Welcome to Spotlight. I'm Bruce Gulland and I'm Megan Nolette. Spotlight uses a
special English method of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand no matter
where in the world they live. We will begin today's program with a poem
by Emily Dickinson. It is called I heard a fly buzz when I died.
I heard a fly buzz when I died. The stillness in the room
was like the stillness in the air between the heaves of storm. The eyes
around had wrung them dry, and breaths were gathering firm for that last onset
when the king be witnessed in the room. I willed my keepsakes signed away,
what portion of me be assignable? And then it was. They're interposed
a fly with blue uncertain stumbling buzz between the light and me. And then
the windows failed, and then I could not see to see. This poem
looks out from the mind of a person who is dying. It examines their
final minutes of life. Their death is not a beautiful one, but it
is not ugly either. Here Dickenson speaks about death as a normal event.
There is no pain or joy. The speaker just stops being able to see.
Today's spotlight is about Emily Dickinson, a woman poet who lived in Amherst,
Massachusetts, in the nineteenth century. Dickinson wrote hundreds of poems in her
lifetime. She often wrote about death and loneliness, but she also wrote about
the world around her. She wrote about joy and friendship. While she was
alive. Most people did not know that Dickinson was writing. She avoided other
people. She wrote many letters to her friends, but she did not often
write poems for other people. When she was alive, she only published ten.
Dickinson was not always such a private person. She was born in eighteen
thirty in the United States. For much of her early life she seemed like
a normal girl, but when she was fourteen, something happened that would change
her life forever. Sophia Holland was Dickinson's second cousin. In eighteen forty four,
she got sick with a disease called typhoeus. Typhus is a deadly disease
spread by an insect called a LuSE. It causes a lot of pain,
fever, and confusion. Typhus may cause a person to not understand what is
going on around them. Today many people recover from typhus, but in the
eighteen hundreds, doctors did not know how to treat it. Holland died after
getting typhus. Holland's death changed Dickinson. She became very sad. Her parents
were so worried that they took her out of school. She was very young,
but she spent a long time thinking about death and loss. Months later,
Dickenson recovered enough to go back to school, but death seemed to follow
her. In eighteen forty eight, Dickenson met a man named Benjamin Franklin Newton.
Newton was a great influence on Dickinson. He helped her find other writers
that would shape Emily's writing, and he quickly became her closest friend. But
then, only two years after they met, Newton died very suddenly. Again,
Dickinson fell into a deep sadness. Dickinson went through a lot of loss
in her life. She did not have many friends. The ones she did
have she loved deeply. When she lost them, she also mourned deeply.
In eighteen fifty four, she wrote to her sister in law named Susan Gilbert.
Dickinson was very close with Gilbert, but they had been in an argument
and would no longer talk. Dickinson wrote to Gilbert, you do not need
to fear to leave me alone. I often part with things I think I
have loved. Sometimes they are buried, sometimes they leave me. My heart
bleeds so often that I will not mind bleeding more. I can only add
another pain to several that have come before. In the mid eighteen fifties,
Dickinson began to turn away from the world. She started to refuse visitors.
She would speak to people only by letter. Often she would not leave her
home. In eighteen seventy four, her father died. The family held a
memorial in their home, but Dickinson would not leave her room to visit.
Instead, she watched through a small opening of her door. As she grew
older, people began to think Dickinson was very strange. She hid away from
everyone, but people did not understand why. But Dickinson's life was not all
sadness. She was alone for much of her life, but she seemed to
choose to live this way. She spent most of her time taking care of
plants and flowers, or she would spend long hours writing, and often the
poems she wrote were full of joy. One poem that shares this joy is
called Hope is the thing with feathers. It reads. 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. In this poem,
Dickinson compares hope to a songbird. It seems beautiful and easy to break,
but even a storm cannot blow Hope away. Hope spreads its beauty even in
the most difficult of times. It never asks for anything in return. Death
finally came for Emily Dickinson in eighteen eighty six. She was fifty five years
old when she died. Very few people knew she was a writer. Even
her family did not know. Lavinia Dickinson was Emily Dickinson's sister. She discovered
Dickinson's poems in a locked box. Reading through these, Lavinia saw how many
poems her sister had written. There were over eighteen hundred poems in the box.
Most of these no one had ever read. In the years since,
people have published all of Dickinson's poems. She is one of the most well
known poets from the United States. Dickinson did not ask for praise. She
did not need it. This makes Dickinson even more special. She wrote for
the love of writing. This love shines like a fire from every line.
Have you ever read anything by Emily Dickinson? What did you think? What
about her poems is most interesting? You can leave a comment on our website
or email us at Radio at Radio English dot com. You can also comment
on Facebook at Facebook dot com slash Spotlight Radio. The writer and producer of
this program was Dan Chrisman. The voices you heard were from the United Kingdom
and the United States. All quotes were adapted for this program and voiced by
Spotlight. You can listen to this program again and read it on the internet
at www dot Radio English dot net. This program is called Emily Dickinson American
Poet. You can also get our programs delivered directly to your Android or Apple
device through our free official Spotlight English app. We hope you can join us
again for the next Spotlight program, good Bye,