We never know how high we are

Like Emily Dickinson’s other poems, “We never know how high we are” features idiosyncratic syntax and punctuation. Although heroism, cubits, and king aren’t proper nouns, Dickinson makes them into proper nouns by capitalizing them. It’s as if Dickinson is thinking of “Heroism” (Line 5) and “Cubits” (Line 7) as people and has a specific “King” (Line 8) in mind. In “I’m Nobody! Who are you?” Dickinson capitalizes “Nobody,” “Somebody,” “Frog,” “June,” and “Bog.” Out of these words, the only conventional proper noun is June, as it’s one of the 12 months. Perhaps Dickinson’s nonstandard punctuation reflects her stature. Maybe she is too grand to follow normal rules of grammar.

Dickinson is not the only poet to adapt peculiar punctuation. In her “introduction” to The Essential Emily Dickinson (2016), Joyce Carol Oates says the English poet William Blake (1757-1827) possesses a “kinship with Dickinson’s work.” In “London” (1794), Blake capitalizes common nouns like “Church,” “Soldiers,” and “Palace.” Similar to “We never know how high we are,” Blake’s poem doesn’t end with a period. Both seemed to view their poems as open-ended or ongoing.

Although Blake was a little before their time, he is often associated with the Romantic poets.