I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us — don't tell!
They'd advertise — you know!
How dreary to be somebody!
How public like a frog
To tell one's name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!
Notes
There is some debate about line 4 of the first verse.
Some books (and sites) have....
They 'd banish us, you know
whilst others have ....
They'd advertise—you know!
We'll use the latter until someone with the author's own handwritten journals says different.
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Comments
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There are many so called celebrities who make a lot of noise but actually say little of any importance and their words only serve to announce their presence in the "world" they inhabit in the same way a frog croaking in a bog announces his.
Perhaps it was the same when Mz Dickinson wrote this and perhaps she prefers people to find their own way to her work rather than indulging in too much self-advertisement.
Jim -
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I'm nobody, who are you?
From guest poemfan (contact)
I like this poem. I think she's trying to say, what's so great in being well known? ??? -
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Read the comments below - there are other opinions written here and they may help you to understand the poem much better.
Von~Oldpoetry
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is it good or bad to be a nobody
From guest me (contact)
I think that she is saying that being a 'nobody' is not that appealing to her. From the line " how dreary to be somebody' is saying that you have nothing to yourself and it would be an obligation to 'tell your name.' Some may agree or disagree with me on this point but her life to me shows that society was not that important to her and that she liked her privacy and being on her own. -
Emily, with a modern fit.
From guest James E. Hoffman Jr. (contact)
“I’m nobody! Who are you?” Emily Dickinson’s “I’m nobody! Who are you?” This poem seems very simple in its nature, an easy read. In the first stanza line one, if relating to a freshman in high school a youngster may experience these type feelings. In the teen years with all the hormones spiking and trying so diligently to fit in they often question their self worth. In line two, they have found a fellow class mate that is also going through the same identity crisis. Going from junior high where they were somebody to a whole new place where teachers and peers do not know who they are. In the last two lines of the first stanza, with holding this information from their peers would be a smart move. Youngsters of this age group are very opinionated and judge mental as if making fun of others less fortunate than themselves make them more superior. The first line of the second stanza: being looked upon poorly by their upper classman and their upper classman in deed do often believe they are far more advanced. This makes the upper classman come across as snobby and rude no one the freshman would want to be like. The last three stanzas give us that since of immature jealousy together making fun of the seniors. Everyone knows their name, they are so great, beta club, prom king and head line backer. The freshman will soon enough move on to be the senior class to be the great ones the peers to look up to. With a class of nobodies right behind them. -
Advertise is better!
From guest Maria Hamlet (contact)
If you use Banish i don't belive it fits the rest of the poem. To me Emily is saying to be nobody it is like being a faceless person in the crowd. To walk around and be unnoticed for the fact that you are NOBODY. So to banish us wouldn't work because it would simply keep them a nobody. While They'd advertise-you know would be creating the complete opposite of what a nobody has attention. -
First stanza- as she is a reclusive closet poet... Seems like the poet is dejected about she being not successful as a poet or lawyer or in her personal life. Seem like she has a friend in herself, in delusional form. So she asks the friend in herself , if she is a nobody too?. If yes, they would team together as friends, but not tell it out, as they would advertise it. Here seems like the poet feels like a nobody and has the feeling she still is advertised. Thats why she advises the nobody friend not to tell it out.
Second stanza- ... Seem like she has the feeling that somene is taking her identity and being famous. She wonders how tiring it could be to act like her identity (frog, seems like the poet is referring to hreself ) and how tiring it has be to tell the poet's identity name for all day long to the boggy admirers. -
From guest gregg (contact)
it took me a long time to realize that i'm a nobody. but it's a good realization. i'm actually relieved. it helps me put away some anxiety. -
Nobody?
From guest Another Nobody (contact)
I love this poem, because when you really think, we really are all nobody, and until you make yourself a somebody, you are too. For some of us that's what we want, but for some of us. Where's the fun in being a somebody? Sometimes being somebody can even destroy us. -
essense of vedanta
From guest jdowd (contact)
From a mystic perspective this is a profound statement of inner realization - the dissolution of ego. First we are somebody, then we advance and we experience no small self, it has dissolved, I am nobody (nobody at home - emptiness). Later, had she been blessed, might have discovered she was everybody - the duality of emptiness/fullness within and the outer world giving rise to the cognition of fullness or Brahman of inner and outer worlds - of unity. -
Good
Easy to read and understand. -
In a book that my English teacher owns, it is "they'd banish us, you know."
