A hero doesn't have to leave her town, her house, or even her room to change the world. Though often introverted and reclusive in her lifetime, Emily Dickinson's unique influence on the world of poetry reverberates through history. Sometimes called eccentric or odd by her contemporaries, it is those very qualities that are now prized most dearly in her poetry, those words and ideas that could not have come from anyone but Ms. Dickinson herself. Emily Dickinson once wrote:
Hope is a thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune without the words
And never stops at allThose words, that sentiment came from someone who was regularly visited by thoughts of death, a preoccupation with mortality that weighed on Emily for most of her life. But through her writing she could still find light and hope - and
more amazingly, gift that joy to the rest of us.
- Meghan Murphy about Poet Emily Dickinson -
