Emily Dickinson's The Bustle In A House

A poem has the ability to open up different interpretations by many different people. Readers frequently make connections to the poem through their own life experiences. Connections to a poem can change your whole understanding to what it actually means. However, some poems can be universally relatable. Emily Dickinson’s “The Bustle in a House” is one of those poems that almost everyone can relate to. I recently had the experience to free write a response to the poem. At first sight, I did not know exactly what the poem meant. As we discussed the poem in class, I found that this poem is quite relatable to things that have happened in my own life. I had an emotional response as I began my free write. Dickinson’s poem took me back like a time capsule to that period in my life. The loss of my grandmother involved commotion, mourning, moving through the procedures to move on, and trusting. First of all, when my grandmother died, it had a profound affect on me. I could make connections to this poem because of that. The “Bustle” (1) was all the

These are often the types of things that come after any death – funeral arrangements, the dividing of belongings, etcetera. I believe that this is what Emily Dickenson is trying to explain to the reader when she says that the commotion after one’s death “Is solemnest of industries / Enacted upon Earth” (3-4). “Industries” explains the things that we must go through to mourn the loss of a loved one. “Enacted upon Earth,” explains that we can only do so much on Earth to act upon the loss of a loved one and the rest must be left up to a higher power. These lines of the poem help to explain what that time in my life was like. My family went through the procedure, but there is nothing that we can do to bring her back. When I realized that there is nothing that I could have done to change the fate of her death, I tried to move on with my