Emily Dickinson

THIS is my letter to the world,

That never wrote to me,—

SUCCESS is counted sweetest

By those who ne‘er succeed.

To comprehend a nectar

Requires sorest need

If I can stop one heart from breaking,

I shall not live in vain.

Perhaps Dickinson’s most radical departures from convention occur in her use of paradox to unsettle our most firmly held opinions and beliefs. As the critic Alfred Kazin writes, “She unsettles, most obviously, by not being easily locatable”

To enter Dickinson’s world is to step into a scary but electrifying funhouse where paradoxes serve like distorting mirrors to show us new ways of seeing just about everything: love, death, solitude, the soul.

Throughout her work, opposites change places: Distance is nearness in disguise; absence is the most vital form of presence; alone-ness is the greatest company.

VI
IF I can stop one heart from breaking,

I shall not live in vain;

If I can ease one life the aching,

Or cool one pain,

Or help one fainting robin

Unto his nest again,

I shall not live in vain.

THIS is my letter to the world,
That never wrote to me,—
The simple news that Nature told,
With tender majesty.

SUCCESS is counted sweetest
By those who ne‘er succeed.
To comprehend a nectar
Requires sorest need.

As he, defeated, dying,
On whose forbidden ear
The distant strains of triumph
Break, agonized and clear.