Dickinson's poems are unique for the era in which she wrote; they contain short lines, typically lack titles, and often use slant rhyme as well as unconventional capitalization and punctuation. Many of her poems deal with themes of death and immortality, two recurring topics in letters to her friends.

In her lifetime, Emily Dickinson led a secluded and quiet life but her poetry reveals her great inner spontaneity and creativity. The poetry of Emily Dickinson is not easily categorized as she use forms such as rhyme and meter in unconventional ways; however, her poetry lucidly expresses thought provoking themes with a style that is a delight to read. Today her poetry is rightly appreciated for its immense depth and unique style. Emily Dickinson is widely regarded as one of the greatest female poets.

Emily Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massachusetts, in 1830. She attended Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in South Hadley but severe homesickness led her to return home after one year. In the years that followed, she seldom left her house and visitors were scarce. The people with whom she came in contact, had an intense impact on her thoughts and poetry. She was particularly stirred by the Reverend Charles Wadsworth, whom she met on a trip to Philadelphia. He left for the West Coast shortly after a visit to her home in 1860, and his departure gave rise to a heartsick flow of verse from Dickinson. By the 1860s, she lived in almost total physical isolation from the outside world, but actively maintained many correspondences and read widely.

Dickinson`s poetry reflects her loneliness.  The speakers of her poems generally live in a state of want;  her poems are also marked by the intimate recollection of inspirational moments which are decidedly life-giving and suggest the possibility of future happiness. Her work was heavily influenced by the Metaphysical poets of seventeenth-century England, as well as by her Puritan upbringing and the Book of Revelation. 

She admired the poetry of Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning and John Keats. Though she was dissuaded from reading the verse of her contemporary Walt Whitman, by rumor of its disgracefulness, the two poets are now connected by the distinguished place they hold as the founders of a uniquely American poetic voice.

Dickinson was extremely prolific as a poet and regularly enclosed poems in letters to friends, but she was not publicly recognized during her lifetime. The first volume of her work was published posthumously in 1890 and the last in 1955. She died in Amherst in 1886.