Richard Howard

Richard Howard, Pulitzer prize-winning poet, scholar, teacher, critic, and translator, focuses his insight and appreciation on Emily Dickinson's work from the year — 1862 considered her "flood" year during which she unleashed a torrent of poetry. Howard, who teaches at Columbia University, is the poetry editor of The Paris Review, and recently taught a master class on Dickinson for the Poetry Society of America.

Visit his Poetry Foundation page for more information.

Please consult this article to learn more about the Emily Dickinson Birthday Tribute.

After great pain, a formal feeling comes

Emily Dickinson, 1862

After great pain, a formal feeling comes —

The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs —

The stiff Heart questions was it He, that bore,

And Yesterday, or Centuries before?

The Feet, mechanical, go round —

Of Ground, or Air, or Ought —

A Wooden way

Regardless grown,

A Quartz contentment, like a stone —

This is the Hour of Lead —

Remembered, if outlived,

As Freezing persons recollect the Snow —

First — Chill — then Stupor — then the letting go —

Reprinted by permission of the publishers and the Trustees of Amherst College from The Poems of Emily Dickinson: Reading Edition, Ralph W. Franklin, editor, Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Copyright © 1999, 1998, 1983, 1955, 1951 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College.