The personification of nature that Dickinson employs in this poem is simply beautiful. As always, she uses a few words to articulate so much and does it so well. It's so easy to visualize in one's mind's eye the scene that she is describing. And then with the last few words, Dickinson brings home the true point of the piece with the comparison of nature to humanity.
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Program Credits
Announcer: Thomas Lamar
Narrator: Nicole Rodrigues
Composer: Kevin Duncan
Sound Design & Mixing: Andrew Riffenburgh
Photography: Scott Ogle
Producer/Director: J.D. Sutter
Sound effects credit: creative commons sfx contributor, Dominic Smith
Sound effects credit: creative commons sfx contributor, Dominic Smith
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| Emily Dickinson, circa 1846 image credit: Amherst College Library; retrieved from poets.org |
"The Sky Is Low, The Clouds Are Mean" by Emily Dickinson
The sky is low, the clouds are mean,A travelling flake of snow
Across a barn or through a rut
Debates if it will go.
A narrow wind complains all day
How some one treated him;
Nature, like us, is sometimes caught
Without her diadem.