Emily Dickinson only published ten poems and one letter in her lifetime. Soon after her death in 1886 a further one thousand, eight hundred works were discovered, perfectly organised and bound in the attic of the house she rarely left in Amherst, Massachusetts.
One of those was “They shut me up in Prose”, the proto Pussy Riot feminist punk poem about women in patriarchal, mid-nineteenth century, Calvinist New England being told to “Shut Up”.
Dickinson was not the type to be shut up.
That this poem is still being read today shows that “They” have failed to keep her captive and, like the bird that has been lodged for Treason, she has flown.
THEY SHUT ME UP IN PROSE
by Emily Dickinson
Read by Fenella Fudge
They shut me up in Prose –
As when a little Girl
They put me in the Closet –
Because they liked me “still” –
Still! Could themself have peeped –
Himself has but to will
And seen my Brain – go round –
They might as wise have lodged a Bird
For Treason – in the Pound –
And easy as a Star
Look down opon Captivity –
And laugh – No more have I –