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In my book of short-poems by P.J.KAVANAGH and JAMES MICHIE
It is "they'd advertise - you know"
Such a mood-relating piece, and a wonder of thought.
Makes you easily peak into the character of the poetess who despised fabrications and overrated superstar propaganda. -
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I like her write. I found it very personal and understanding. SHe sounds like she at a long for love because of that she feels like a nobody. I wonder what bog means. People like her brings out the beauty of poetry. Its rather simple in write rather complex in rhyme and very emotional because its personally sincere. It did touch me somewhere maybe because that is how I feel.
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To Aurielle
I believe that the bog is simply the wet squishy place that the frog lives in and where he spends all day croaking out his own "I am nobody" message. Or perhaps the frog is croaking "I am me and I am a prince!" who knows?
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My poet research Project.
From guest Ryan Nixon (contact)
My interpretation of I’m nobody! Who are you? Is that when Emily possesses a low self of esteem because she has bright’s disease and considers herself to be fat, ugly, and with no self worth. Intern she doesn’t feel if though anybody isn’t worth anything making them a nobody just as she considers herself nobody. It confirms her fear of being somebody because she doesn’t want to be in public because she doesn’t she doesn’t want any recognition. She writes that she is being the frog and the world being a bog or swamp. She prefers to being reclusive than consider somebody which would expose herself to the world. Which leads to that she is afraid of being somebody, so by remaining nobody so she is safe. She likes to be recluse in her room. -
a reveiw
From guest Maddie (contact)
I actually think she liked being no body because at that time it seemed like every body knew every body else's business and maybe in saying "How dreary to be somebody! How public like a frog" she meant that all the frogs are the same and know eachothers business. I feel that way and I think maybe she did too. -
I'm somebody!
I'm Yemassee...
Like Hugh said, Emily I'm sure wishes she were somebody but I approach her reasoning in two different paths...one: that she was envious of those who had succeeded, and two: that she was rationalizing that being meek, humble and ordinary was better than fame. It's tongue-in-cheek though; the tone, the use of the frog analogy, and her suggestion that being a nobody is just fine. But I do find that behind it all is an arrogance, that she is indeed a "somebody" and feels the need to declare it for us all to read. Her declaration for me comes off as vanity...that if she cries that she is a "nobody" we'll all see that she is indeed a somebody...
and besides, she had funny hair, lol. -
I always feel, when reading this poem and others of Emily that, like most poets, she would have liked to be "somebody" but, like most during their lifetime, felt she was a "nobody" and therefore pokes a snoot at those who do achieve lifetime recognition as well as the "admiring bog" who elevates them.
Underlying all this is the certainty that Death, the great leveller, brings us all to the same state when virtue, goodness and honour are the only distinction
between "somebody" and "nobody". -
humanly possible
The anonymity of ourselves is so natural but for our circle of friends we corral (or even exert more than snorkeling for n a coral) but then that can be known as the unpopular is hilarious.
The drainage indeed indeed to be a personage, hardly personable the pressuring to be remembered, it's a croak of a conversation only another dignitary could give magnification to without feeling froggy.
How could we predicate about who decomposes. Psalm 146: 3,4. But celebrity of Psalm 83:18 is what is endorsed at Matthew 6:9 as oration is given the coronation at John 17:3. "This means everlasting life, their taking in knowledge of you, the only true God, and of the one whom you sent forth, Jesus Christ."
At 56, her death's neutrilization of the theatrical gives no ottoman to put our feet on and read her resting on any laurels. Yet her humbleness could even be kin for the Kingdom time of John 5:28 -30, "Do not marvel at this, because the hour is coming in which all those in the memorial tombs will hear his voice 29 and come out, those who did good things to a resurrection of life, those who practiced vile things to a resurrection of judgment."
She could have been a gal for Galatians 6:3,4 which took one who would compete to see "For if anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he is deceiving his own mind. 4 But let each one prove what his own work is, and then he will have cause for exultation in regard to himself alone, and not in comparison with the other person."
