“Poem 315“ by Emily Dickinson (1858?)

An early poem, with different dates attributed to its composition, which reflects the tensions and joys of Poem 937. Here the moment of unexpected and unanticipated emotional wrenching is described not as an ax attack but rather as a scalping from which the soul never recovers. She describes her emotional moment as though delivered by an “ethereal hammer,” the metaphor capturing the sense of an emotional and spiritual moment that nevertheless registers physically. The poem also underscores how desperately alone the poet feels despite the tectonic emotional moment that has left her devastated—the larger universe about her is quite still.

“There Was a Child Went Forth” by Walt Whitman (1855)

Whitman and Dickinson have come to be regarded as the sort of grandfather and grandmother of American poetry, their styles so different (Whitman broad and expansive; Dickinson claustrophobic and introspective), their poetic constructions so unique and so American. Dickinson was familiar with Whitman, although she professed disdain with his uncouth poetic lines, his unapologetically bawdy tone, and his risqué subject matter. But this iconic Whitman poem suggests more of an alignment. Published in the years leading up to Poem 937, the poem suggests the same sort of devastating emotional moment that Dickinson records. For Whitman, that jolting experience expands and enlivens every moment of living—he compares himself to a child going out every morning enchanted with everything he sees and feels. Whitman’s bear hug of all experience contrasts with Dickinson’s trepidation over whether her heart and her intellect can ever fully recover.

“Diving into the Wreck” by Adrienne Rich (1973)

Few 20th-century poets better reflect the influence of Dickinson’s emergence as a major American poet than Adrienne Rich (1929-1912). Here the poem explores the daunting (and often harrowing) business of exploring the heart and all its contradictory emotions. The emergence of the figure of the introspective Confessional poet reflects the stature of Dickinson in post-World War Two American poetry following the 1950 publication, at last, of her collected poems. At the core of Rich’s poem (and her work generally) is the gift that Dickinson brought to American poetry, before her largely a male enterprise: the celebration of the expansive, engaged, and multifaceted woman.