Emily Dickinson: The Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson

• ISBN-13: 9781593080501
• Publisher: Barnes & Noble
• Publication date: 10/1/2003
• Series: Barnes & Noble Classics Series
• Pages: 400

Born in Amherst, Massachusetts in 1830, Dickinson began life as an energetic, outgoing young woman who excelled in her studies. However, in her mid-twenties she began to grow reclusive, and eventually she rarely descended from her room in her father's house. She spent most of her time writing poems, largely without encouragement or real interest from her family and peers. When her poems finally appeared after her death, reader immediately recognized an artist whose immense depth and stylistic complexities would one day make her the most widely recognized female poet to write in the English language.
Dickinson's poetry is remarkable for its tightly controlled emotional and intellectual energy. The longest poem covers less than two pages. .Yet in theme and tone her writing reaches for the sublime as it charts the landscape of the human soul. A true innovator, Dickinson experimented freely with conventional rhythm and meter, and often used dashes, off rhymes, and unusual metaphors - techniques that strongly influenced modern poetry. Dickinson's idiosyncratic style, along with her resonant observations about life and death, love and nature, and solitude and society, have firmly established her as one of America's true poetic geniuses. 

 Oh, friends. What to say about the effervescent Emily Dickinson? She is a huge fan of the dashes and the colons. Some of her poems can seem nigh on unintelligible, unless you spend the time thinking about them. But isn't that the way of most great poets?
 I found that there were many poems that I loved and ended up quoting on one of my other blogs. I quoted fewer than I would have liked, if that tells you anything. If you don't know anything about Emily Dickinson, you should know that she was a depressive soul, and so many of her poems focus on death and the darker aspects of life and love. However, her collection is so wide, one cannot accuse her of being a one trick pony. This particular volume separates the poems into themes, or subject categories if you will, and so if you don't want to read about death, that's okay, head over to the section about nature.
 There isn't much to say about a collection of poems, other than that Emily Dickinson is brilliant, one of the greats. And if you can't understand or appreciate poetry, don't pick this up. But if you can - do.
Overall: A
It's Emily Dickinson. And this edition organizes the poem well with some other nice treats.