Holyoke Female Seminary. But after a year of attending, Dickinson returned home claiming that she was homesick (“Emily Dickinson” Poets.org). She grew up having many female friends but becoming close to seven male friends; one by the name of Benjamin Newton gifted a copy of Emerson Poems.

Biography

List Of Works

Sample Poems

Inspired Poems

Original Poems

Bibliography

Biography (continued)Another male friend of her’s by the name of Henry Vaughn Emmons was one of the few people with whom she shared her earliest poetry. Emily Dickinson died on May 15th, 1886 at the age of 55; it is believed that she died of heart failure and brain hemorrhage (Emily Dickinson Museum).

A powerful period for Dickinson was from 1865 to 1886 where she started her creative writing. Dickinson’s inspiration came from many of the books she read and from the events happening in her life. At a very young age she inquired and questioned about death and immortality with the death of friends and family and the cemetery located next to her which house gave her imagery for her poems (Emily Dickinson Museum). During this period of writing, the Civil War was occurring, which made an overwhelming change in her life. Another inspiration to her came from Benjamin Newton who had gifted her many books that she cherished. After Dickinson’s father purchased the Homestead where she was born, the family moved back into it. There Dickinson’s father gifted a conservatory for her to garden all year. Many of her poems were inspired by the plants she grew. Dickinson was also inspired by her religion. Growing up as a Calvinist, she wrote many poems about God and how grateful she was for what she had. She was very influenced by Lydia Maria Child’s Letters from New York and also by Shakespeare. Her poetry was very secluded and only a few were ever published. The poems that were published while she alive were put as an ‘anonymous’ writer, so she did not receive any awards for them. Today, there are many awards distributed to talented poets are named after her in her honor. Though her education was short, by the age of 35 she had already written more than 1100 poems that canvassed pain, grief, joy, love, nature, and art (Emily Dickinson Museum).

Biography

List Of Works

Sample Poems

Inspired Poems

Original Poems

Bibliography

Biography (continued)

Many of Dickinson’s poems came from the world around her and her personality. Dickinson’s distinct style in her poetry was how she used English hymns and would often disregard rules for grammar. The main thinking behind Dickinson’s poetry came from her feeling about the major events in her life. Some of her ideas were loneliness, inspiration, and happiness that she found in art and the natural world. Through these ideas her poetic devices affected her writing style. One of her styles is the way she uses iambic heptameter, which is a poetic meter that has seven iambic metrical feet per line ( “Iambic Heptameter”). Dickinson also used personification, unexpected rhymes, slant rhymes, and dashes that she used to pause or take a break. Through her poetry Dickinson served as an inspiration to other poets. As an inspiration to other poets, she was only notable after her death. This only happened four years after she had passed away which was when her first book of poetry was published (“Emily Dickinson as Discussed in American Literature”). Since then she has been stealing the hearts of inspired poets. Even though Emily Dickinson’s life was many events, happy or sad, she still managed to bring thought-provoking poetry about life to everyone. With Dickinson’s poetry the reader would know it is true poetry by how cold one’s body feels that no fire can warm it. Emily Dickinson and she embraces it in her writing in no other way a writer does.

Biography

List Of Works

Sample Poems

Inspired Poems

Original Poems

Bibliography

List Of Works• An altered look about the hills• An awful tempest mashed the air • As if some little arctic flower• Come slowly, Eden! • The daisy follows soft the sun • The gentian weaves her fringes • Going to heaven! • Heart, we will forget him!• I bring an unaccustomed wine • If I should die • I had a guinea golden • I have not told my garden yet • I never lost as much but twice • Morns like these we parted• The murmur of a bee• New feet within my garden go • The rose did caper on her cheek • Success is counted sweetest (Most famous)• These are the days when birds come back • What inn is this• Who robbed the woods

– And many more…– Click to read more of Dickinson’s poems

Biography

List Of Works

Sample Poems

Inspired Poems

Original Poems

Bibliography

Heaven Is What I Cannot Reach by Emily Dickinson

Heaven is what I cannot reach! The apple on the tree,

Provided it do hopeless hang, That "heaven" is, to me. 

The color on the cruising cloud, The interdicted ground

Behind the hill, the house behind, -- There Paradise is found!