It certainly is by consent that anything can stand out, not just our introducing. It's a ferris wheel clocking how long one lovely thing can be standing out. It can become painful as a sore thumb, Proverbs 25:27 stickily shows when trying to be hitched to our somebodiness instead of moving on sensibly for the luxuries, moderately, with the modes. -
Amusing
Now this is the public Emily at her best. She speaks with tongue in cheek for if she can explain who somebody is and give an example,she must have thought about it. I like this poem Iana -
Super poem
I am going to an american college and we have american anthology. This poem was included in this anthology and I loved it. It's about some people who are different from the others and these people, who don't do the same things with some other dumb ones, they are banished by them. The last lyrics talk about how silly is to be "somebody", it's like a frog talking to a bog, it's nothing at all! it's from the life....I loved it.....i adore it.. -
as she is a reclusive person... seems like she feels comfortable as a nobody person... and values the concept of being a nobody... like a enlightened person ... and cherishes the freedom of being nobody...
perhaps she was not a social person... and so being famous is dreary for her... and so concentrates her views on the negative aspect of being famous... -
Simple, yet incredible!
Opinion on poetry will always be as variable as the wind; why should Emily Dickinson's work be any different? I note that somewhere below the top post an unnamed person spoke out about ED's plainness and the fact that this poem is plain. Well, yes it is. And in that plain mode this poem speaks volumes about the life and personality of ED. Her works, hidden in a trunk and never discovered until after her death - what better paradigm for a recluse? Even her writing was reclused. I, for one, appreciate the work that goes into a simple verse. It is the simplicity of the poem that makes it difficult to write. Anyone can drag out a bag of big words and string them together to make a marquee for themselves. But, it takes a special talent to know when to cut off the explaining and the embellishing and leave a simple perfectly cut poem on the page. -
There is no way someone could read Dickinson's poetry online and understand it... only by looking at the original manuscripts does the mystery of her poetry come forth. For exacmple, her dashes inbetween and at the end of the lines do not go just straight - they go purposefully up and down. What they mean, no one knows.
She was an over-looked genious... and I'm not sure she would have had it any other way.
Kate
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This poem is bland and tremendously overrated. Why the deuce is it so well-known? I blame Wordsworth for convincing us that poetry is the literature of the common people. I guess the reclusive, addled, wholly-unappreciated-during-her-lifetime Dickenson was bound to catch our fancy in due time, regardless of what little merit her oeuvre had to offer. She was plain and she wrote plainly. Woohoo, she's the soul of modern poetry!
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I heard this a long time ago, & I couldn't remember the rest of it. I'm glad I finally found it.
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I am Mr. Nobody because she said so. This is one of the best poems written by her on the subject of being and nothingness. The pleasure of being nobody and the freedom of being anybody. Very cute poem.
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I enjoy reading her poetry... this one was deffinitly a favorite of mine by her, and has been for sometime now.
-Ashley,
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Sort of like "We are unique, just like everybody else." This is one Emily Dickinson's more known poems and a lot of people say it's their favorite of hers. I'm sure it is because so many of us can relate to the type of emotion she is sharing with us through this piece. She makes being a nobody seem much better than being a somebody. Something to think about.
~Anastasia -
first poem i ever read by her...and i memorized it...still she amazes me with her wonderful ability to write and show emotions...i loved reading this again and again...she's definitely one of my most favorite poets!
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she was manic depressive/bipolar (which ever its the same) dude... dont get me wrong her work is great but thats why, she had the manic depressive trait and thats the edge she had...
Jess -
excellent
I've never commented at this website before-I haven't even visited it before- but I now feel obligated because standing before me is my favorite poem of all time. I've read Frost, Poe, Shakespeare, and any other classic author you can throw at me, but Emily Dickinson had something that the others didn't. I'm not quite sure what it is exactly, but my theory is that she reached a certain form of enlightenment that most don't even get near to even seeing, which would explain her reclusive behavior. She reached a truth that she didn't know how to handle. This poem in particular goes against the common human want of being famous. She glorifies the nobodies and pities the famous. I'm not sure why I enjoy this poem so much; I just do. -
I was taught this poem 40 years ago and I still remember it! Amazing!
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this poem is pretty cool
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