Wild Nights – Wild Nights!
Twelve short lines of open desire. Dickinson casts longing as a storm to revel in and a harbor to reach, ending on a single wish: to moor, tonight, in thee.
Theme
emily-dickinson
10 poems
emily-dickinson
Tell All the Truth but Tell It Slant
Tell the whole truth, but tell it slant. Dickinson’s compact defense of indirection argues that truth too bright to bear must be eased in gradually or it blinds.
I’m Nobody! Who Are You?
Two quatrains that make a boast out of self-erasure. Dickinson defends anonymity, recruits the reader into a secret club, and reduces fame to a frog in a bog.
A Bird Came Down the Walk
A bird eats a worm raw, then rows off through the air like an oar through silent water. Dickinson’s most exact nature poem watches a wild thing right up to the moment it flees.
The Soul Selects Her Own Society
From a whole nation the soul chooses exactly one, ignores a kneeling emperor at her gate, then closes the valves of her attention “Like Stone” — Dickinson’s most absolute poem about choosing.
There’s a Certain Slant of Light
A particular angle of December light gives a hurt with no scar. Dickinson’s most precise poem about despair treats a winter mood as a message from God.
I Dwell in Possibility
Dickinson’s twelve-line ars poetica builds poetry as a house with more windows than prose and the whole sky for a roof — then spreads two narrow hands wide to gather Paradise.
After Great Pain, a Formal Feeling Comes
The nerves sit, the heart questions, the feet go round. Nobody’s home. Dickinson’s anatomy of shock is the most precise poem about aftermath in English.
“Hope” is the Thing with Feathers
A bird that sings without words, costs nothing, and gets louder in a storm. Dickinson’s most quoted poem is a hymn to hope that works better than it probably should.
Because I Could Not Stop for Death
Death is polite, the ride is unhurried, and the speaker has been dead for centuries by the time she tells the story. Dickinson’s most famous poem is calmer than it has any right to be.