Emily Dickinson

I was introduced to poetry, as best as I can recall, by Mrs. McCormick in fourth grade. I don’t think that I ever said thank you for that either, but I do now. One of the many poems in my gray-capped memory is from Emily Dickinson. Its title is “I’m Nobody! Who are you?”, and, with fond memory of Mrs. M., it goes like this: I’m Nobody! Who are you? Are you – Nobody – too? Then there’s a pair of us! Don't tell! they'd advertise – you know! How dreary – to be – Somebody! How public – like a Frog – To tell one’s name – the livelong June – To an admiring Bog! In my world view, Emily Dickinson is speaking to the humility that we should all have as only little, albeit biologically puzzling, bits of a vast Nature, earthly and Universal. The poem is of a piece with Renée Bergland’s new …