Emily Dickinson's "After Great Pain, a Formal Feeling Comes," and "Eagle Poem" by Joy Harjo.

After Great Pain, a Formal Feeling Comes

Emily Dickinson is known for her ability -- through her poetry -- to recreate a feeling or an emotion that all humans feel at one time (albeit most individuals are not able to use appropriate language when a terribly hurtful or even excruciating event happens in life). In this poem she doesn't share with the reader exactly what happened to cause such distress in her life, but she doesn't have to share precisely what led to her poetic response, because the poem becomes universal. That is, anyone who has recently suffered a loss, or a tragic incident (someone died in a sudden terrible accident) can relate to Dickenson's poem because through metaphor, simile, irony, prosody (the rhythm of alliteration, for example) and imagery, the feeling is shared with...
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