Emily Dickinson - Writers - Literature - Read! / Listen!

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Emily Dicinson

Emily Dickinson (USA, 1830-1886)

Poet.

Four poems in mp3 format: It's all I have to bring today; To make a prairie; I'm Nobody; Is Taught by

Here I read four poems (see below) at the Talking People Podcast and comment on why reading poetry may be interesting

I'm Nobody! Who are You?
Are you Nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us -- Don't tell!
They'd banish us, you know.

How dreary to be Somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!

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The Heart asks Pleasure first,
And then, Excuse from Pain;
And then, those little Anodyness
That Deaden Suffering;

And then, to Go to Sleep;
And then, if it should be
The will of its Inquisitor,
The Liberty to Die.

---

Pain has an element of blank:
It cannot recollect
When it began, or if there were
A day when it was not.

It has no Future but itself.
Its infinite realms contain
Its Past, enlightened to perceive
New periods of Pain.

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An everywhere of silver,
With ropes of sand
To keep it from effacing
The track called land.