Analysis of Heaven Is What I Cannot Reach

Biography

List Of Works

Sample Poems

Inspired Poems

Original Poems

Bibliography

Analysis

Analysis of Heaven Is What I Cannot Reach

In Emily Dickinson’s poem, “Heaven Is What I Cannot Reach”, Dickinson uses similes and imagery to help explain what heaven is to her. This poem shows that when loved ones have passed away, it is hard to keep the connection with them, no matter how much we want to. First, she uses similes to help the reader connect to the feeling of this poem. An example of this is at the beginning when she writes, “Heaven is what I cannot reach!/The apple on the tree,/Provided it do hopeless hang,/That ‘heaven’ is, to me.” This quote describes of the difficulty to reach heaven by comparing it to reaching for an apple that is too high. But then, Dickinson uses imagery by stating, “The color on the cruising cloud, / The interdicted ground/ Behind the hill, the house behind,--/ There Paradise is found!” Dickinson shows that heaven looks like a cloud moving through the sky and that even though it cannot be reached so easily, Paradise will be found there one day. Through Emily Dickinson’s similes and imagery, she compares and describes to us that heaven is something that we cannot reach now, but something that we can reach in the future.

Biography

List Of Works

Sample Poems

Inspired Poems

Original Poems

Bibliography

Sample PoemsElizabeth Dickinson’s Success is one of her greatest poems ever written. One of the reasons for why this poem is so recognized is Dickinson’s use of stanza and rhyme. The poem is centered around complicated moral sayings that place high values on success. This can be see just in the first two lines of the poem; where Dickinson sates, “Success is counted sweetest/ By those who ne’er succeed”. This shows that people admire and want things more when they don’t have them. I really enjoyed this poem because its very inspirational and true.

Success by Emily DickinsonSuccess is counted sweetestBy those who ne'er succeed.

To comprehend a nectarRequires sorest need.

Not one of all the purple hostWho took the flag to-dayCan tell the definition ,

So clear, of victory,

As he, defeated, dying, On whose forbidden ear

The distant strains of triumphBreak, agonized and clear.

Biography

List Of Works

Sample Poems

Inspired Poems

Original Poems

Bibliography

Sample PoemsI Cannot Live With You

I cannot live with you, It would be life,And life is over thereBehind the shelfThe sexton keeps the key to,Putting upOur life, his porcelain,Like a cupDiscarded of the housewife,Quaint or broken;A newer Sevres pleases,Old ones crack. I could not die with you,For one must waitTo shut the other's gaze down,--You could not.And I, could I stand byAnd see you freeze,Without my right of frost,Death's privilege?

Nor could I rise with you,Because your faceWould put out Jesus’.That new graceGlow plain and foreignOn my homesick eye,Except that you, than heShone closer by.They’d judge us—how?For you served Heaven, you knowOr sought to;I could not

I Cannot Live With You, by Emily Dickinson is one of the greatest love poems. It closely follows to her inspiration, Shakespeare’s, sonnets. The poem can be separated into many parts but they share the common idea, the impossibility of love. The poem also uses irony by stating, “I Cannot Live With You” shows Emily Dickinson’s way of playing with the love and the human mind.

Biography

List Of Works

Sample Poems

Inspired Poems

Original Poems

Bibliography

Inspired PoemsA Light Exists In Spring by Elizabeth Dickinson

A light exists in spring Not present on the year

At any other period. When March is scarcely here

 A color stands abroad

On solitary hillsThat science cannot overtake,

But human naturefeels. 

It waits upon the lawn; It shows the furthest tree

Upon the furthest slope we know; It almost speaks to me.

 Then, as horizons step, Or noons report away,

Without the formula of sound, It passes, and we stay:

 A quality of loss

Affecting our content,As trade had suddenly encroached

Upon a sacrament. 

Elishka Alberto’s poem inspired by A Light Exists

In Spring

Biography

List Of Works

Sample Poems

Inspired Poems

Original Poems

Bibliography

The Bright of Spring by Elishka Alberto

A light exists in springLike a firefly in the night Not easily turned away

Or scared away by fright.

It gently moves through the grass on creeping toes quiet

Awaking the flowers and crittersWhile staying closely by it

It passes my window in the morningI watch it as I wake

It waves goodbye to meAs it glitters pass the lake

As the sun rises in the sky It retires away

I feel its remorseBut hope to see it another day

Inspired Poems

Biography

List Of Works

Sample Poems

Inspired Poems

Original Poems

Bibliography

Inspired PoemsHope Is the Thing with Feathers by Emily Dickinson 

Hope is the thing with feathersThat 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 stormThat 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.

