Emily Dickinson (1830-86). Complete poems.
1924

A WORD is dead

When it is said

Some say.

I say it just

Begins to live

That day.

When I consider the title of the poem, the first curiosity is to understand why the concept of the word is in the centre  of the poem.  At the first line  she wrote "word" in capital.

The writer probably  thinks that the words and the use of them are important.                      

Looking again the title, I wonder why the poetess might have used the adjective dead to refer to a word.

The adjective dead  is usually used for something  that relates to the human and not to the word. In this poem the title correspond to the first line. It implies that line is pregnant of meaning. Another important aspect of the poem is its organization. The poem consists of two stanzas and makes use of very short words. Each stanza has got a tercet.