The outstanding question of Dickinson's "The difference between Despair / and Fear" is why the difference has to be known.

Dickinson is practical, not obsessed with sounding practical.

When you create something entirely your own, something no one else attends to, you could forget who you were.

I am so, so jealous of Dickinson's confidence in this poem.

If geometry, the shapes which compose everyday life, is witchcraft, then a little more awareness of what helps is actually a minor miracle.

I believe it is possible to speak of loss as lasting without completely exonerating those who are greedy, panicked, or paranoid.

Did Dickinson send something so elaborate just to say "get out of my life?"

Vendler allows this lyric to resonate with moral force, and I have no doubt some will commit this poem to memory because of her interpretation.

What seems to be at stake for Dickinson is as much as a bee, a butterfly, and a breeze. Why can’t she just have her say and be left alone?