How to write like Emily Dickinson

Published August 30, 2018 | By 21daychange

Techniques and Themes to Inspire Your Writing Style

One of the most well-known poets in American literature, Emily Dickinson, is famous for her distinctive style, which challenged accepted poetic conventions. Her writing is distinguished by its clarity, unique punctuation, and in-depth examination of mortality, nature, and the human condition. It takes a great deal of study to write like Emily Dickinson, yet she encourages poets to create their voices within her constraints. By delving into her use of slant rhyme, irregular meter, and powerful imagery, aspiring poets can capture the essence of Dickinson’s writing while making it their own.

Key Takeaways:

Master the Use of Slant Rhyme and Irregular Meter: One of the most distinguishing features of Emily Dickinson’s poetry is her frequent slant rhyme, where words do not rhyme perfectly but share similar sounds. Combined with irregular meter, this technique gives her poems distinct musicality and flexibility. It’s essential to experiment with these techniques to write like Dickinson, allowing for a natural flow that doesn’t strictly adhere to traditional rhyme schemes.
Focus on Themes of Nature, Death, and Immortality: Dickinson’s poetry often revolves around deep, existential themes such as nature’s beauty, death’s inevitability, and the possibility of immortality. When writing in her style, it’s essential to reflect on these topics through a personal lens, embracing introspection. Using nature as a metaphor and contemplating the mysteries of life and death will align your work with Dickinson’s thematic core.
Embrace Unconventional Punctuation and Structure: Dickinson’s use of punctuation, particularly her reliance on dashes, is critical to her style. These dashes create pauses, add tension, and allow readers to ponder multiple meanings within her lines. In addition, her poems often lack traditional capitalization and have a fragmented, unorthodox structure. Writers looking to emulate her should feel free to break conventional rules, using punctuation to guide the reader’s experience and emphasize certain words or ideas.

Study Dickinson’s Poems

Emily Dickinson’s writing style is best understood by carefully studying her body of work. Her poems are rich with unique themes, structures, and punctuation choices that set her apart from many of her contemporaries. To honestly write like Dickinson, it is essential to immerse oneself in her poetry and examine the core elements that define her voice.

Read Her Works Extensively

Dickinson’s poetry covers many profound themes, but she is mainly known for her reflections on nature, isolation, and death. These themes are often interwoven, providing readers with layers of meaning.

Nature: Dickinson frequently used nature as a metaphor for the human condition, highlighting its beauty and transience.
Isolation: Her reclusive lifestyle is echoed in her poems, many exploring feelings of solitude and introspection.
Death and Immortality: Dickinson’s treatment of death is complex—sometimes grim, other times serene—as she ponders what lies beyond life.

Themes in Dickinson’s Poetry	Examples
Nature	“A Bird, came down the Walk”
Isolation	“I’m Nobody! Who are you?”
Death and Immortality	“Because I could not stop for Death”

Analyze Structure

One of the most notable features of Dickinson’s poetry is its irregular structure. Her poems are known for their short lines and brief stanzas, often creating a sense of brevity yet packing powerful emotions into few words. Dickinson’s poems are also free-flowing in thought, reflecting a stream-of-consciousness style that allows for multiple interpretations.

Short Lines: Dickinson frequently used concise lines packed with meaning, avoiding unnecessary language.
Stanzas: Her poems often contain short stanzas (often quatrains), giving her work a compact yet impactful structure.
Free-Flowing Thoughts: Her poetry often follows an intuitive flow rather than a strict logical progression, mirroring the natural movement of thoughts.

Structural Element	Description	Example
Short Lines	Concise language, each word holding deep meaning	“Hope is the thing with feathers.”
Brief Stanzas	Commonly, four-line stanzas create a compact form	“The Soul selects her own Society.”
Free-Flowing Thoughts	Poetic thoughts that leap from one image to another	“Success is counted sweetest.”

Punctuation and Capitalization

Emily Dickinson is famous for her unconventional use of punctuation, particularly her frequent use of dashes. These dashes serve various purposes, such as creating pauses, introducing ambiguity, or emphasizing critical points in the poem. Additionally, her capitalization is often irregular, with seemingly random words capitalized to draw attention or add significance to the text.

Dashes: Dickinson used dashes instead of traditional punctuation, creating a unique rhythm and guiding the reader’s interpretation.
Capitalization: Capitalization in her poems often highlights important themes or words, giving them greater prominence.

Punctuation Style	Description	Example
Dashes	Used to create pauses and emphasize words	“Because I could not stop for Death –”
Capitalization	Irregular capitalization to emphasize critical ideas	“The Truth must dazzle gradually –”

Unique Voice

One of the hallmarks of Dickinson’s poetry is her introspective tone. Her writing feels deeply personal, reflecting her inner thoughts and emotions. This gives her poems an intimate quality, as if she invites the reader into her private world. The voice in Dickinson’s poems is often reflective and sometimes sad, addressing profound truths about life, death, and the self.

