A Loss Of Something Ever Felt I: Poem Analysis

In a world full of life, the concept of loss is one of the most difficult human concepts to grasp. As humans, we understand that we walk this earth until death do us part, but to us, the physical concept of death is so impossibly incomprehensible. In Emily Dickinson’s poem, a Loss of Something Ever Felt I, our childhood confusion of loss is explained and, furthermore, how adulthood does not assist in our understanding. Dickinson uses a number of poetic devices including metaphors, personification and a number of similes. She explores our ignorance to our emotions when experiencing grief due to our lack of understanding. Her words describe the unfamiliar feeling of grief, such as it’s short and long term effects, as well as how we deal with these feelings

When read in further depth, it’s easy to tell the poem is based on the feelings of loss of a significant other, something often hard to comprehend. In the first stanza of the poem, Dickinson describes repressed emotions of a young child, evoking empathy and understanding from the reader who is likely to be of an older age. She recounts her childhood feelings, how she felt as though she’d been deprived something emotionally but wasn’t sure of exactly what. In the second stanza, she compares these feelings to the loss of a kingdom to a prince, expressing discontent and lack of control over her emotions, her kingdom. Personally, I connected with the poem most in this stanza, my previous personal losses relating directly to her feelings. I find often becomes hard to connect with your emotions when you’re feeling so many at once. It often disorientates you, and it becomes more difficult to go about your everyday life. In the first line of the second stanza, Dickinson talks about how she subdued these emotions, even hiding them from those evidently mourning around her. When you’re feeling so lost and