Emily Dickinson - Reflections on Her Life

Emily Dickinson is remembered for her unique poetic style of short compact phrases. Amidst the paradox, her poetry has the potential to move and incite provocation.

American poet Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was born on December 10, 1830 to a prominent family there in Amherst, Massachusetts. In her youth, Dickinson studied at the Amherst Academy before transferring briefly to Mount Holyoke Female Seminary. Following her time at Mount Holyoke, she returned home. During her college years, among other topics, Dickinson studied the similarities between poetry and singing. During these years, she developed an appreciation of beautiful art, which can be seen in many of her writings. Dickinson continued to live with her parents until their deaths. Following the death of her father in 1874, it started a series of events that overwhelmed her until her death. Although she continued to write, it wasn't as frequent or as organized as it once was. Death played a big role in her final years. In 1884 she commented that the deaths around her were too frequent.

Before I can get over one, another has come. On May 15, 1886, Emily Dickinson passed away. Although she was a prolific poet, fewer than a dozen of her seventeen hundred poems were published during her lifetime. The first collection of her poems wouldn't be published until the 1890's, more than four years after her death. Many have tried to understand why Dickinson isolated herself when writing about the intimate experiences of life. It is believed she found it necessary to stand back and think about life from an objective distance. Whatever her reasons, Emily Dickinson left some of the most beautiful, thought provoking poems to be enjoyed by poetry lovers everywhere.