I finished reading a selected work of Emily Dickinson’s poems. She wrote over 1800 poems in her lifetime, although only a handful were published while she still breathed. I found it helpful to read about her and then read her poems. The understanding of who she was as a poet helped inform her poetry at least to me. Armed with this new information, I will have to reread the collection and maybe add a few more to my library as well. I also bought her letters, which look like an interesting read.

I like reading in the first person, especially confessional novels, travel literature, poems, letters, personal essays. Im empathetically sensitive and find reading in first person allows me to build a deeper rapport with the writer, to feel what they felt.

Poetry is coming alive for me again. Why deny my affections?