Blog Entry #4

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Domenick D’Angelo

ENG 102

Professor Smith

"I Felt A Funeral in My Brain" by Emily Dickinson

On December 10, 1830, an American poet named Emily Dickinson was born in Amherest, Massachusetts. She passed away on May 15, 1886 at the young age of fifty-six. I am a huge fan of Dickinson and her writing style, recently I discovered she wrote a poem that I haven’t read yet, until now. “I Felt A Funeral in My Brain,” has become one of my new favorite pieces of literature. Dickinson is able to convey such strong emotions beautifully into words, something I try to aspire to do.

In Dickinson’s first stanza of this poem, she symbolizes that the “funeral” her brain is experiencing is in fact a situation the speaker is going through and is making the speaker feel overwhelmed to the point that he/she has shut off their brain. The “mourners” Dickinson refers to the loved ones of the speaker trying to get through to him/her and comfort them in their time of need. The “service” is in fact a gathering of the speaker and his/hers loved ones discussing the speaker’s situation. The speaker’s heart beats faster and faster, which Dickinson refers the speaker’s heart as a loud “drum.” The “box” is a symbol of the speaker’s situation. The situation has been discussed between the speaker and his/hers loved ones and now the loved ones have finally gotten through to their beloved speaker.

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The two words “funeral” and “brain” stuck out to me the most in this poem for many reasons. I feel that Dickinson purposely capitalized the first letter of those two words for emphasis and to think differently when viewing those two words out of our daily context of them. Funerals, in most cases give a person closure after losing a love one. Brain represents life, without brain activity are we as people actually living? The things the brain goes through correspond to the life experiences we as people endure on a daily basis.

In the last stanza, I really like the fact the Dickinson ended in midsentence. It gives the readers like myself, sitting at the end of my seat. Even though she ended in midsentence, I still comprehended what she was trying to convey. After the speaker’s “funeral” he/she realizes that the world truly does care about him/her, and the speaker wouldn’t have had realized it without hitting rock bottom. I personally, had to read this poem multiple times before really comprehend what tone the speaker is using. At first read I thought this poem was really depressing and talking about death and talking about an actual funeral occurring. It took me about the third reading, to realize this poem is actually a warm poem, that its not intended to make someone feel depressed but to feel the exact opposite. To be happy, grateful of what one has and to value the time spent on earth.

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This poem truly inspires me. As cliché as this may sound, Dickinson worded the expression, “you don’t know what you have until it’s gone,” in such a beautiful way that really makes one person revaluate their priorities and realizes what truly matters within

one’s life. This poem is a great practice for the career path I am pursing, being an American Sign Language interpreter. Conveying emotions while one is signing is one thing to master, but to be able to put it in words is another. In worst-case scenarios I may have to document conversations I am interpreting and with American Sign Language being a visual language with such emotion and depth, I have difficulty putting that on paper. Reading this piece of Dickinson’s work plus the others I have read in the past, will really apply to my future everyday life.

Personally, I believe this poem is about the death of a situation a person is going through. By having a “funeral” of a situation, one has acknowledged the situation, assessed solutions to the situation and now they’re putting their situation to rest. Having a funeral gives people closer whether they see it at first or not. Knowing that your loved one, or in the poem’s case a situation is in a sense packaged in a box that you are able to go back to and asses one’s life changes the entire concept of “not being there” a whole lot bearable.