Lea Ann Carry, age 16, of Rockland, I11., for her question:

DID EMILY DICKINSON PUBLISH MANY POEMS?

Emily Dickinson was one of the greatest American poets of the 1800s. She is ranked as one of the finest poets of the century and is in the same class as Walt Whitman, Edgar Allan Poe and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Yet during her lifetime, only seven of her poems were published.

Most of the time Emily Dickinson wrote in secret. It wasn't until after she died that her sister found most of her work. It was then discovered that she had written over 1,700 poems. The first volume of her poetry was published four years after her death.

During her lifetime, Emily Dickinson saw only a few close friends in her family home in Amherst, Mass. Although she lived and wrote in seclusion, she gave universal significance to the most intimate experiences and feelings.

Scholars have several theories to explain the poet's withdrawal, but none really solves the mystery. Perhaps the best answer lies in the poems themselves. Her poetry indicates that before she could write about the world, she had to back away from it and contemplate it from a distance.

Most of Emily Dickinson's important poems concern the relationship between the inner self and the external world. Her poems were short and untitled. Usually they were written in four line stanzas.

Although the poet could write in a playful or witty style, her outlook was basically tragic. She recorded loneliness and anxiety without making these topics seem morbid.

Emily Dickinson analyzed emotions poetically and tried to define and expose particular states of mind.

Often she wrote with great force about the ominousness and unfeeling qualities of nature. She also expressed the soul's yearning for immortality and for communication with a remote and seemingly indifferent God.

The poet was born in Amherst on Dec. 10, 1830. She died in the same city on May 15, 1886.

Poetry scholars say that no other woman, except perhaps the ancient Greek Sappho, wrote greater poetry than did Emily Dickinson.

The seven poems that were published when she was still alive appeared without her consent. That was typical of her. In her last 30 years she loved seclusion so much that she rarely went out of her house.

Her father was a lawyer and served two terms in Congress in Washington, D.C. For four years she went with her brother and sister to the district school in Amherst. Then she went to Amherst Academy and after that she attended Mt. Holyoke Female Seminary for one year.

Returning from a visit with her father in Washington, she stopped in Philadelphia to see some friends. After she reached her home in Amherst again, she turned to writing poetry.