Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) wrote in the same period of Walt Whitman, but her poems were totally different . She lived all her whole life in Amherst, Massachusetts, and composed nearly 2,000 short, untitled poems. Despite her productivity, only few of Dickinson’s poems were published before her death in 1886. Dickinson used images and experienced different variations within (all’interno) her simple form. She used imperfect rhymes, subtle breaks (interruzioni) of rhythm (ritmo), and personal syntax and punctuation to create fascinating word puzzles, which are still producing contradictory interpretations. She was fascinated by a variety of subjects and emotions: death, and afterlife (vita dopo la morte) , faith (fede) in God and disillusionment (delusione). Many of her poems record moments of bitter (amara) paralysis that could be death, pain (dolore), doubt, fear, or love. She remains one of the most private and cryptic voices in American literature. Here is an example of her way of writing. Her poems have usually no titles, but are numbered. This is about life and its number XXVII
XXVII
I ’M nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there ’s a pair (siamo in due) of us—don’t tell!
They ’d banish us (allontanerebbe), you know.
How dreary (noioso) to be somebody!
How public, like a frog (rana )
To tell your name the livelong day (tutto il giorno)
To an admiring bog! (palude)