Hope Is The Thing With Feathers Analysis

Hope Bruce

MUS 102 A

September 2, 2016 In 1891 Emily Dickinson wrote Hope is the Thing with Feathers a single work in her collection called Life (Poetry Foundation, n.d. p.1). In 2012 Susan LarBarr put the poem to music. LarBarr has composed many pieces for youth, university and church choirs (LarBarr, 2012, p. 1). The combination of a meaningful text and touching music created a song which I can say is one of my favorites. The song is powerful in words; the words create a picture of what hope is and what it can do. This song is also powerful to me personally because it has been part of my life in several transitional times. The music is beautiful with harmonies and complex cords that engage the listener and stir emotions. I first encountered not the song, but the poem in a middle school class. At the time my twin sister teased me that like the poem said “hope is the thing with feathers” that meant I was a bird (LarBarr, 2012, p. 1). That first contact did not endear me with it. I thought Emily Dickinson was strange. I did not like poetry and certainly not poetry that got

Joy because it was a beautiful song that I enjoyed singing and had helped me to never stop. Sadness, because I knew this would be my goodbye song to the choir and the program that I had spent three years in and a total of six years aiming for. I also knew that this transition to college would call me to again be more than a girl named Hope, but would call me to be "that little bird that never stops at all"(Larbarr,2012, p. 1). This song has the power to bring tears to my eyes in the opening notes of the piano. The song has less power without the piano. The piano plays the melody and some harmonies and starts and ends the song. It sets the emotions into joy and sadness. The music or the words alone have power, but when combined into one piece along with the many emotions I have felt created my favorite