Elishka Alberto’s poem inspired by Hope is a Thing with Feathers

Biography

List Of Works

Sample Poems

Inspired Poems

Original Poems

Bibliography

Hope is a Hint of Green by Elishka Alberto

Hope is a seedSewn into the caring groundWatered with loving thoughts

With patience to grow in springAnd sprout with courage

Its strength helps it bloom

When its mature to pluckAnd believes it can live on it own

It will bring thoughts to a hopeless person

Inspired Poems

Biography

List Of Works

Sample Poems

Inspired Poems

Original Poems

Bibliography

Original Poems

Infinite Sun by Elishka Alberto

The sand so warm with grains between my toesThe sun so bright, its hitting my nose

The smell of the sea, so salty and heavyThe sound of birds drifting away with fish they carryThe water cooling my skin from a hot summer’s dayAs the fish and critters swim around wanting to play

I look up at the sky while I float on byThe wispy clouds say hello and goodbye

I wonder what I’ll do tomorrow, probably nothingBut then again I think to myself, who’s fussing?

Biography

List Of Works

Sample Poems

Inspired Poems

Original Poems

Bibliography

I Do by Elishka Alberto

My love for him is so great,My heart melts for his hold ‘til the dusk of

day.Why of why does he make me wait?

I sometimes wonder if he’s okFor the night drones on when he’s away,

Twists, turns ‘til day’s dawn.His smile so brightIt gives me warmth

Wondering mind ‘til he sees,Waiting until he can be with me

Coming is all I do,While waiting for the moment, for me to say

“I do.”

Original Poems

Biography

List Of Works

Sample Poems

Inspired Poems

Original Poems

Bibliography

The Moon by Elishka Alberto

The moon climbs into the night skyHighlighting and underlying my deep

significance,All you can do is kiss the sky

Seclusion is a vain existence.

Original Poems

Biography

List Of Works

Sample Poems

Inspired Poems

Original Poems

Bibliography

BibliographyBibliography for Biography• http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/e/emily_dickinson.html• http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/155• http://languageisavirus.com/poetry-guide/iambic_heptameter.html• http://

www.britannica.com/facts/5/312283/Emily-Dickinson-as-discussed-in-American-literature

Sample Poems• http://www.mith2.umd.edu/WomensStudies/ReadingRoom/Poetry/Dickin

son/heaven-is-what• http://www.mith2.umd.edu/WomensStudies/ReadingRoom/Poetry/Dickin

son/success.html• http://

www.mith2.umd.edu/WomensStudies/ReadingRoom/Poetry/Dickinson/i-cannot-live-with-you

Inspired Poems• http://www.mith2.umd.edu/WomensStudies/ReadingRoom/Poetry/Dickin

son/hope-is-the-thing• http://www.mith2.umd.edu/WomensStudies/ReadingRoom/Poetry/Dickin

son/a-light-exists-in-spring

Biography

List Of Works

Sample Poems

Inspired Poems

Original Poems

Bibliography

Pictures• http://bookxcessblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/emily-dickinson.jpg

(Dickinson’s book of poetry)• http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5165/5340749141_f0a257d07f.jpg Hope (Dickinson

version)• http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_bGGsCA3TLgM/S-zmWPMzZjI/AAAAAAAABxs/QpSmI2X

AoY4/s400/person+on+beach.jpg (Infinite Sun)

• http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_P86w3jiXpHU/TROboHtNiEI/AAAAAAAAM7o/VkFZQ2ZmRA8/s1600/emily+dickinson.jpg (Dickinson title picture- black and white)

• http://www.inamherst.com/images/Emily-Dickinson-Portrait.jpg (Dickinson Bio Portrait)

• http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3342/3408177068_5f00bc2c0c.jpg (A Hint of Green)• http://ekirstein.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/heaven03.jpg (Heaven Is What I

Cannot Reach)• http://wallpaper-s.org/11__Firefly_Forest,_Game_Test,_3DMark05.htm (The Bright

Of Spring)• http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_0pWKNqFIn7M/SY7bYyDCIoI/AAAAAAAAAbI/n-3xBA5TS

2g/s400/full_moon.jpg (The Moon)

• http://www.suhaibwebb.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/success_beach.jpg (Success)

• http://www.celestialenergyhealing.com/images/Web%20Images/Light%20in%20Forest.jpg (A Light Exists in Spring)

• http://data.whicdn.com/images/924335/bird_girl_sky_birds_freedom_photography-7b9994a29cd90dcd3ae8ca3d80d77da4_h_thumb.jpg?1257165567 (Hope Is A thing with feathers)

• http://www.vivaboo.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/endless-love-bride-groom-wedding-water-sunset-veil-kiss.jpg (I Do)

Bibliography

Biography

List Of Works

Sample Poems

Inspired Poems

Original Poems

Bibliography