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.

A WORD is Dead is a poem written by Emily Dickinson. Right from the title an intelligent reader can suppose that the poem will deal with the "life" of a word and its importance. In addition when the reader look at the title he wonders why the poetess used an adjective like dead to refer to a word which has no life. She also writes "A WORD" in capital letters because, probably, she might focus the reader's attention to this point, considered very important to her. But there isn't a title and this imply that the line one is very pregnant with meaning to become the title. The poem is short, it is made of two tercet, but has a deep meaning. The poetess uses two tercet because she want to underline the difference between people's point of view and her opinion. In the first tercet the poetess states that some people think that words, once they are said and they come out of mouth, lose their life and meaning. So common people think that word hasn't got importance and after it has served its purpose, it is no longer anything to important. In the second tercet poetess express her personal idea. The reader can easily understand that is the poet who speaks, reading the line four, she uses the first person "I Say". The poet affirms that in her opinion words, when they are spoken or written, begin to live. So words don't die immediately, but they begin a own life, taking on a great multiplicity of meaning. The poem aim to the use of sounds and in particular on the assonances (dead-said), the repetitions (say-say) and rhymes (say-day). All considering, the words symbolize the humans and the opposition between the word death in the first tercet and the word life in the second allude to immortality: you live up to the memories keep alive the existence of someone or something. As long as there is memory, humans or words are immortal.