Kwame Dawes Poem I Felt A Funeral

Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson were both poets who wrote about the concept of death. The two poets illustrated different perspectives on death. Whitman identified with the entirety and truth of death; whereas, Dickinson pinpoints the dramatization of death. Walt Whitman’s message on death portrayed in his poetry is more compelling than that of Emily Dickinson’s. Whitman discusses the favorableness of death, the verisimilitude that pertains to death, and his elaborate explanations on how we humans understand death.

Emily Dickinson, as a poetic writer, composed most of her works with the theme of death, the entirety of which can be categorised into three different periods of writings; the earliest mainly contained the themes of death and immortality, personifying death and elegiac poems and lacked the intensity and urgency of her later poems or their fascination with the physical aspects of death (VAN DAESDONK 2007). Because of Dickinson’s immense fascination with this subject it is interesting to compare her pieces against each other to see how her view of death changed over the years of her writing.

Death is not a just a theme used throughout her poems but it was Emily Dickinson’s lifelong obsession. Death has been mentioned frequently in her poems together with frustration, suffering, pain, sorrow, grief and loneliness Death is portrayed by her from every possible aspect – as the courtly lover, the dreadful assassin, the physical corruptor, a free agent in nature and wonderful company on a carriage ride. She was obsessed with the problem of death and life after death. This obsession with death and spirituality made critics view Dickinson as a mysterious and dark poet. In the text “Blind Seeing: Death writing from Dickinson to

“The Bustle in a House” by Emily Dickinson (653) is a poem that uses the death of a loved one and turns it into how the domestic duties must go on and utilizes that as a source to cope with the grief caused by the depressing situation. Similarly, “Funeral Blues” by W.H. Auden (762-763) is also a poem about death in which is told in a man’s perspective who is mourning the loss of a lover who has died. Although “The Bustle in a House” and “Funeral Blues” share death as the comparable theme, both poets go about it in separate ways. Both poems utilize the same sound devices to create imagery, however “Funeral Blues” usage of structure, syntax, and symbolism is demonstrated more effectively in order to convey the way the speaker processes death.

First, Emily Dickinson’s poem “Because I could not stop for Death” is obvious in its theme of death in comparison to the others listed in the previous paragraph. The narrator of this poem uses a figure of speech to describe Death as a kind person taking the time to pick her up since she was too busy for him (Dickinson 566). Death is described as warm and kind throughout most of this poem, with only two stanzas depicting a sinister feeling when she actually realizes that she is dead. The speaker tells about a carriage ride with Death, a metaphor for the act of dying. This poem, in fact, is built on metaphors, alliterations, anaphora, paradox and it’s written in lyric form; it’s got a beat to it when read. The poem contains six stanzas with four lines in each making it a quatrain. “Because I could not stop for Death” also uses symbols in its text to establish the speaker’s lifetime. The speaker tells of the carriage ride past the school where children

Emily Dickinson is one of the most popular American poets of all time. Her poetry is seen as intense and passionate. Several of her many poems seem to be devoted to death and sadness. No one seems to know the exact connections between actual events in her life and the poetry that she wrote. The reader can see vivid images of Dickinson's ideas of death in several of her poems. Dickinson's use of imagery and symbolism are apparent in several of her death poems, especially in these three: "I Felt a Funeral in My Brain," "I Heard a Fly Buzz-When I Died," and "Because I Could Not Stop for Death."

Emily Dickinson is a very famous and accomplished poet with over 1700 published poems. Several of her poems are similar in theme, and also similar in bringing out human emotions that we humans usually try to avoid. The common theme in most of Dickinson 's poems is the wonders of nature, and the identity of self, as well as death and life. The five poems with the common theme of death are: “My Life had Stood- A Loaded Gun”, “I Heard A Fly Buzz- When I Died”, “Behind Me Dips- Eternity”, “Because I Could Not Stop for Death”, and “I “I Felt a Funeral in my Brain.”

Many authors are afraid to express their personal feelings on such a topic as death. Being a touchy subject, the fear of losing an audience comes into question. Such a theme isn’t an issue for Emily Dickinson however, writing meaningful poems and does it in an extraordinary way with describing the sensitive matter of death while still being able to control the reader’s emotions such as that in "Because I could not stop for death" and” I heard a fly buzz- when I died". Sharing the common rhythm about death, but differ in tone and mood towards the subject. Her use of metaphors and setting descriptions are expressively throughout these poems, giving the audience a more emotional toile from each of these.

