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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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onset when the King be witnessed in
the room, willed my keepsakes signed away,

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

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

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

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

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

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not ugly either. Here Dickinson speaks
about death as a normal event. There

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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.
Wrote hundreds of poems in her lifetime.

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She often wrote about death and loneliness, but she also wrote about the world

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

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

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She wrote many letters to her friends, but she did not often write poems

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

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

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the United States. For much of
her early life she seemed like a normal

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girl, but when she was fourteen, something happened that would change her life

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

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got sick with a disease called typhus. Typhus is a deadly disease spread by

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an insect called a laos. It
causes a lot of pain, fever,

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and confusion. Typhus may cause a
person to not understand what is going on

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

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

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typhus. Holland's death changed to 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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Dickinson recovered enough to go back to
school, but death seemed to follow

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her. In eighteen forty eight,
Dickinson 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 song bird. It seems beautiful and easy to break,

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

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

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

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

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Even her family did not. No. Lavinia Dickinson was Emily Dickinson's sister.

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She discovered Dickinson's poems in a locked
box. Reading through these, Lavinia saw

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how many poems her sister had written. There were over eighteen hundred poems in

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

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since, people have published all of
Dickinson's poems. She is one of the

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

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

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

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

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

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our website or email us at Radio
at Radio English dot net. You can

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also comment on Facebook at Facebook dot
com slash Spotlight Radio. The writer and

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producer of this program was Dan Chrisman. The voices you heard were from the

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

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voiced by Spotlight. You can listen
to this program again and read it on

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the internet at www dot Radio English
dot net. This program is called Emily

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Dickinson American Poet. You can also
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join us again for the next Spotlight
program. Goodbye, endued day,