Featured Poem: After Great Pain, a Formal Feeling Comes by Emily Dickinson
For the rest of June our weekly Featured Poem will celebrate the month of Pride. We’ve chosen poems by LGBTQ+ authors that link with the meanings associated with the different colours of the Pride flag: red for ‘life’, orange for ‘healing’, yellow for ‘sunlight’, green for ‘nature’, blue for ‘art’, violet for ‘spirit’.
Today’s choice for 'healing' is ‘After Great Pain, a Formal Feeling Comes’ by Emily Dickinson.
After Great Pain, a Formal Feeling Comes
After great pain, a formal feeling comes--
The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs--
The stiff Heart questions was it He, that bore,
And Yesterday, or Centuries before?
The Feet, mechanical, go round--
Of Ground, or Air, or Ought--
A Wooden way
Regardless grown,
A Quartz contentment, like a stone--
This is the Hour of Lead--
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons recollect the Snow--
First--Chill--then Stupor--then the letting go--
by Emily Dickinson
Share
Related Articles
April’s Monthly Stories and Poems
The clocks have not long changed to herald the longer hours of daylight, making us consider the passage of time…
The Storybarn Selects… From The Reader Bookshelf
Our last deep dive into the 2023/24 Children and Young People's Reader Bookshelf is a review of Floodland by Marcus Sedgwick…
March’s Stories and Poems
March’s stories, extracts and poems have been chosen on the theme ‘Moving on’, which perhaps feels especially relevant as we…
