Welcome back to the Daily Poem, a podcast from Goldberry Studios. I'm Sean Johnson, and today is Tuesday, January 30th, 2024. Today's poem is by that alluring but enigmatic American poetist Emily Dickinson. And it's called Fame is a Bee.

I'll read it once, offer a few comments, and then, time permitting, read it one more time.

Fame is a bee.

It has a song. It has a song.

It has a sting.

Ah, too, it has a wing.

And that's it.

It's a short poem.

But that's one of the things that makes this poem so impressive.

I am unceasingly impressed and in awe of this poem that is so short, but so economical. It's so packed with meaning, and it's so well drawn.

Lay Dickinson's strokes here are so brief but efficient that they suggest to you so much more than they actually say.

This metaphor is so well chosen that it shows you exactly and prompts you and how exactly to unpack it without

Dickinson's poem having to do the unpacking for you. And it guarantees a kind of continuing engagement between the reader and the poem as you

tease out exactly what the metaphor means or is doing here and it sort of creates a lingering

gravity that's going to draw you deeper into the poem.

I'm so impressed. It's a masterwork. This is what poetry, all poetry should aspire to.

There's that famous quip attributed to Mark Twain in which he tells a friend.

He would have written them a shorter letter, but he didn't have the time.

I think this is the epitome of that principle, that true brevity.

That also carries with it the soul of wit is hard to come by.

It takes a lot of time and effort.

But then for all I know, Emily Dickinson dashed this off in five minutes.

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