Swenson, Dickinson Poems

Two poems that explore the change from this life to whatever follows are May Swenson’s “Question” and Emily Dickinson’s “I heard a Fly buzz--when I died--”. The former depicts a someone questioning the fate of her body and soul upon death’s separation while the latter constitutes of a speaker retelling, from the grave, the moments surrounding her last breath. While both poems are written in first person, making the prospect of death personal, they differ in tense. “Question” is written in present tense, which adds to its stream-of-consciousness flow, and allows the speaker to seem unsure and somewhat frantic to resolve death’s enigma. Inversely, “I heard a Fly buzz--when I died--” is written in past tense as an after death reflection. The poem’s tense allows the speaker’s observations to be very filtered and precise; only the most important details are added, and they are mentioned, not necessarily in chronological order, but at the point in which they have the greatest effect. Both poems are organized very differently. “Question” takes advantage of the free verse style to allow the poem to sound like the disorganized spitting of thoughts. Without the restraints of a rhyme scheme or set number of lines per stanza, these devices gain the ability to highlight any thought or image within the poem. On the other hand, “I heard a Fly buzz--when I died--” relies heavily on it’s prose. It is organized into four stanzas with four lines per stanza, with lines alternating between eight and six syllables. Each line starts with an unstressed syllable and then alternates stressed-unstressed till the end. This pattern is melodic and calming, just as the speaker expected death to be, but also sounds like the “uncertain stumbling Buzz” of a fly. The meter makes sure that even when the fly is not being mentioned, its presence is continually felt.