The Only News I Know

“The Only News I know” was written by the 19th-century American poet Emily Dickinson. Like many of Dickinson’s poems, the original date of composition is unknown, but “The Only News I know” was first published posthumously in the volume Further Poems of Emily Dickinson: Withheld from Publication by Her Sister Lavinia (1929). The short poem portrays the monotony of Dickinson’s self-imposed seclusion and, as is characteristic of Dickinson’s poetry, presents her philosophical meditations on death, eternity, and God. Ambiguous, wryly humorous, grammatically jarring, and abstractly inconclusive, “The Only News I know” is emblematic of much of Dickinson’s body of work.

Although she was the author of roughly 1,800 poems, Dickinson only published ten poems; such famous poems as “I Taste a liquor never brewed” (1861), “Nobody knows this little rose” (1858), and “A narrow fellow in the grass” (1866) were among the few that appeared in print during her lifetime. While some critics have speculated that this disparity between poems written and poems published existed because Dickinson’s enigmatic poetic style clashed with 19th-century American literary tastes, other critics have argued that it was Dickinson herself who consciously avoided publication. Ultimately, the reason Dickinson’s poems were unpublished remains unknown. However, her poems were not without an audience even then, as Dickinson regularly shared poems in her written correspondence with family, close friends, and even some acquaintances within the publishing industry. Her poems finally obtained an international audience when, after her death in 1886, several family members and acquaintances published the first volume of her poetry, simply titled Poems (1890). Poems was an instant success, and publishers printed eleven editions of the collection in under two years. For the next few decades, Dickinson’s family undertook the task of transcribing and publishing volumes of poetry from her manuscripts, ensuring Dickinson’s legacy as one of America’s foremost poets.

Poet Biography

The daughter of the wealthy lawyer and eventual American statesman Edward Dickinson, Emily Dickinson was born on December 10, 1830 into the heavily Puritan-influenced town of Amherst, Massachusetts. During her early childhood Dickinson lived comfortably at the Homestead, a mansion built on the town’s main street by her grandfather, and played with her two siblings, Austin and Lavinia, with whom she remained close her entire life. Each of the Dickinson children attended the same one-room primary school in Amherst and graduated to the coeducational Amherst Academy where they were tutored in the strict Calvinist doctrine with which Dickinson grappled in her poems.

During her seven years at Amherst Academy, Dickinson learned Latin, science, arithmetic, and literature; although she was often confined to her home with illness, she excelled in her studies. Originally a boys’ school, Amherst Academy offered girls like Dickinson an unusually intellectual and rigorous education, one which Dickinson gladly embraced. In addition to her studies, Dickinson often attended lectures by Amherst College president Edward Hitchcock and became enamored with his scientific observations, which inspired many of her future poems. Amherst Academy was a source of liberation and possibility for Dickinson, and it was under the tutelage of Leonard Humphrey, the academy’s principal, that Dickinson first developed an interest in poetry. Although she began writing poetry as a teenager, none of her adolescent poems have been preserved.

After completing her education at Amherst Academy, a nearly 17-year-old Dickinson left home to study at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in South Hadley, Massachusetts. Unlike Amherst Academy, Mount Holyoke did not agree with Dickinson, and she returned home after just one year. Historians have proposed a number of reasons for her withdrawal. Some argue Dickinson’s distaste for the school’s strict, “invasive religious practices” prompted her departure (Habegger, Alfred, Britannica.com, “Emily Dickinson”). Others have suggested that Dickinson found the education redundant, and other historians maintain that the reclusive Dickinson was merely homesick. Whatever the reason, Dickinson abandoned her studies at the seminary and returned to her family with whom she would reside the rest of her life. In 1847, concurrent to this uncertain time, Dickinson met Susan Gilbert who became her closest friend, literary confidante, sister-in-law, and possible lover.

The 1850s saw a number of changes in Dickinson’s life, many of them quite troubling to her. As a young unmarried woman finished with her formal education, Dickinson now found her time occupied by constant domestic chores and frequent social visits. As more and more of her friends from the academy married and became mothers, Dickinson found her social circle dwindling. Her dislike of domestic work and its constraints on her intellectual freedom inspired an aversion to marriage, explored in later poems like “I’m ‘wife’—I’ve finished that” and “She rose to his requirement, dropped.” This disinterest in marriage isolated Dickinson from her former peers. Dissatisfied with the meaninglessness of her daily domestic life, Dickinson often retreated into her own world, limiting visitors and devoting herself to her poetic pursuits. She still maintained friendships through written correspondence, but these friendships typically revolved around literary interests. Dickinson wrote often to publishers, fellow poets, and editors but none more often than her friend Susan Gilbert, who introduced Dickinson to poets like Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, as well as the Brontë sisters, each of whom greatly influenced Dickinson’s own poetry. Her correspondence with Gilbert at this time reveals Dickinson’s gradual development of her poetic calling.

