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- Emily Dickinson wrote 100x as many poems as she published
Emily Dickinson wrote 100x as many poems as she published
Answers for Globle, Metazooa, Stocktangle and more from Dec 22 - Dec 28
Abe Train
December 29, 2025
Coming to your inbox every Monday with a brand new fun-fact and all the answers to Trainwreck Labs games from the past week.
This week, we have…
Trainwreck Wrapped 2025!
A fun fact inspired by Chronogram
Answers to last week's games
Reader survey
Trainwreck Wrapped 2025 is live!
You already know you’re smart, but you also want to know how smart you are compared to everyone else. Now you have proof with Trainwreck Wrapped! Check out your year in review of daily, educational web games and see how well you stack up against your fellow Globlers, how much you improved at Metazooa this year, and how much you still have to learn to master Stocktangle!
Emily Dickinson wrote 100x as many poems as she published
Emily Dickinson only had 10 poems published in her lifetime, but she probably would have gotten more out if she hadn’t clumsily locked hundreds of them in a hidden chest.
You might think that poets crave an audience, but Emily Dickinson (Chronogram guest #1000) hid from hers. She spoke to visitors through closed doors, dressed only in white, and rarely left her family home. But in secret, she was building something extraordinary: 40 handmade booklets of poetry, stitched together with thread, that she told no one about.
Between 1858 and 1864, Dickinson copied hundreds of her poems, trimmed the sheets to just the right size, and stitched them together with thread. She left no instructions about these booklets, and they were never published during her lifetime. In total, Dickinson created 40 fascicles, containing nearly 800 poems, which was almost half her total output. The poems inside were sometimes edited and rearranged, showing that Dickinson wasn't just writing for herself but carefully shaping her legacy in secret.
After her death in 1886, Dickinson's sister Lavinia discovered these fascicles tucked away in a locked chest. Her first editors later disassembled them, making it hard for scholars to reconstruct the order and intent of the original compilations. The fascicles are now celebrated as one of literary history's greatest mysteries, offering insight into Dickinson's creative process and her radical approach to publishing. So next time you fold a piece of paper into a zine or a secret diary, you're following in the footsteps of a poetic pioneer!
Learn more: Emily Dickinson Museum
Trivia
Dickinson was notoriously reclusive in her later years. Which of the following is a real example of her antisocial behaviour? |
Answers to last week's games
Monday, December 22 to Sunday, December 28.
Globle
| Globle: Capitals
|
Chronogram
| Fictogram
|
Metazooa
| Metaflora
|
Linxicon
The following are the shortest paths from last week:
#679 cope → feeling → pleasure
#680 instructor → learning → slowly → eventually
#681 symbol → sign → confirmation → confirm
#682 remain → remaining → close → likely → probably
#683 cast → movie → money → invest
#684 wound → cure → resolve → resolution
#685 taxpayer → money → dreams → dream
#686 Play now!
Elemingle
| Stocktangle
|
That’s all for this week. Thanks for reading!
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