Audio:
Emily Dickinson’s idiosyncratic use of punctuation is evident in this eight-line poem, which includes nine dashes. One of her most iconic verses, it was also one of the first to be published after her death.
I'm Nobody! Who are you?
Are you – Nobody – too?
Then there's a pair of us!
Dont tell! they'd banish us – you know!
How dreary – to be – Somebody!
How public – like a Frog –
To tell your name – the livelong June –
To an admiring Bog!
I’m Nobody! Who are you?
Poem included in fascicle 11, ca. late 1861
Hougton Library, Harvard University