Watch an Animated Film of Emily Dickinson’s Poem ‘I Started Early–Took My Dog’

Today is the birth­day of Emi­ly Dick­in­son, an extra­or­di­nar­i­ly shy woman who rarely left her house but whose poems have gone out to meet the world.

Dick­in­son’s poet­ry is wide­ly cel­e­brat­ed for its beau­ty and orig­i­nal­i­ty. As her biog­ra­ph­er at the Poet­ry Foun­da­tion Web site writes, “To make the abstract tan­gi­ble, to define mean­ing with­out con­fin­ing it, to inhab­it a house that nev­er became a prison, Dick­in­son cre­at­ed in her writ­ing a dis­tinc­tive­ly ellip­ti­cal lan­guage for express­ing what was pos­si­ble but not yet real­ized.”

To cel­e­brate Dick­in­son’s birth­day (she was born on Decem­ber 10, 1830) we bring you this lit­tle film of her poem, “I Start­ed Early–Took My Dog,” from the “Poet­ry Every­where” series by PBS and the Poet­ry Foun­da­tion. The poem is ani­mat­ed by Maria Vasilkovsky and read by actress Blair Brown. You can also read the poem for your­self here.

Relat­ed con­tent:

Bill Mur­ray Reads Emi­ly Dick­in­son to Con­struc­tion Work­ers

A Sec­ond, Pre­vi­ous­ly Unknown Pho­to of Emi­ly Dick­in­son Emerges

Find Emi­ly Dick­in­son Poet­ry in our Free Audio Books and Free eBooks col­lec­tions