Welcome to Spotlight Advanced. I'm Bruce Gulland and I'm Megan Nolette. Spotlight uses a special English method of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand no matter where in the world they live. We will begin today's program with a poem by Emily Dickinson. It is called I heard a fly buzz when I died. I heard a fly buzz when I died. The stillness in the
room was like the stillness in the air between the heaves of storm. The eyes around had wrung them dry, and breaths were gathering firm for that last onset when the King be witnessed in the room, willed my keepsakes signed away, what portion of me be assignable? And then it was They're interposed a fly with blue uncertain stumbling buzz between the light and me. And then the windows failed, and then I could not see to see. This poem looks
out from the mind of a person who is dying. It examines their final minutes of life. Their death is not a beautiful one, but it is not ugly either. Here Dickinson speaks about death as a normal event. There is no pain or joy. The speaker just stops being able to see. Today's spotlight is about Emily Dickinson, a woman poet who lived in Amherst, Massachusetts, in the nineteenth century. Wrote hundreds of poems in her lifetime.
She often wrote about death and loneliness, but she also wrote about the world around her. She wrote about joy and friendship. While she was alive. Most people did not know that Dickinson was writing. She avoided other people. She wrote many letters to her friends, but she did not often write poems for other people. When she was alive, she only published ten. Dickinson was not always such a private person. She was born in eighteen thirty in
the United States. For much of her early life she seemed like a normal girl, but when she was fourteen, something happened that would change her life forever. Sophia Holland was Dickinson's second cousin. In eighteen forty four, she got sick with a disease called typhus. Typhus is a deadly disease spread by an insect called a laos. It causes a lot of pain, fever, and confusion. Typhus may cause a person to not understand what is going on
around them. Today, many people recover from typhus, but in the eighteen hundreds, doctors did not know how to treat it. Holland died after getting typhus. Holland's death changed to Dickinson. She became very sad. Her parents were so worried that they took her out of school. She was very young, but she spent a long time thinking about death and loss. Months later, Dickinson recovered enough to go back to school, but death seemed to follow
her. In eighteen forty eight, Dickinson met a man named Benjamin Franklin Newton. Newton was a great influence on Dickinson. He helped her find other writers that would shape Emily's writing, and he quickly became her closest friend. But then, only two years after they met, Newton died very suddenly. Again, Dickinson fell into a deep sadness. Dickinson went through a lot of loss in her life. She did not have many friends. The ones she did
have she loved deeply. When she lost them, she also mourned deeply. In eighteen fifty four, she wrote to her sister in law named Susan Gilbert. Dickinson was very close with Gilbert, but they had been in an argument and would no longer talk. Dickinson wrote to Gilbert, you do not need to fear to leave me alone. I often part with things I think I have loved. Sometimes they are buried, sometimes they leave me. My heart bleeds so often that I will not mind bleeding more. I can only add
another pain to several that have come before. In the mid eighteen fifties, Dickinson began to turn away from the world. She started to refuse visitors. She would speak to people only by letter. Often she would not leave her home. In eighteen seventy four, her father died. The family held a memorial in their home, but Dickinson would not leave her room to visit. Instead, she watched through a small opening of her door. As she grew
older, people began to think Dickinson was very strange. She hid away from everyone, but people did not understand why. But Dickinson's life was not all sadness. She was alone for much of her life, but she seemed to choose to live this way. She spent most of her time taking care of plants and flowers, or she would spend long hours writing, and often the poems she wrote were full of joy. One poem that shares this joy is
called Hope is the thing with feathers. It reads. Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tune without the words, and never stops at all. And sweetest in the gale is heard and sore. Must be the storm that could abash the little bird that kept so many warm. I've heard it in the chillest land and on the strangest sea, yet never in extremity it asked a crumb of me. In this poem, Dickinson compares hope to a song bird. It seems beautiful and easy to break,
but even a storm cannot blow Hope away. Hope spreads its beauty even in the most difficult of times. It never asks for anything in return. Death finally came for Emily Dickinson in eighteen eighty six. She was fifty five years old when she died. Very few people knew she was a writer. Even her family did not. No. Lavinia Dickinson was Emily Dickinson's sister. She discovered Dickinson's poems in a locked box. Reading through these, Lavinia saw
how many poems her sister had written. There were over eighteen hundred poems in the box. Most of these no one had ever read. In the years since, people have published all of Dickinson's poems. She is one of the most well known poets from the United States. Dickinson did not ask for praise. She did not need it. This makes Dickinson even more special. She wrote for the love of writing. This love shines like a fire from every
line. Have you ever read anything by Emily Dickinson? What did you think? What about her poems is most interesting? You can leave a comment on our website or email us at Radio at Radio English dot net. You can also comment on Facebook at Facebook dot com slash Spotlight Radio. The writer and producer of this program was Dan Chrisman. The voices you heard were from the United Kingdom and the United States. All quotes were adapted for this program and
voiced by Spotlight. You can listen to this program again and read it on the internet at www dot Radio English dot net. This program is called Emily Dickinson American Poet. You can also get our programs delivered directly to your Android or Apple device through our free official Spotlight English app. We hope you can join us again for the next Spotlight program. Goodbye, endued day,