Emily Dickinson
Emily Dickinson, like many poets, writes about the things she knows about and has experienced. She writes many poems about emotion, religion, and nature. While writing her poems, she had minimal distractions which may have been why she was so successful. Her experiences also shaped this. Dickinson was born in 1830 and raised in Amherst, Massachusetts. She was born into a noble family. However, they were not wealthy. Dickinson was known as good as a child. She went to school and went to church on a regular basis (Shmoop). Her cousin, Sophia Holland, died around the time Dickinson was 14. It was a tragic death for her. This may be why she spent so much time in her room. When Dickinson wasn’t at church, you could usually find her in her room. This was during her adult life, where she still lived in her father’s home. She wanted to live somewhere with no distractions. Somewhere where she could focus on writing poetry. She rarely left her room. People usually had to talk to her through a door (“Emily Dickinson Museum”).
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This may have been because of the many deaths she experience while she was younger, especially the one of her cousin. One of her poems, “I measure every Grief I meet” is about her trying to measure everyone’s else’s emotions.
“I measure every Grief I meet
With narrow, probing, eyes –
I wonder if It weighs like Mine –
Or has an Easier size.”
This poem is about her and trying to measure everyone’s emotions. In the first stanza, she’s watching people to see if she can see their grief and if it matches up or “weighs” like hers does (Shmoop). Another one of her poems, “It was not Death, for I stood up” is about how death ways onto people.
“It was not Death, for I stood up,
And all the Dead, lie down—
It was not Night, for all the