. In regards to lifestyle, Emily Dickinson and Phillis Wheatley had nothing in common. Emily was born in 1830 in Amherst, Massachusetts. Throughout the majority of her life, she rarely left her house, and she rarely had any visitors. She was basically lonely. On the other hand, Phillis Wheatley was a slave that lived in Massachusetts after being brought over by her masters to study and learn to read and write. Dickinson is by far a very unique poet. She seems to be very blunt and out of nowhere. Her four-line stanzas, rhyme schemes and rhythmic like dashes are derived from Psalms and Protestant hymns. For example, In her poem “I cannot dance opon my Toes,” she writes, “That had I Ballet Knowledge – / Would put itself abroad / In Pirouette to Blanch a Troupe – / Or lay a Prima, mad”(Lines 5-8). These lines are a prime example her rhythmic like dashes. Wheatley also expresses these rhythmic like sentences, but without the dashes. In Wheatley’s poem, “On Being Brought From Africa To America,” she write, “Twas mercy brought me from my pagen land, / Taught my benighted soul to understand / That there’s a God, that there’s a Savior Too: / Once I redemption neither sought nor knew”(Lines 1-4). These lines by Wheatley show an example of her rhythmic like sentences. Dickinson and Wheatley both introduce these rhythmic like patterns and forms to an audience that has never seen it before. These two writers help shape U.S poetry today.
