Sincerely, The Poem Analyst

        As I was scrambling to read my second SBC selection, a compilation of Emily Dickinson poems, I came across the poem below early on and it remained my favorite throughout the duration of my reading.

        Immediately after I read it I fell in love with it because it’s so profound and poetic, but also because its story is so imaginable. Therefore it is no surprise it's my favorite because most of my own poems are narrative poems because I love narrative poetry. It combines poetry and storytelling - two of my favorite aspects of English.

        The funniest thing that transpired though was that I read the poem to my thirteen-year-old sister. I asked her if she understood it and she replied "Not at all,” so I proceeded to thoroughly explain the story and why I consider it beautiful. I love the rhymes, but my favorite part is the last stanza. Dickinson’s use of alliteration with “silence suffuses” and then “softness,” in the next line, creates a very mellow mood that becomes a complete juxtaposition when compared to the "gung ho" mood at the beginning. The stanza of uncertainty (the second to last one) enters abruptly just as the questions and realizations really would in the aftermath of such a tragic event. At last, the last line; “only the waves reply,” is personification perfected as it strikes a chord of loss and defines absence in a new, metaphorical way.

 

Sincerely, 

The Poem Analyst 

 

P.S. Check out the AppleTV+ original series Dickinson. Hailee Steinfeld plays Emily.