COULD YOU HELP ME EMULATE EMILY DICKINSON POETRY IM STUCK PLEASE

Question

Help me with some sentences please

write an original poem that emulates Emily Dickinson’s style. The subject of your poem must be similar to the subjects used Dickinson in her poetry. These include:

1. the identity of the self
2. nature
3. death and immortality
4. love

Answer 1

This is a fun assignment! I have some tips for you I think might help you in writing your poem.

Luckily, Emily Dickinson has a very simple rhyming style that she tends to use in her poetry.

Here's an example, "I measure every Grief I meet" by Emily Dickinson

I measure every Grief I meet

With narrow, probing, eyes – 

I wonder if It weighs like Mine – 

Or has an Easier size.

I wonder if They bore it long – 

Or did it just begin – 

I could not tell the Date of Mine – 

It feels so old a pain – 

I wonder if it hurts to live – 

And if They have to try – 

And whether – could They choose between – 

It would not be – to die – 

I note that Some – gone patient long – 

At length, renew their smile – 

An imitation of a Light

That has so little Oil – 

I wonder if when Years have piled – 

Some Thousands – on the Harm – 

That hurt them early – such a lapse

Could give them any Balm – 

Or would they go on aching still

Through Centuries of Nerve – 

Enlightened to a larger Pain – 

In Contrast with the Love – 

The Grieved – are many – I am told – 

There is the various Cause – 

Death – is but one – and comes but once – 

And only nails the eyes – 

There's Grief of Want – and grief of Cold – 

A sort they call "Despair" – 

There's Banishment from native Eyes – 

In sight of Native Air – 

And though I may not guess the kind – 

Correctly – yet to me

A piercing Comfort it affords

In passing Calvary – 

To note the fashions – of the Cross – 

And how they're mostly worn – 

Still fascinated to presume

That Some – are like my own –

She has what is called "common meter", with 8 syllable and 6 syllable lines going 8686, like in the song "Amazing Grace". She also uses rhymes that aren't EXACT rhymes of each other, so there is a lot of room to be creative.

You should choose a topic that interests you. Dickinson tends to write poetry with darker themes, even when she's talking about her own identity or her love life. The topics they gave you as examples are self identity, nature, death & immortality, and love.

Do any of these jump out to you? Maybe you have a hard time defining your identity. You could write about the struggle to know exactly who you are. Maybe you have strong beliefs about death and the possibility of an afterlife, and you'd like to write about that. You could write a cool poem about how you're nervous about death and dying, or about how you're not nervous at all because of the afterlife you believe in.

The key is to put in your own personal feelings, negative or positive.

Use lots of "I" and "me", and try writing it in present-tense. For example, "I walk along the lonely road, the fog rises around me / Death crosses into my path / I turn away and ignore his presence though the leaves have begun browning"

Answer 2

Hi, Kacim!

This looks like an exercise in creative writing!

A big part of the creative process is being inspired, looking for inspiration. There are tons of great resources online, such as poetseers.org (a database of poems) and brainpickings.org (a database of essays on literature).

These are links to some poems below that will give context to the different themes you outlined.

1.      Identity: https://poets.org/poem/because-i-could-not-stop-death-479

2.      Nature: https://www.poetseers.org/early-american-poets/emily-dickinson/emily-dickinsons-poetry/emily-dickinson-poems-nature/the-bee/

3.      Death and Immortality: https://vimeo.com/channels/972301/139463445

4.      Love: https://allpoetry.com/Unable-are-the-Loved-to-die

You’ll notice that the themes tend to overlap, particularly with “Unable are the Loved to Die.” Some poems can have a detached and observational style, while others seem more active and stream of consciousness.

My suggestion is to take notes in the margins of the page, or on a separate sheet of paper, of different emotions that come to mind. Maybe even note recurring rhetorical devices. It would do you well to read and re-read the poems over a few days.

Watching videos (some of which I’ve linked to) can help you get the concepts in a different way.

Categorize the poems in terms of their aims and the emotions you want to convey in your writing. Go out in nature. What do you see?

When you sit down to write your poem, have your annotated poems handy. It sounds cheesy but try to think of yourself as Emily Dickinson. What might she say? How would she say it?

Have fun with it. Good luck!