Billy Collins Taking Off Emily Dickinson's Clothes

Poetry is used as an outlet for people to express themselves. Often times the reader can identify a lot about the poet just by understanding the theme of their works. In the poem “Taking off Emily Dickinson’s Clothes” Billy Collins uses symbolism to demonstrate that through poetry a poet is revealing their inner thoughts and emotions.

In the poem, Collins uses symbolism to express the extent of how a poet reveals their inner selves to their readers. Collins undressing Dickinson in the poem is meant to symbolize her revealing her inner self through her poetry. The clothing Emily Dickinson is wearing is meant to symbolize the layers people use to hide their inner selves. In the poem Collins makes sure to list the clothing that Dickson is wearing, “Then the long white dress, a more / complicated matter with mother-of-pearl / buttons down the back, / so tiny and numerous that it takes forever (Collins

Emily Dickinson was a very well-known loner who was rarely known to interact with others in public. The difficulty a person like her likely found in attempting to reveal her feelings to others is symbolized in stanza five, “I proceeded like a polar explorer / through clips, clasps, and moorings, / catches, straps, and whalebone stays, / sailing toward the iceberg of her nakedness” (Collins 23-26). The difficulty Collins finds in removing her clothing is symbolic of the difficulty a loner like Dickinson had revealing her feelings to others. For someone to fully immerse themselves into writing poetry they need to find comfort in using poetry as an outlet for their feelings. In the final stanza, Collins shows how Dickinson feels now that her ‘clothes’ have been fully removed, “and I could hear her sigh when it finally unloosed” (Collins 42). This shows that Dickinson found comfort in being able to reveal her true self in her