Stanza, Image, and Imagery. A stanza is a group of lines in a poem. Stanzas are usually separated by spaces from other groups of lines. An image is language that describes something that can be seen, heard, touched, tasted, or smelled. The images in a literary work are referred to, when considered altogether, as the work’s imagery. As you read, pay attention to which poems use regular stanzas.

• Emily Dickinson wrote many poems—more than 1,700 over the course of her life. She was also a great letter writer. Dickinson, who tended to be shy around strangers, chose to spend much of her time in her home. One of the primary ways she had contact with others, outside her circle of family and very close friends, was through letter writing. In fact, it was a letter that first called attention to her poetry. In 1862, she wrote a letter to Thomas Wentworth Higginson, a fellow writer she had never met. The letter began: ”Mr. Higginson, Are you too deeply occupied to say if my verse is alive? . . . Should you think it breathed, and had the leisure to tell me, I should feel quick gratitude.” She enclosed four poems, an envelope, and her name on a small card. Although Higginson did not encourage Dickinson to publish her poetry in her lifetime, he did give her advice in his letters and encouraged her to write. Together with Dickinson’s sister, Higginson helped to find a publisher for Dickinson’s poems after her death in 1886. The poems you are about to read share her feelings about writing, books, and thought.

Write your thoughts and feelings about books.