I had been hungry Summary & Analysis
by Emily Dickinson

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Emily Dickinson's "I had been hungry, all the Years" explores what happens when someone gets exactly what they want. The poem's speaker has been starving their whole life, pressing their nose up against the windows of people who have plenty to eat. But when the speaker is finally presented with a full table, they find they've lost their appetite: their satisfied desire only leaves them feeling "ill—and odd." A fulfilled desire, this poem wryly observes, can feel an awful lot like a loss. This poem first appeared in the posthumous collection Poems (1891).

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