The 1850s also saw Susan Gilbert marry Dickinson’s brother Austin. The two moved into the Evergreens, the house next door from the Homestead, in 1856. Although often turbulent, Dickinson and Susan’s friendship remained constant, and their letters demonstrate the importance of Susan Gilbert to Dickinson’s poetry. Dickinson looked to her as a fellow poet and indispensable critic, sending her over 270 poems in letters across her lifetime. Dickinson even dedicated a number of poems to Gilbert, including her early poem “I have a Bird in spring” (1858).

By 1860, Dickinson had already written over 150 poems. From the very beginning, Dickinson’s poetic vision was remarkably mature and defined. Her early poems employed the kind of hymn and ballad meter to which she often returned. Furthermore, like her later poetry, these early poems explored feelings of abandonment, discontent with the world and religion, and ruminations on solitude, death, mortality, and eternity. Before she was 30 years old, Dickinson had already established a unique poetic voice and style, which she would ultimately perfect over the next decade.

The first half of the 1860s was the most productive writing period in Dickinson’s life. Troubled by the national grief caused by the Civil War and suffering from severe vision loss, Dickinson withdrew almost completely from society. While the country was enduring the most gruesome war in its history, death’s shadow was also darkening Dickinson’s life and poetry. These poems envisioned the stillness at the moment of death (“I heard a Fly buzz—when I died”), depicted the metaphorical journey of life and death as a carriage ride (“Because I could not stop for Death”), and portrayed everyday feelings through the language of tombs and funerals (“I died for Beauty—but was scarce” and “I felt a Funeral, in my Brain”). This theme of life and death invigorated Dickinson’s greatest creative period. Although the exact numbers are uncertain, many historians estimate that Dickinson composed nearly 1,000 poems between 1861 and 1865.

From 1866 until Dickinson’s death in 1886, Dickinson’s poetic output gradually slowed. Although her writing production had reduced from its former intensity, Dickinson still wrote roughly a third of her poetry in this period. The last 20 years of her life saw the composition and even publication of many of her most famous poems. “A narrow Fellow in the Grass” was published in the newspaper Springfield Daily Republican in 1866, and “Success is counted sweetest,” although likely written years earlier, appeared in the 1878 poetry anthology A Masque of Poets, which featured poems by writers like Louisa May Alcott and Christina Rossetti. Dickinson also composed two of her most well-known poems “Tell all the truth but tell it slant” and “Apparently with no surprise” sometime in the 1870s and 1880s respectively. Likely written in 1884 after the deaths of Dickinson’s father, mother, and young nephew, “Apparently with no surprise” accordingly depicts the sudden death of a once beautiful and happy flower during winter. Dickinson concludes the poem by questioning the casual cruelty of a god that would design such death and senseless destruction. “Apparently with no surprise” is perhaps Dickinson’s final poetic meditation on the reality of death and the nature of deity, ideas she had explored in her earliest poems even before her intimate familiarity with them.

After nearly three years of living with physical ailments, Emily Dickinson died in Amherst in 1886, likely from kidney disease. Shortly after Dickinson’s passing, her sister Lavinia found her collection of poems. Together with Susan Gilbert, Emily Dickinson’s friend Thomas Higginson, and Austin Dickinson’s mistress Mabel Loomis Todd, Lavinia Dickinson preserved the poetic legacy of her sister. The first collection of Dickinson’s poetry, Poems, debuted in 1890 only four years after Dickinson’s death.

Poem Text

The Only News I know

Is Bulletins all Day

From Immortality.

The Only Shows I see—

Tomorrow and Today—

Perchance Eternity—

The Only One I meet

Is God—The Only Street—

Existence—This traversed

If Other News there be—

Or Admirable Show—

I’ll tell it You—

Dickinson, Emily. “The Only News I know.” 1929. Further Poems of Emily Dickinson: Withheld from Publication by Her Sister Lavinia.

Summary

“The Only News I know” begins with Dickinson divulging the details of her lonely and reclusive lifestyle. She reveals that the “Only News” (Line 1) or new information she receives is “Bulletins all Day / From Immortality” (Lines 2-3). Rather than read a newspaper and see the bulletins and advertisements featured there, she “reads” or considers information from “Immortality,” a favorite euphemism of Dickinson for death and the afterlife.

In the second stanza, Dickinson furthers her description of her mundane life. She asserts that the “Only Shows” (Line 4) she sees are “Tomorrow and Today –/ Perchance Eternity” (Lines 5-6). She does not go to the theater to see plays or shows; instead, she sees and thinks about each day she experiences and the days she will experience, even to the point of future days spent in eternity.

The third stanza addresses her lack of visitors and human interaction. The “Only One” (Line 7) Dickinson meets with “Is God” (Line 8). She has minimal conversations with other people and spends the majority of her time speaking to and thinking about God. Similarly, the “Only Street” (Line 8) she travels is “Existence” (Line 9). She takes no journeys, save for the journey of life and her own existence.

Once the street of existence has been “traversed” (Line 9), Dickinson assures her audience she will inform them “If Other News there be” (Line 10). If there is any new, unknown information after death or any “Admirable Show” (Line 11) not already found on Earth, she will “tell it” (Line 12) to her audience, whom she characterizes simply as “You” (Line 12).