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. Always alone with her thoughts, Dickinson cannot easily distinguish the order of each uneventful day and no longer conceives of time in a strictly linear fashion. Consumed with thoughts of a far-off life in eternity, Dickinson’s time on earth begins to blur together.

In the third stanza, Dickinson reiterates her interest in the observation of her own life. “The Only Street” (Line 8) she ever travels is the road of her own “Existence” (Line 9). She has little to no desire to see anything else the world has to offer; reflecting on the fact of life and existence itself is enough for her. The mysterious nature of existence is her preferred object of observation, one that she hopes to observe until eternity.

In this same stanza, Dickinson also divulges her social situation, acknowledging that the “Only One” (Line 7) she meets with is God (Line 8). She has no regular visitors and no consistent human interaction. In her daily processing of information regarding eternal life and existence in Heaven, she forgoes communication with other people to regularly think about and meet with God who resides in that same Heaven. Dickinson’s poetry often lamented the separation and “sundering of the human and the divine” (“The Interrogative Mood of Emily Dickinson’s Quarrel with God,” Richard E. Brantley, pg. 159), and, although Dickinson sometimes “questioned, quarreled with, rebelled against, caricatured, [and] even condemned” (Brantley 159) God, she “never ceased to engage” (159) him in her poetry. Although Dickinson does not express her turbulent feelings about God in “The Only News I know,” she portrays her relationship with him as intimate, frequent, and ultimately sufficient for all her needs. He is the “Only One” (Line 7) she wishes to “engage” (Brantley 159) with in conversation.

In each of these stanzas, Dickinson employs her uniquely curious style of punctuation and form. There is only one traditionally end-stopped line in the poem (Line 3); the rest of the lines either feature enjambment or pauses generated by dashes. Enjambment occurs when one line of poetry flows into the next without any kind of punctuation between the lines. In “The Only News I know,” enjambment occurs three times, in Lines 1, 2, and 7. The first stanza—“The Only News I know / Is Bulletins all Day / From Immortality” (Lines 1-3)—contains no punctuation between the lines until its end. Dickinson expresses her ideas in one continuous thought without interruption. This free-flowing style stands in contrast to the rest of the poem, in which Dickinson haltingly teases out each individual thought.

When Dickinson describes the previously mentioned shows and streets she sees and traverses, she delays revealing each object with her favorite punctuation mark, the dash. She writes, “The Only Shows I see—/ Tomorrow and Today” (Lines 4-5) and continues, “The Only Street—Existence” (Lines 8-9). In both instances, the dash heightens the suspense of Dickinson’s personal revelations, but it also captures a certain matter-of-factness. While some might find such a reclusive lifestyle lonely or oppressive, Dickinson sees it as just another way of life, one in which she seems perfectly content. With the dash, she wastes no words in describing her situation and interests; there is no need to describe something as significant as “Existence,” beyond the initial metaphor of a street. From Dickinson’s perspective, concepts like Existence and Eternity speak so clearly of their own importance that they can be isolated by dashes without any further elaboration.

In conjunction with unusually abrupt punctuation, capitalization is another significant artistic choice in many of Dickinson’s poems. Throughout the poem, Dickinson capitalizes each important concept, as well as some seemingly less important words. Philosophical concepts like “Immortality” (Line 3), “Eternity” (Line 6), and “Existence” (Line 9) are each capitalized, but words like “News” (Line 1), “Bulletins” (Line 2), “Day” (Line 2), “Shows” (Line 4), “Tomorrow” (Line 5), “Street” (Line 8), and “Admirable” (Line 11) are also capitalized. Dickinson capitalizes every single noun and adjective (Lines 1, 4, 7, 10, 11) in the poem, granting every idea the same level of importance. Each “Day” and every “Bulletin” are worthwhile subjects for Dickinson’s spiritual meditations. Her unusual capitalization techniques propagate this egalitarian vision in which all things, since they are created by the same God, are interconnected and equally important to her existence.

Once Dickinson has “traversed” (Line 9) this street of existence—her euphemistic description for her eventual death at her life’s end— she will finally discover “if Other News there be” (Line 10) or if there is any other kind of “Admirable Show” (Line 11) she does not currently know. Dickinson humorously downplays the experiential knowledge she will finally obtain about the resurrection and eternal life by framing that knowledge as nothing more than “other news” or a particularly good “show.” In keeping with this flippant remark, Dickinson promises to share any discovery she makes, despite the obvious impossibility of communicating that information after dying and leaving this world.

Dickinson’s unique use of capitalization is once again quite significant in this final stanza. She concludes the poem by assuring that, “if Other News there be” (Line 10), she will “tell it You” (Line 12). The capitalized word “You” is incredibly ambiguous. Few of Dickinson’s poems were published within her lifetime, and there is credible evidence to support that she may have had no intention to publish her poetry. Therefore, this “You” is likely not directed at a broad audience of readers. The capitalization of the pronoun could imply she is speaking to God, but the poem’s tendency to capitalize nearly every noun, adjective, and pronoun makes that solution doubtful. The “You” could speak of one of Dickinson’s actual correspondents, like her friend Susan Gilbert (see Poet Biography section), or it could speak of nothing more than an imagined reader.

Dickinson ends “The Only News I know” with this ambiguous reference to an unknown audience, one final dash, and a different poetic meter. She states, “If Other News there be… I’ll tell it You—” (Lines 10-12). In concluding the poem with a dash, Dickinson leaves her audience hanging, expecting some kind of continuation or elaboration that never comes. “The Only News I know,” like many of Dickinson’s other poems, “might well be defined by [its] inconclusiveness” and “open” ending (Poetry Foundation, “Emily Dickinson”). In accordance with this jarring and inconclusive ending, Dickinson abruptly shifts from the poem’s regular iambic trimeter to iambic dimeter, reducing the length of the line by two syllables and leaving a feeling that there is more still left unexpressed.