“Nobody” calls the Poetry Crisis Line

For International Women’s Day, we’re rerunning Emily Dickinson, in sepia, in honor of all the women and marginalized people who’ve had to suffer being conditioned not to think of themselves.

ROSIE (counselor): Poetry Crisis Line, what is your emergency?
NOBODY (emily dickinson): I’m Nobody!
ROSIE: It’s OK–at the Poetry Crisis Line, we respect your privacy.
NOBODY: Who are you?
ROSIE: We also respect my privacy.
NOBODY: Are you Nobody, too?
ROSIE: If it helps to think of it that way.

Emily Dickinson calls the Poetry Crisis Line

ROSIE (counselor): Poetry Crisis Line, what is your emergency?
EMILY (caller): Hope is the thing with feathers.
ROSIE: That’s a lovely name. What kind of bird is Hope?
EMILY: That perches in the soul
ROSIE: In the solarium? That sounds nice.
EMILY: That sings the song without the words
ROSIE: Is she a breed that can learn to talk?
EMILY: And never stops at all.
ROSIE: Have you tried putting a blanket over her cage at night?

Poets Answer an Age-Old Question: Why did the chicken cross the road? [Part 1]

Q: Why did the chicken cross the road?

A:

William Shakespeare

To cross or not to cross—that is the question!
Whether ‘tis nobler in the coop to suffer
The pecks and scratches of aggressive chickens
Or set foot upon a dusty roadway
And so, with your toes spread, cross it.

Walt Whitman

O chicken, my chicken
The fearful path is wide
But still you walked across the road
To reach the other side.

Emily Dickinson

Because I could not cross the road
A chicken crossed for me
And pecked the doorbell that would ring
Apartment number three.

Nobody calls the Poetry Crisis Line

[original by Emily Dickinson]

STAFFER: Poetry Crisis Line, what is your emergency?
CALLER: I’m Nobody!
STAFFER: It’s OK–at the Poetry Crisis Line, we respect your privacy.
CALLER: Who are you?
STAFFER: We respect my privacy also.
CALLER: Are you – Nobody – too?
STAFFER: If that’s how you’d like to think of it.
CALLER: Then there’s a pair of us!
STAFFER: No, we respect everyone’s privacy.
CALLER: Don’t tell!
STAFFER: Exactly.
CALLER: they’d advertise –
STAFFER: Who would?
CALLER: you know!
STAFFER: Right. Are they listening in already?
CALLER: How dreary – to be – Somebody!
STAFFER: Did you take diction lessons from William Shatner?
CALLER: How public –
STAFFER: No, we respect your privacy. I was just–
CALLER: like a Frog –
STAFFER: No, I mean it!
CALLER: To tell one’s name –
STAFFER: Again, you don’t have to.
CALLER: the livelong June –
STAFFER: Well hello, June. Nice to meet you.
CALLER: To an admiring Bog!
STAFFER: That’s not the best place for privacy. No one will bother you while you’re there, but if you fall in you could end up preserved for thousands of years, then put on display in a museum.