Kattelman holds a Ph.D. in theatre from Ohio State University. In this essay, Kattelman discusses how Dickinson's poem can be best understood by studying both the structure of text and the poet's life.

The magic of poetry is that it packs a great deal of meaning into very few, well-chosen words. The greatest of poets are experts at manipulating word choice and syntax to convey an entire world of images and concepts. Emily Dickinson was among these masters. She was able to compress numerous images and ideas into a few short lines, thus creating some very powerful, but also very cryptic poems. Her economy of expression produced some wonderful poetry but also created a unique challenge for the reader. The brevity of her poems can make it difficult to glean her intention. To gain the most complete understanding of a Dickinson poem, it is useful to...