I’m Emily Dickinson! Who Are You?

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For her “The Poems (We Think) We Know” column at the Los Angeles Review of Books, Alexandra Socarides writes about Emily Dickinson’s celebrated “I’m Nobody! Who are you?,” debunking its commonly held interpretation:

There is a seemingly stark private/public dichotomy laid out by the poem’s two stanza structure. In the first we meet a good Nobody, in the second a corrupt Somebody. But upon about the fifth read, you start to notice some things that deeply complicate the take-away we deliver up to school children.

Guia Cortassa was born, lives, and works in Milan, Italy. After working as a Contemporary Art curator, she went back to writing. She is a contributing editor for Ondarock and her writing has appeared on Rivista Studio, Flair and the Quietus. She compulsively tweets @gcmorvern. More from this author →