In Emily Dickinson’s poems “My Life Had Stood a Loaded Gun” and “I Heard a Fly Buzz When I Died,” she speaks in the voice of someone (or something) different from herself. In one poem she is a speaking gun; in the other she is dead. What effect does this have for the reader? What does it tell you about Dickinson that she so easily identifies with something other than her own experience or identity?
Choose one of the poems discussed in the Voices and Visions: Emily Dickinson video and explain what it is about and how you think some aspect of her life might
have affected her writing of the poem.
Read the PowerPoint on Emily Dickinson and read the assigned poems. Then, using a “Work Overview” from one of her poems, write about the opinion in the overview of what the poem means and how you understand it. You do not have to agree with the overview’s author’s opinion. Discuss the poem, quote from it and from the overview, and follow MLA Style when you document your sources.
