Emily Dickinson lived a life in the shadows writing poetry of short lines and long thoughts on mortality, and you have to wonder whether it was a life fulfilled or wasted.  As a reader of poetry, one has to admit she did her best work withdrawn from the world, but as an empathetic human—which is also a reader of poetry—you really wish she’d got out more.  In The Secret Life of Emily Dickinson she does.

1. This is my letter to the world
   

2. Left no forwarding address
   

3. All the secrets of a girl
   

4. Whose tongue would not confess
   

5. Save for the power of the pen
   

6. Emily Dickinson
   

That would be Emily Dickinson as a kind of beat poet in New York, a different Emily that never was, connected to life the way the real Emily connected with death.  She moves in the world, with the world, though the background sound still offers up an ephemeral feel, more faerie than ghost, though.  Deeble’s voice is a little like Boy Dylan and Lou Reed, but comparison is a little unfair.  He has his own voice, and in this song his own thoughts lead me to places I never thought of, like poetry does.