Emily Dickinson: Notes on All Her Poems

David Preest: "I have been reading the poems of Emily Dickinson since 1974, when I came across The Life of Emily Dickinson by Richard B. Sewall, a book which is still probably the best introduction to the poet. As I read her poems, first in The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson by Thomas H. Johnson of 1970 and later in The Poems of Emily Dickinson by R.W. Franklin of 1999, and at the same time read books about her life and poetry, there seemed one gap in this literature. There was no commentary of brief notes attempting to explain all her poems. This is the gap which this guide attempts to fill.In making these notes I have consulted the works of previous scholars, explained the context of those many poems which were originally parts of letters written by her, and, where necessary, made my own guess at the meaning of a poem. I believe the facts are correct, even if the guess at an interpretation is wrong. But as Emily herself once said in a letter to her sister-in-law, 'In a life that stopped guessing, you and I should not feel at home (L586).'"