Introspective Tone: Dickinson’s voice is inward-looking, filled with self-reflection and contemplation.
Personal Voice: Her poems often read like personal thoughts or letters, reflecting her internal emotional landscape.

Imitate Her Style

Emily Dickinson’s poetic style is distinctive and influential, offering a rich framework for aspiring poets to study and emulate. To write in her style, one must focus on the technical elements she mastered: dashes, brevity, slant rhymes, meter, and capitalization. Each technique contributes to her work’s emotional depth and layered meanings, allowing readers to engage with her poems on multiple levels.

Use of Dashes

Dickinson’s use of dashes is one of the most recognizable aspects of her writing. These dashes serve several functions, such as creating pauses for reflection, adding tension, and leaving thoughts open to interpretation. Instead of relying on traditional punctuation like periods or commas, she uses dashes to shape the rhythm and pacing of her poems.

Pauses: Dashes often act as a visual cue for the reader to pause, allowing the meaning of a line to settle before moving on.
Tension: Dashes can also build suspense or emotional intensity, drawing attention to specific words or phrases.
Interpretation: Dickinson employs dashes to imply meaning and entice readers to examine the book more carefully.

Use of Dashes	Effect	Example
Pause	Creates a reflective break	“I dwell in Possibility –”
Tension	Heightens emotional intensity	“This is my letter to the World –”
Interpretation	Leaves meaning open-ended	“Because I could not stop for Death –”

Conciseness

Dickinson’s poetry is notable for its brevity. Although her poems are often short, they are dense with meaning, forcing readers to focus on every word. One must learn to convey powerful emotions with minimal language to imitate this style. This conciseness often results in highly concentrated poems, leaving much unsaid, which invites the reader to interpret what is left out.

Powerful Imagery: Dickinson’s concise, vivid imagery conveys complex emotions in just a few lines.
Efficient Language: Each word in a Dickinson poem serves a purpose, whether contributing to the emotional tone or enhancing the poem’s rhythm.

Conciseness in Poetry	Effect	Example
Powerful Imagery	Conveys emotions vividly and briefly	“Hope is the thing with feathers –”
Efficient Language	Each word adds value and meaning	“Success is counted sweetest.”

Slant Rhyme and Meter

Another essential feature of Dickinson’s poetry is her use of slant rhyme, which involves words that sound similar but do not rhyme perfectly. This technique gives her poems an intriguing musical quality while creating a sense of subtle disruption. Dickinson’s meter was equally unconventional, often breaking traditional patterns and creating varied rhythms within her poems.

Slant Rhyme: Rather than forcing perfect rhymes, Dickinson allowed imperfect sounds that gave her poetry a more natural flow.
Varied Meter: Her meter often shifts, adding a dynamic and sometimes disjointed rhythm, reflecting the complexity of her themes.

Slant Rhyme and Meter	Effect	Example
Slant Rhyme	Adds subtle tension and uniqueness	“The Soul selects her own Society –”
Varied Meter	Breaks rhythm for emphasis	“Much Madness is divinest Sense –”

Capitalization

Dickinson’s unconventional capitalization of certain words adds another layer of meaning to her poetry. She capitalizes words that are not typically emphasized and draws attention to specific concepts and themes. This technique gives these words greater significance, often highlighting abstract ideas or essential emotions.

Highlighting Themes: Capitalizing certain words focuses the reader’s attention on the themes Dickinson explores.
Emphasizing Ideas: Words related to emotion, nature, or metaphysical ideas are often capitalized to highlight their importance.

Capitalization	Effect	Example
Highlighting Themes	Focuses attention on critical concepts	“The Soul selects her own Society –”
Emphasizing Ideas	It makes abstract ideas stand out	“Hope is the thing with Feathers –”

Incorporate Themes Common in Her Poetry

Emily Dickinson’s poetry is rich with recurring themes that reflect her personal experiences, philosophical musings, and deep connection to nature. To write in her style, it’s crucial to understand how she used these themes to explore the human condition and the metaphysical world. These themes give Dickinson’s poems emotional depth and complexity, inviting readers to interpret them on multiple levels.

Nature and the Self

Nature in Dickinson’s poetry often serves as a metaphor for internal thoughts and emotions. She draws a close connection between the external world and the inner self, using natural imagery to reflect personal states of being. This theme is frequently intertwined with solitude, reflection, and spiritual inquiry.

