Olivia's English Literati

A Poem by a Published Author-Emily Dickinson

I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us — don't tell!
They'd banish us, you know.

How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!
-Emily Dickinson

“I’m nobody, who are you?” by Emily Dickinson is the published author poem I chose. I picked this poem because I love the way it rhymes, but doesn’t have a structure, which I think helps it flow better. I like the figurative language because it can be interpreted in many ways, “How public, like a frog” can be said that it’s because a frog is loud and everyone hears it, or because everyone knows what a frog is. “To tell your name the livelong day to an admiring bog!” is my favorite part of the poem because I like the way it makes it seem how people who are “somebody” are really just exposing themselves to something that can just as quickly drift away and vanish. I thought the lines “-Don’t tell! They’d banish us, you know” were the most interesting, because I feel it’s saying that if in society you don’t blend in (so if you aren’t somebody ((or trying to be)) like the rest) you will get rejected.

This poem also appeals to me because of the fact that it talk about how being nobody is actually OK, and makes it seem like being nobody is the thing to be. It makes it seem like being nobody is better, and as a middle school student, most of us experience what it’s like to feel like nobody, and this poem gives a whole new twist to it that most of us would not have thought of, because we are so busy trying to be somebody. When I was younger I would watch TV shows about people who envied others who were “popular” and I would always wonder if that was what I was supposed to strive to be, but this poem, whenever I read reminds me that being a nobody is better, because you’re different. How many people do you know that strive to be nobodies? Enjoy!