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!
Emily Dickinson
How public — like a Frog —
To tell one’s name — the livelong June —
To an admiring Bog!
My first poetry night. Last night, after a church meeting, after rushing home and writing down my poem, after crossing out and rewriting lines, after planning to tell them it’s a draft because it was far from done, after putting on red lipstick so they’d focus on the words coming from my lips, after changing into black so the red would pop, after leaving my home alone, after finding my only friend in the crowd and sitting down amidst the dim purple lights. Last night, I went to my first poetry night.
I had arrived an hour late but an hour before it would end. Before more poems were read, my friend strummed his songs on his guitar and sang with another friend of mine, his common accompaniment. I needed to get my name on the list of poets and readers. When I found the girl in the short white dress, flowing as free as the singers’ words, I told her my name.
The pencil placed me into the last block of readers.
I didn’t let me eyes see where in that block I had landed, but I had an unlucky guess it would be near last.
When the time came for me to walk onto the small square, highlighted by yellow lights, I had my introduction rehearsed and planned. I doubted if I should have thought that part through—shouldn’t a poet speak from the heart? At least when saying their name—that should come easy.
Oh well, not for me. I told everyone my name and went on with the structured sentences. I said they could follow my Instagram for more of my writings, and if they didn’t follow me, all the better. This latter part I felt the best about, and at this, people shouted, “No, don’t say that!”
They thought I had spoken these words against myself. Against my worth or against the good that following me on Instagram would do. However, in quick response, I told them that Dickinson had said something similar. She said that she was nobody.
To me, to be nobody is good.
I’m not sure that landed any better for them, but I continued on and read my poem, shaking hands and all other nervous tremors that accompany a first-time reader.
Although I will have to wait until the next poetry night to read Dickinson’s poem, which I quoted above, I want to share with you why I prefer to be nobody—what I mean when I say that.
A great writer and an inspiration to many poets: Ralph Waldo Emerson. He encouraged people to write the next Bible—to write something that would affect millions or more. In my poetry class, we spent time going over his thoughts about this—and then our teacher read poem 288 from Dickinson. “I’m nobody . . . Don’t tell! they’d advertise — you know!”
Dickinson read Emerson. Did she refute him here?
I don’t think so.
The next Bible writer could be nobody. Should be nobody. However, right now, the world gets caught up in the somebodies. The celebrities, the influencers, the YouTubers. Masses of followers accumulate for these people, and then for those in fame, it can become “dreary.” They lose their private life by living in the public. They lose the freedom of living without stares or stops on the street.
Even worse, some of the fans lose themselves in the bogs of the somebodies. The mass of followers can get stuck in dirty, murky waters looking at a “frog” in the “public.” At times, by following another’s life so closely, they end up losing their own.
For these reasons, I would prefer to be nobody. I like my runs in the neighborhood. I like my trips to the local grocery store. I like sitting on a park bench and watching people walk by, indifferent. If somehow I became a somebody, I might lose those things.
Even more important, I despise the idea that a person could get so invested in me, my writings, and my life, that they lose their own. That would defeat the purpose of all that I strive for.
No. I’d rather be a nobody who inspires another person to live the best parts of their life. That would be like creating the next Bible: helping millions to live a life not consumed by the bog but consumed by the good that God and existence has to offer.
I’m not sad to be a nobody. I’m glad. A nobody is not a person without love or without connection or without meaning. In this case, a nobody is one of a million others, blending in, doing good, and living life, while people around them are enabled to live their own.
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