"Hope is a Thing with Feathers" by Emily E. Dickinson

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson is one of the most influential figures in American poetry. She had a unique writing style, using extensive dashes, dots, and unconventional capitalization. In addition to this, vivid imagery and peculiar vocabulary. She also did not use the pentameter (a line of verse containing five metrical feet and the predominant meter since the 16th century). She was more inclined to use trimester, tetrameter, and even dimeter at times, which are all different rhythms for poetry. What set Dickenson apart was how she expressed her feelings in her work. She forever changed the way people thought and felt about the things she described.

One of Dickinson’s well-known works is “Hope is the Thing with Feathers.” The author describes “hope” as a feathered creature dwelling inside the soul. There it sings wordlessly and without pause. Only an incredibly severe storm could “abash the little Bird.” This “Hope” bird has kept many people warm. Concluding the poem, the speaker says they have heard the bird’s song in the bleakest places and weirdest seas. But even in those extreme situations, the bird never asked for anything in return. It just kept chirping. 

The poem honors the human capacity of hope. Using extended metaphors, the poem portrays hope as a bird that lives inside the human soul. It sings rain or shine, good times or bad. The poem argues that hope is miraculous and impossible to defeat. Lastly, it never asks for anything in return. It costs nothing for people to maintain hope. This written work implores its readers to use hope and see it as a valuable part of themselves. 

Hope is essential to human life. The beauty of it is that it requires nothing from people. It can literally and figuratively keep people alive. The poem argues that hope can be helpful in the most extreme situations and that people should therefore rely on it as a precious resource, never taking it for granted. Written after “Success is Counted Sweetest,” this is still an early poem for Dickinson, and neither her language nor her themes here are as complicated and explosive as they would become in her more mature work from the mid-1860s. However, it still carries an important message. 

- Noor