"I'm nobody, who are you?
Are you a nobody, too?"
- Emily Dickinson 1830-1886
I often ponder how a poet gets their ideas. I mean, where do they come up with this rhyme stuff? It takes me forever just to come up with a few sentences to answer a simple question in my English class - let alone a 14 line poem. I don't know about you, but poetry is extremely hard for me to understand. If you give me something like, say Shakespeare for instance, I am and forever will be a hopeless case. I am not a love poetry type person either. Give me that mushy-gushy stuff and I will return it to you as fast as I received it. However, I have always had a heart for poems which are relatable. Not necessarily the "deep" ones, but the ones which apply to our lives, you know. For example, Emily Dickinson. She has been around for centuries. (Well, her poems at least - she passed away when she was 56.) Not many details as to her life have surfaced since she was alive. Her poems have lived on despite the fact that her life has not. I find this to be rare, but fascinating as well. Not too many works of literature stick around for long these days. I guess Mrs. Dickinson is different. And that's what I like about her.
"I'm a nobody" - these three words often play through my head like a sad serenade as I daily dread the hallway passings in between classes, or the moment my teacher calls on me to answer a question. Teachers now-a-days kill me. The only reason they want you to pass their class is so they will get a good report at the end of the year. But you can't blame them, with all the stress they're under day after day after day. They say they care, but I've learned that at the end of the day, you are the only true friend you will ever have. I've been through countless situations alone. Never having a friend to lean on when I didn't think I could carry the weight of this "hard-knock" life I seem to have been so unluckily cursed with. But that's okay, because I am a nobody. And that's all I will ever be.
I guess Mrs. Dickinson is different. And I guess that is what I like so much about her. After all, she saved my life. Well, alongside my 8th grade English teacher that is.
Last Tuesday, we were assigned a reading task. We could each pick a book (free of choice) to read, and then complete an essay over the one we chose. I, of course, chose a book of Mrs. Dickinson's most famous poems. (Might I point out that everyone should read her poem "Hope Is The Thing With Feathers" that is, if you even care of my opinion. Which brings the question: are you even listening? Listening to one such as me, whose best friend is a dead poet that doesn't even know I exist? This is often what we do while reading poetry - we follow along, and read, but we never truly listen. We focus on the fact that we cannot understand the poet's language and we too often miss the beautiful message. But still, I'm just a "nobody". Who are you?
"Hope is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - At all -"
I go to these words for comfort; just as you would go to your closest friend in a time of need and uplifting of spirits. Yesterday, I turned in my report on the books of Emily Dickinson's poems. I was very surprised and enlightened by the fact that my teacher chose mine to read aloud to the class. I wanted to veto the entire idea, but Mr. Smith seemed to be dead set on presenting mine before the class.
He began by telling them that the report was written by me (which led to all eyes in the room glancing over at me.) He then explained that my report was a hard-hitting exposé on who you truly are. Soon he was reading aloud the words of Mrs. Dickinson "I'm nobody, who are you? Are you a nobody, too?" I guess I zoned out during the next 10 to 15 minutes because all I remember hearing after that was the ending. "And it never stops - At all -"
For minutes the class set there in silence for what seemed like an eternity. The, all of the sudden, a voice came from the very back of the room saying, "I'm nobody; who are you? Are you a nobody, too?" Soon, another stood. And then another, and another, and a few more. Before long, the entire room was standing alongside Mrs. Dickinson.
Together, we are somebody.
