"Hope" is the Thing With Feathers

To the other Poetry out Loud Participants,

In the poem “Hope is the Thing With Feathers,” Emily Dickinson incorporates diction to express her view of hope.  Emily Dickinson begins by relating “hope” to a “thing with feathers” because of its ability to take a person anywhere or out of any poor situation.  Next, Dickinson uses imagery in stanza two to help create a visual and auditory scene where the bird is continually singing while outlasting the storm.  The storm is described as “sore” because of the hard work it would take to stop the bird of hope from singing.  In the third stanza, strong adjectives are utilized.  Dickinson writes that even in the “chillest land” and the “strangest sea” hope can still be found.  Not only does Dickinson make the point that hope can be found anywhere, but she also remarks that hope is always a free gift.  This is seen in the last two lines “Yet – never – in extremity, it asked a crumb – of me.”  In addition to diction, Dickinson also creates a character for hope.  She communicates hope as a bird because of its capabilities to fly and never stop singing.  The bird in this poem is extremely determined as nothing could “abash the little bird.”  This characteristic bird of hope lives inside all of us, in our “souls,” as Dickinson explains in the very first lines of the poem.