Audiobook · read by volunteers
Selected Poems of Emily Dickinson
Emily Dickinson (1830–1886)
Read by Becky Miller · 25 chapters · 21 min
About the book
A handful of short poems, a plain voice, and one of the most original poets America has produced. This small selection gathers twenty-five works by Emily Dickinson, among them poems about hope as a bird in the soul, about the odd quiet that settles after great pain, and about the soul that chooses its own company and then shuts the door. Dickinson wrote in short stanzas, with dashes, unexpected capital letters and rhymes that stop just short of rhyming. Her subjects are huge, namely death, faith, nature and the inner life, and she approaches them with a small, exact image. The collection lasts under twenty minutes, which makes it ideal for a pause in the day. Becky Miller reads each poem separately, so you can listen once or return to a favourite.
Introduction
Emily Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massachusetts, in 1830 and died there in 1886. She lived a retired life and rarely left her family home, yet she wrote almost eighteen hundred poems. Very few appeared in print while she lived. After her death, her sister found the manuscripts, and the first selections were published in the 1890s, with a volume of poems appearing in 1890 and further collections following. Dickinson gave her poems no titles, so they are usually known by their first lines, and this selection is no exception.
The early editors smoothed her punctuation and sometimes her wording, so later scholars went back to her manuscripts to restore her unusual dashes and capitals. Even in the older versions, however, the force of her voice is unmistakable. She was seen at once as a poet unlike her contemporaries: freer, stranger and more private. Her style shaped many later American poets, and she is now counted among the great figures of the nineteenth century.
The recording is a short one, about twenty minutes, divided into 25 tracks, each a single poem, and is read by one LibriVox volunteer. It makes an easy introduction to Dickinson for newcomers, and a pleasure for those who already love her. For readers who wish to go further, the poems repay a second hearing with the text beside them. In sound alone they already show Dickinson's unusual music, with its sudden pauses and its refusal to settle into the expected pattern of a verse.
Because the poems are so short, you may find that each one lingers longer than its running time. Many listeners like to play the set twice, first for the sound and then for the ideas, and Dickinson's compact lines reward both ways of listening.
Public domain
Emily Dickinson died in 1886: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text