Unlike the exclamation mark, the dash that dominates the prolific period is a horizontal stroke, on the level of this world. ... read more
Dickinson's transition from a dominant use of the exclamation mark to a preference for the dash accompanied her shift from ejaculatory poems, which seem outcries aimed with considerable dramatic effect at God or others, to poems where the energies exist more in the relationships between words and between the poet and her words. read more