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Welcome to Spotlight. I'm Bruce Gulland
and I'm Megan Nolette. Spotlight uses a

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special English method of broadcasting. It
is easier for people to understand no matter

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where in the world they live.
We will begin today's program with a poem

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by Emily Dickinson. It is called
I heard a fly buzz when I died.

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I heard a fly buzz when I
died. The stillness in the room

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was like the stillness in the air
between the heaves of storm. The eyes

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around had wrung them dry, and
breaths were gathering firm for that last onset

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when the king be witnessed in the
room. I willed my keepsakes signed away,

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what portion of me be assignable?
And then it was. They're interposed

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a fly with blue uncertain stumbling buzz
between the light and me. And then

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the windows failed, and then I
could not see to see. This poem

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looks out from the mind of a
person who is dying. It examines their

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final minutes of life. Their death
is not a beautiful one, but it

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is not ugly either. Here Dickenson
speaks about death as a normal event.

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There is no pain or joy.
The speaker just stops being able to see.

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Today's spotlight is about Emily Dickinson,
a woman poet who lived in Amherst,

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Massachusetts, in the nineteenth century.
Dickinson wrote hundreds of poems in her

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lifetime. She often wrote about death
and loneliness, but she also wrote about

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the world around her. She wrote
about joy and friendship. While she was

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alive. Most people did not know
that Dickinson was writing. She avoided other

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people. She wrote many letters to
her friends, but she did not often

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write poems for other people. When
she was alive, she only published ten.

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Dickinson was not always such a private
person. She was born in eighteen

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thirty in the United States. For
much of her early life she seemed like

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a normal girl, but when she
was fourteen, something happened that would change

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her life forever. Sophia Holland was
Dickinson's second cousin. In eighteen forty four,

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she got sick with a disease called
typhoeus. Typhus is a deadly disease

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spread by an insect called a LuSE. It causes a lot of pain,

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fever, and confusion. Typhus may
cause a person to not understand what is

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going on around them. Today many
people recover from typhus, but in the

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eighteen hundreds, doctors did not know
how to treat it. Holland died after

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getting typhus. Holland's death changed Dickinson. She became very sad. Her parents

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were so worried that they took her
out of school. She was very young,

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but she spent a long time thinking
about death and loss. Months later,

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Dickenson recovered enough to go back to
school, but death seemed to follow

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her. In eighteen forty eight,
Dickenson met a man named Benjamin Franklin Newton.

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Newton was a great influence on Dickinson. He helped her find other writers

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that would shape Emily's writing, and
he quickly became her closest friend. But

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then, only two years after they
met, Newton died very suddenly. Again,

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Dickinson fell into a deep sadness.
Dickinson went through a lot of loss

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in her life. She did not
have many friends. The ones she did

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have she loved deeply. When she
lost them, she also mourned deeply.

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In eighteen fifty four, she wrote
to her sister in law named Susan Gilbert.

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Dickinson was very close with Gilbert,
but they had been in an argument

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and would no longer talk. Dickinson
wrote to Gilbert, you do not need

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to fear to leave me alone.
I often part with things I think I

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have loved. Sometimes they are buried, sometimes they leave me. My heart

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bleeds so often that I will not
mind bleeding more. I can only add

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another pain to several that have come
before. In the mid eighteen fifties,

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Dickinson began to turn away from the
world. She started to refuse visitors.

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She would speak to people only by
letter. Often she would not leave her

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home. In eighteen seventy four,
her father died. The family held a

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memorial in their home, but Dickinson
would not leave her room to visit.

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Instead, she watched through a small
opening of her door. As she grew

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older, people began to think Dickinson
was very strange. She hid away from

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everyone, but people did not understand
why. But Dickinson's life was not all

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sadness. She was alone for much
of her life, but she seemed to

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choose to live this way. She
spent most of her time taking care of

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plants and flowers, or she would
spend long hours writing, and often the

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poems she wrote were full of joy. One poem that shares this joy is

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called Hope is the thing with feathers. It reads. Hope is the thing

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with feathers that perches in the soul
and sings the tune without the words,

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and never stops at all. And
sweetest in the gale is heard and sore.

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Must be the storm that could abash
the little bird that kept so many

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warm. I've heard it in the
chillest land and on the strangest sea,

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yet never in extremity it asked a
crumb of me. In this poem,

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Dickinson compares hope to a songbird.
It seems beautiful and easy to break,

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but even a storm cannot blow Hope
away. Hope spreads its beauty even in

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the most difficult of times. It
never asks for anything in return. Death

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finally came for Emily Dickinson in eighteen
eighty six. She was fifty five years

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old when she died. Very few
people knew she was a writer. Even

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her family did not know. Lavinia
Dickinson was Emily Dickinson's sister. She discovered

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Dickinson's poems in a locked box.
Reading through these, Lavinia saw how many

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poems her sister had written. There
were over eighteen hundred poems in the box.

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Most of these no one had ever
read. In the years since,

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people have published all of Dickinson's poems. She is one of the most well

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known poets from the United States.
Dickinson did not ask for praise. She

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did not need it. This makes
Dickinson even more special. She wrote for

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the love of writing. This love
shines like a fire from every line.

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Have you ever read anything by Emily
Dickinson? What did you think? What

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about her poems is most interesting?
You can leave a comment on our website

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or email us at Radio at Radio
English dot com. You can also comment

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on Facebook at Facebook dot com slash
Spotlight Radio. The writer and producer of

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this program was Dan Chrisman. The
voices you heard were from the United Kingdom

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and the United States. All quotes
were adapted for this program and voiced by

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Spotlight. You can listen to this
program again and read it on the internet

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at www dot Radio English dot net. This program is called Emily Dickinson American

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Poet. You can also get our
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again for the next Spotlight program,
good Bye,