Reading Response Prompts
 

These prompts are meant to get you thinking about what you have read, and to help focus your thoughts for your reading responses. You can respond to any one of them, or, if you have another idea you would rather explore, you are free to write about that instead. Do not, however, attempt to answer multiple prompts for any assignment. If you choose to pursue an idea of your own or are not writing a response that day, you should still spend at least a few minutes thinking about each of the prompts in preparation for class. For more information, review the listserv assignment.
Emily Dickinson: Poems on Pain, Poems on Other Topics (109, 112, 168, 178, 181, 314, 411, 466, 339, 372, 458, 515, 550, 552, 588, 760, 764, 861, 960, 1080 — all Franklin numbering)

As you can see, pain is a recurring theme in Emily Dickinson’s poetry, but she explores it in unexpected ways. What surprises you most about these poems?

Does Dickinson’s attitude toward pain depend upon whether she is talking about her own pain or someone else’s? Does it change over time?

Explication option:  Choose any one of these poems, and perform a line-by-line reading in which you explain what you think the key words, phrases, and images are.
 
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