Blog 17

The poem that I read by Emily Dickenson was “I Measure Every Greif I Meet”. This poem is about the grief that Emily Dickinson faces in her life. In the poem, she basically says that she has a lot of grief in her life and she feels that other people’s grieves cannot be worse than her own. She says that they can only be equal or less than hers.  “I wonder if it hurts to live – And if They have to try – And whether – could They choose between – It would not be – to die –“ (Dickinson). In this passage, Dickinson wonders whether people who have a lot of grief would prefer to be dead rather than to face their greives. I think that if Dickinson is thinking of this, I think that her grieves must be pretty bad. If her grieves were not that bad, she would not be thinking of death as an alternative. A lot of people have grieves, but I think that the grieves that Dickinson is talking about are much worse than what a lot of people go through. Some grieves that Dickinson mentions in her poem are Death, Want, and Cold, or Despair. 

Emily Dickinson lived a lot of her life in isolation. She lived with her family, so she was not completely alone, but she did not leave the house a lot. She got homesick very easily so she did not leave a lot. There were also not many visitors that came to her house. ("Emily Dickinson- Poets.org - Poetry, Poems, Bios & More.")  I think that the fact that Emily Dickinson lived a lot of her life in isolation shaped her writing a lot. I think that this is what makes her similar to Emerson and Thoreau. Emerson and Thoreau also lived their life in isolation from society. They both left society to live their lives in isolation in the woods and that is when they wrote a lot of their more popular pieces of writing.

Biography

"Emily Dickinson- Poets.org - Poetry, Poems, Bios & More." Poets.org. Poets.org. Web. 12 Mar. 2012. <http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/155>.

Dickinson, Emily. "I Measure Every Grief I Meet (561)- Poets.org - Poetry, Poems, Bios & More." Poets.org. Web. 12 Mar. 2012.