'"Hope" is the thing with feathers'
We all need a little hope... so here is Emily Dickinson with an unforgettable meditation on it
‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -
And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -
I’ve heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.
Image credit: From Birds from The Natural History of Carolina, Florida, and the Bahama Islands (1754) featured on Public Domain Review
What we love about this passage…
Dickinson could just have written ‘Hope is a bird.’
Instead, she puts the word ‘Hope’ in quotation marks, bringing our attention to it right from the start as something to think about.
Then she says ‘the thing with feathers,’ rather than just ‘a bird’. What thing? And why ‘the’ thing and not ‘a’ thing?
Dickinson takes a seemingly straightforward idea and, by experimenting with punctuation and wording, complicates and enriches it. This makes the reader pause and slow down; we’re gently being trained to think about each word, what we thought it meant, its placement, and what’s around it.
We also love the way the poem’s liberal use of dashes imitates a bird’s short, quick movements. It’s also cool that it completes its bird motif with the word ‘crumb’.
Image credit: From Birds from The Natural History of Carolina, Florida, and the Bahama Islands (1754) featured on Public Domain Review
About the Author
Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) is widely regarded as one of the most important and innovative American poets. She spent most of her life in Amherst, Massachusetts, living reclusively but writing constantly, both poetry and letters. Her work was published after her death and became an instant success.
She once described the power of poetry as something that ‘takes the top of your head off’.
Dickinson is a popular choice for us, and you can read past newsletters featuring her poems: ‘This World is not Conclusion’ and ‘The Brain is Wider than the Sky’
To read alongside…
Lots of Dickinson’s poems feature birds (and bees), or use them as metaphors for something else, as this poem does. ‘A bird, came down the walk’ is another poem by her that seems to open with a lovely image (look, a bird!) but immediately turns into a David Attenborough-style observation of nature in action:
A Bird, came down the Walk -
He did not know I saw -
He bit an Angle Worm in halves
And ate the fellow, raw,
And then, he drank a Dew
From a convenient Grass -
And then hopped sidewise to the Wall
To let a Beetle pass -
He glanced with rapid eyes,
That hurried all abroad -
They looked like frightened Beads, I thought,
He stirred his Velvet Head. -
Like one in danger, Cautious,
I offered him a Crumb,
And he unrolled his feathers,
And rowed him softer Home -
Than Oars divide the Ocean,
Too silver for a seam,
Or Butterflies, off Banks of Noon,
Leap, plashless as they swim.
Image credit: From Birds from The Natural History of Carolina, Florida, and the Bahama Islands (1754) featured on Public Domain Review
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