Metaphorical Use of Nature: Nature reflects Dickinson’s emotional and mental landscape, often symbolizing freedom, beauty, or decay.
Nature as the Mirror for the Self: Many of her poems suggest that nature reveals hidden truths about the self and existence.

Theme	Example	Description
Nature and the Self	“A Light Exists in Spring”	Uses nature to explore fleeting beauty and emotion
Nature as Reflection	“The Grass, so little has to do.”	Nature reflects themes of peace and life’s simplicity

Death and Immortality

Death is a central theme in Dickinson’s poetry. Rather than treating it with fear or despair, she approaches it with curiosity or acceptance. She contemplates the idea of immortality, pondering what lies beyond life. Her treatment of death is varied: sometimes, it is a calm, inevitable force, and other times, it is more elusive and mysterious.

Contemplative Approach: Dickinson often writes about death as a transition rather than an end, exploring eternal life.
Varied Portrayals of Death: Her poems reflect an acceptance of death and a yearning to understand what comes after.

Theme	Example	Description
Death and Immortality	“Because I could not stop for Death.”	Personifies death as a calm, gentle figure
Contemplation of Mortality	“I felt a Funeral in my Brain.”	Explores the mental and emotional experience of death

Solitude and Isolation

Dickinson lived much of her life in isolation, and her poetry reflects this personal solitude. Many of her works explore loneliness, isolation, and the longing for connection. These poems are often sad, reflecting her reclusive lifestyle and its emotional impact.

Reflection of Personal Life: Her poems often echo her own experiences of isolation, making them deeply introspective.
Melancholic Tone: The loneliness in her poetry contributes to an overall melancholic, sometimes somber, mood.

Theme	Example	Description
Solitude and Isolation	“The Soul selects her own Society.”	Explores emotional and spiritual isolation
Isolation as Reflection	“I’m Nobody! Who are you?”	A playful but severe take on feeling disconnected

Transcendence and the Supernatural

Dickinson’s poetry frequently explores metaphysical themes, such as transcendence and the supernatural. She ponders existence beyond the physical world, exploring what lies beyond death or within spiritual experiences. This theme gives her work a mystical and contemplative quality as she grapples with abstract ideas about eternity, the soul, and the divine.

Metaphysical Inquiry: Many of Dickinson’s poems ask unanswerable questions about life, death, and the soul’s journey.
Supernatural Imagery: Her poetry often includes unknown elements, evoking thoughts of the afterlife or metaphysical realms.

Theme	Example	Description
Transcendence and Supernatural	“I heard a Fly buzz – when I died.”	Blurs the line between life and the afterlife
Metaphysical Exploration	“Safe in their Alabaster Chambers”	Contemplates the stillness and eternity of death

Adopt Dickinson’s Economy of Language

Dickinson’s poetry is known for its minimalism—she uses few words to communicate vast and complex ideas. Her poems often leave much unsaid, allowing readers to fill in the gaps with their interpretations. To imitate Dickinson’s economy of language, one must focus on simplicity, ambiguity, metaphor, and symbolism to convey meaning.

Minimalism

Dickinson avoided verbose descriptions, favoring concise, direct language. This minimalism allows her poems to focus on essential emotions or ideas, making each word carry significant weight. Instead of elaborate imagery, she often used a few words to create powerful images.

Simple, Concise Language: Avoid elaborate language and focus on clarity.
Condensed Emotion: Express deep emotions using as few words as possible, making each word impactful.

Minimalism	Effect	Example
Simple Language	Strips away unnecessary words	“Hope is the thing with feathers.”
Condensed Emotion	Packs emotion into brief phrases	“Success is counted sweetest.”

Ambiguity

Dickinson’s poetry frequently lends itself to several readings, enabling readers to interact with the text however they see fit. Her use of dashes and fragmented sentences creates spaces where meaning is implied but not fully spelled out. This ambiguity is crucial to her style, inviting readers to reflect and interpret.

Leave Meaning Open: Use incomplete thoughts or open-ended phrases to allow for interpretation.
Encourage Reflection: Let the reader fill in the gaps, providing a sense of mystery or complexity.

Ambiguity	Effect	Example
Open-Ended Meaning	Encourages interpretation	“Tell all the truth but tell it slant –”
Fragmented Thoughts	Creates a sense of mystery	“I heard a Fly buzz – when I died –”

Metaphor and Symbolism

Dickinson frequently used metaphors and symbols to convey layered meanings. Nature, death, and immortality are often represented through metaphorical imagery, allowing her poems to explore more profound philosophical themes while maintaining a simple surface.

Use of Metaphors: Employ nature or abstract concepts as metaphors for internal emotions or philosophical ideas.
Layered Meaning: Create symbols that can be interpreted in various ways, adding depth to the poem.

