The Only News I Know

Dickinson opens her poem with the admission that the “Only News” (Line 1) she reads is the “Bulletins” (Line 2) from “Immortality” (Line 3) that she sees “all Day” (Line 2). For Dickinson, “Immortality” is a frequent euphemism for death and the subsequent afterlife (see Symbols & Motifs section). Thus, the “news” or new information she receives comes from her daily meditations on human mortality and eternal life. A recluse by choice, she has no interest in the newspapers and events of her own world; she is entirely focused on the heavenly world to come.

Similarly, in the second stanza, Dickinson establishes how she rarely sees other sights or “shows” (Line 4), just as she does not follow the news. She has no interest in the theatrical “shows” and the popular entertainments of her society. The show she wishes to watch is the gradual flow of time until her life’s conclusion. She states, “The Only Shows I see—/ Tomorrow and Today—Perchance Eternity” (Lines 4-6). This disordered representation of the flow of time, in which the future “tomorrow” precedes the present “today,” reveals how, for Dickinson, the progression of time has become confused.