In regard to that quote, I thought for my next seven posts, I’d address those specific seven subjects in Dickinson’s poetry: snakes, flies, grass, stones, wind, rain, and the moon.
Today’s focus: Snakes.
If you type the word “snake” into the search field of the Dickinson online archive, 19 results pop up, and those entries represent the six different poems in which Dickinson used the word “snake.”
Interestingly, though, Dickinson’s most famous poem about a snake does not appear on the site’s list of entries. That’s because the poem, “A narrow fellow in the grass,” is ABOUT a snake, but it does not include the word “snake.”
The poem was published in 1891 in the second series of “Poems.” The book was edited by Mabel Loomis Todd, and it was she who gave the poem its title.