Emily Dickinson

I cannot dance upon my toes,

I CANNOT dance upon my toes,
No man instructed me,
But often times among my mind
A glee possesseth me
That had I ballet knowledge
Would put itself abroad

blanch a troupe

To make the entire dance company turn pale with shock. Dickinson imagines her mental performance so brilliant it would terrify professional dancers.

In pirouette to blanch a troupe,
Or lay a Prima mad!

lay a Prima mad

Drive the prima ballerina insane with jealousy. Note the violent verb—'lay' as in 'lay low' or strike down.

And though I had no gown of gauze,
No ringlet to my hair,
Nor hopped for audiences like birds,
One claw upon the air,—
Nor tossed my shape in

Eider balls

Eiderdown is soft duck feathers used in luxury bedding. She's describing tutus as puffy balls of expensive material—both mocking and precise.

Eider balls,
Nor rolled on wheels of snow
Till I was out of sight in sound,

out of sight in sound

Reverses the expected phrase 'out of sight and sound.' The applause continues even after the dancer disappears—sound outlasts sight.

The house encored me so—
Nor any knew I know the art
I mention easy here—

placard boast me

No poster advertises her. But 'placard' as a verb is odd—she turns the advertising poster into an action it can't perform.

Nor any placard boast me,
It 's full as opera!
Source Wikipedia Poetry Foundation

Reading Notes

The Performance No One Sees

CONTEXT Dickinson lived in near-total seclusion in Amherst, Massachusetts, rarely leaving her father's house after her early thirties. She published fewer than a dozen poems in her lifetime, all anonymously. This poem was written around 1862, during her most prolific period—she wrote nearly 800 poems in three years while almost no one knew she was writing at all.

The poem sets up a brutal contrast: no man instructed me versus the glee that possesses her mind. She lacks formal training, public performance, costume, audience, and recognition—the entire apparatus of professional artistry. Yet the internal experience is full as opera, complete and overwhelming. The phrase among my mind is grammatically strange (usually 'in my mind'), suggesting the mental performance has geography, takes up space.

Watch how the pirouette would blanch a troupe and lay a Prima mad—her imagined dancing doesn't just match professionals, it destroys them. This isn't modest. The violence of those verbs (blanch, lay) reveals ambition, even rage. She's claiming superiority while simultaneously claiming absence of training, audience, recognition.

What She's Really Talking About

Ballet is the stand-in for poetry. The gown of gauze, ringlet, and Eider balls describe a ballerina's costume, but they also describe the decorative, feminine, public performance expected of women writers in the 1860s. Dickinson published almost nothing, performed for no audience, had no placard advertising her work.

The technical precision matters: one claw upon the air reduces the ballerina's graceful arabesque to a bird's predatory gesture. Hopped for audiences like birds makes performing seem desperate, animal. She's both envious of and contemptuous toward public performance.

It's full as opera is the poem's claim. The apostrophe contracts 'it is'—the internal art, the mental performance, the poetry no one sees. Not 'almost as good as opera' but full as—completely equal in scope and power. The word full does double work: complete and filled to capacity. Her mind contains an entire opera house of performance that never needs an audience to be real.