Emily Dickinson is one of Americas greatest and most original poets of all time. Over the span of her lifetime she came to compose many poems that pertained to the topic of death, which made it seem as if she had an almost morbid fascination with the subject. Her poems "I heard a Fly buzz –when I died", and "Because I could not stop for death—" are some of the many poems that she wrote on this ghastly topic. Even though the poems are somewhat similar with the main focus being death from different viewpoints, I personally believe that "I heard a Fly buzz—when I died" was more of a powerful and impacting poem for various reasons.

Death is a subject many famous poets write about. Often we see writers express the fear of not knowing what happens after you pass, and fear of death in general. In Emily Dickinson’s poem “Because I could not stop for Death”, she has a different approach. She combines the christian view of eternal life with dark but peaceful imagery of riding with the character, Death. She writes as if she is communicating from the afterlife; and she is describing the memory of her journey with Death.

I agree with you, Emily Dickinson portrays death in her poems as something not scary like the usual "grim reaper" view of death. Instead, death is shown as a very nice companion, they do not go anywhere horrible or scary or supernatural. Instead, they just pass by regular sights like a schoolyard. So Death is personified in a pretty benign way in this

​One of the most revered poets of the mid eighteen hundreds is none other than Emily Dickinson. Unlike most, Dickinsons’ life was a constant struggle. In the poem “ I felt a funeral in my brain”, her perception was actually a premonition of her own funeral. This describes a series of deep mixed feelings towards herself and her afterlife. This poem provides a clear indication of how unstable her mind was becoming. Somewhere between her past life and this poem have a similar connection with each other. Dickinson uses a lot of emotion and metaphorical phrases to show that a piece of her slowly dying. As she thinks and feels, she is showing that her true self is dividing. By the end if this poem her state of mind is no longer present, but rather

Emily Dickinson was thought to have an obsession with death due to her many poems and letters that contain the subject. In the later stages of her life, many of her friends and family members died. There is a window in the house where she lived that looked over the cemetery where she was a witness to many funerals that occurred. To see such a repeated reminder of loved ones lost and the presence of death in her backyard, her thoughts frequently turned to death. Poems like 280, “I felt a Funeral, in my Brain” (87) shows a clear insight into how she was affected by death. In that poem, Emily Dickinson wrote about a funeral service that she must have witnessed. “And Mourners to and fro/ Keep treading – treading – till it seemed/ That Sense was breaking through”(87). Funerals can be very hard to digest for the people attending. From the few funerals I have attended, people are

Most people in the world are afraid of death or do not like the topic of death at all. There were a lot of poems written about death. Some being scared of death and some accepting the fact of death. Well in the poems “Because I could not stop for Death” by Emily Dickinson and “Death be not proud” by John Donne these poets have a different outlook on death than most people. Dickinson and Donne think that death should not be feared. In both of the poems, death is personified as a person but the poets use different tones to make the poems have different meanings.

Firstly, the plot of Dickinson’s poem is persuades and takes the reader imagery through different settings and times. In her first poem, “Because I could Not Stop For Death” Emily talks about death and how she experienced it on her own. The second poem was also written about the author’s death and its title “I heard a fly buzz— when I died” leaves a gray area for discussion. The third poem “I felt Funeral In my Brain” Emily Dickinson describing what it would be like to experience her own funeral in consciousness, while her body was dead. Each stanzas of these poems takes reader to a new part of the poet’s journey with death. In the title of three poems, Dickinson states her subject capturing the reader on an adventure of death. The first poem uses the elements of nature represent a cycle of life. The weather is used to represent various life stages in the poem “Because I could not stop for Death”. This poem describes the process of dying right up to and past the moment of death. The speaker, walking along the road of life is picked up and given a carriage ride out of town to her destination, the graveyard and death. In the first poem the death takes the shape of a gentleman, a grim reaper, his paying a visit is normally never welcome by the normal human who finds him at the door. In the poem the woman welcomes him and is going on a date with death. She embraces death and wished to marry him. The speaker and Death pass by the school, the fields of grain and the setting sun,