MAX: [on answering machine] Lorelai, it’s Max … Medina. Maaaax Medina. And once again we miss each other. It’s now 2 o’clock in the afternoon on Thursday and I’m in my office grading a paper titled Emily Dickinson: Get a Life.
Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) was an American poet. She lived most of her life in reclusive isolation, and was considered an eccentric. By the end of her life she was reluctant to even leave her bedroom. This probably explains the title of the paper on Emily Dickinson that Max is grading – which seems most unlikely as the work of a Chilton student.
Dickinson was a prolific poet, but less than a dozen of her poems were published during her lifetime, and were usually altered to fit the poetic conventions of the day. Dickinson’s work was unique for her time, with short lines, slant rhymes, and unconventional capitalisation and punctuation. They are rarely titled, and many are on the themes of death and immortality.
Her poems were first published in 1890, but it wasn’t until 1955 that the complete unedited collection was published.
3 thoughts on “Emily Dickinson”