Poetic Influence: Emily Dickenson

Emily Dickinson

Background:

Emily Dickinson was born in 1830 in Amherst, Massachusetts. She was a very influential American Poet, but not well known in her own time. She wrote tons of poetry, but actually never published a book contained with her works, they were anonymously published. For her time, she wrote very provocative poems about life, death, love, and the outside world.

2 POEMS:

SURGEONS must be very careful
When they take the knife!
Underneath their fine incisions
Stirs the culprit,—Life!

This poem, I thought was very similar to Marge Piercy’s own writings because both emphasize the idea that surgeons (or the people who have an emotional impact on others) must be careful. “Underneath their fine incisions” lays the idea of “life” itself. Life represents emotions and experiences that an individual encounters and feels. In Marge Piercy’s poems, she writes a lot about different experiences she’s had, most of which are negative. These experiences tend to mostly be about her childhood, body image, and negative thoughts on these.