“ A WORD is dead ”

A word is dead

When it is said

Some say

I say it just

Begins to live

That day.

Emily Dickinson

 “ A WORD is dead ” was written by Emily Dickinson in 1924. The title of the poem makes me make an anticipation: Mrs. Dickinson probably  wanted to personify the term WORD conferring to its human features as if words had a life like human beings.

 The poem is short: it consist of two stanzas of three brief lines. I think the structure is short to focus on the poem’s meaning and the differences of the general idea of  words life and the poetess' idea too.

The first stanza is about ordinary people's ideas about words.  It recalls/reminds an adage: the life of a “word” ends whenever it is pronounced. Vice versa the poetess says that the life of a “word” begins when it is pronounced and does therefore not die at all.

The poetess expressed two ideas about the life of a word: she wants to distinguish hereself from the common people's viewpoint and, at the same time,  I think she would like to convince the reader about of her personal ideas on the life of a“word”. Shortening the last three lines she aimed at catching  the reader's attention. She capitalized the term WORD to highlight its importance and relevance.

The message is: words are very important elements  human beings must use with wisdom and exact weight because words have emotional vigor.