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Emily Dickinson: American Poet (Advanced Program) · Spotlight English: Advanced

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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 get our programs delivered directly to your Android
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  or Apple device through our free official Spotlight English app. We hope you can
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  join us again for the next Spotlight program. Goodbye, endued day,