Metaphor and Symbolism	Effect	Example
Metaphors for Emotions	Provides layered meanings	“Hope is the thing with feathers.”
Symbolism of Nature	Uses nature to convey abstract ideas	“A Bird, came down the Walk”

Practice Writing Like Dickinson

To write like Emily Dickinson, consistent practice, using her techniques, and infusing your voice is crucial. While highly individual, Dickinson’s work offers a roadmap to crafting emotionally resonant and structurally inventive poems. The key is to focus on brevity, form, personal reflection, and careful editing.

Write Short Poems

Dickinson’s poems are known for their conciseness. Start by writing short, emotionally charged poems that communicate deep feelings in as few words as possible. Focus on distilling complex ideas into brief but impactful lines. This brevity forces each word to carry meaning and weight, making every line essential to the poem.

Keep It Brief: Aim for poems with only a few lines or stanzas.
Emotionally Charged: Ensure brevity is paired with intense emotional expression.

Example Approach	Effect
“The Sky – a Mirror”	The imagery is vivid and reflective of internal thought in just three words.
“Love is a Whisper – unheard”	It is concise yet profound, capturing an abstract concept with minimal language.

Experiment with Form

Dickinson was known for her unconventional form, particularly her use of slant rhyme, dashes, and irregular punctuation. To practice writing in her style, experiment with these elements. Use slant rhymes where words don’t quite match in sound but still have a musicality. Incorporate dashes in place of traditional punctuation to create pauses, add tension, and allow multiple interpretations.

Slant Rhyme: Choose imperfect rhymes that are still related in sound.
Dashes and Unconventional Punctuation: Replace periods or commas with dashes to create rhythm and ambiguity.

Form Element	Description	Example
Slant Rhyme	Creates a subtle musicality with imperfect rhymes	“The Soul selects her own Society –”
Dashes	Adds pauses, tension, and open-ended meaning	“I heard a Fly buzz – when I died –”

Reflect on Personal Experiences

Much of Dickinson’s work is deeply personal, reflecting her thoughts on life, death, and nature. To practice writing in her style, draw on your experiences and emotions. Whether you’re exploring themes of love, loss, mortality, or nature, infuse your poetry with genuine reflection. Like Dickinson, they use nature as a metaphor for internal struggles or emotions or contemplate philosophical ideas like death or immortality.

Personal Reflection: Write about experiences or emotions that are personally meaningful to you.
Metaphorical Imagery: Use nature or abstract concepts to represent those personal feelings.

Example Approach	Effect
“The breeze – whispers what I feel.”	It is a short poem that ties personal emotion to natural imagery.
“The night – a companion in Solitude”	Reflects personal isolation, using the night as a metaphor for internal struggle.

Edit Ruthlessly

Dickinson’s poems are highly condensed, often stripped of extraneous words or phrases. To write like her, it’s essential to edit ruthlessly. After writing your poem, go through it line by line, cutting out anything that doesn’t add to the meaning. Ensure that each word is necessary and impactful. This economy of language will help your poems remain powerful and concise.

Remove Unnecessary Words: Look for phrases that can be simplified or eliminated without losing meaning.
Focus on Impact: Make sure every word contributes to the poem’s emotional and thematic weight.

Editing Example	Effect
Original: “The night is dark, and I feel alone.”	Simplified: “The night – alone.”
Original: “The leaves fell down to the ground in autumn.”	Simplified: “Autumn leaves – fell.”

FAQs

What are slant rhymes, and how did Dickinson use them?

Slant rhymes are near rhymes where the ending sounds are not identical but closely related. Dickinson often employed these to create subtle musicality and tension in her poems.

Why did Emily Dickinson use dashes in her poetry?

Dickinson used dashes to create pauses, emphasize words or ideas, and allow multiple interpretations of her lines.

What are the main themes in Emily Dickinson’s poetry?

Her poems frequently explore themes of death, immortality, nature, isolation, and spirituality.

How did Emily Dickinson’s isolation influence her poetry?

Dickinson’s reclusive lifestyle is reflected in her poetry, which often deals with solitude, introspection, and the internal world.

Can I write like Emily Dickinson without following traditional poetic forms?

Yes, Dickinson often broke traditional poetic rules, favoring irregular meter and rhyme, making her style unique and influential.

Conclusion

Writing like Emily Dickinson requires a deep understanding of her distinctive style and the themes that permeated her work. By studying her poems, experimenting with form, and adopting her economy of language, you can craft poetry that mirrors her emotional depth and structural innovation. Dickinson’s use of dashes, slant rhyme, and personal reflection makes her poems concise and profound, offering a timeless exploration of life’s biggest questions. Through practice, careful editing, and a focus on introspection, you can begin to capture the essence of Dickinson’s writing while making it uniquely your own.