Emily Dickinson

I think when reading poetry, it is easy to look at a poem and go, "too long with too much going on, must be difficult" or "wow, super short with short words, must be an easy read".  Sadly, most students are taught to loathe poetry.  So if they actually decide to read poetry, they go for the shorter one because it must be easier.  If they read it, they just give it a short sweep and assume whatever conclusion they have come to is the only one.  Or, they just search on the internet, see the popular belief and assume it to be true.  Assumptions when reading poetry are not beneficial.  Assumptions in general are not helpful for much of anything.  
Just looking at Emily Dickinson's poetry is amazing.  She uses so many dashes!  I love it!  And there aren't that many words, which can at first be lovely, but an absence of words does not mean an absence of depth.  I think it is easy to assume that her poems are very straightforward, but I don't believe them to be.  Dickinson and Shakespeare have about the same depth.  With Shakespeare's sonnets, it can be somewhat difficult to find the meaning, but he does have a great plenty more words in his sonnets (usually) than Dickinson does.  With her terse nature, one can see it as she is simply terse and what you see is what you get.  I find that is not a beneficial way of looking at Dickson's poetry.  In that regard, I think she is simply deceptive.  Most would see the short poems with short words and assume them to be easy peasy.  As mentioned previously, Dickinson has as much depth, if not more, as Shakespeare.  She writes with such feeling and emotion, and manages to contain that in a short poem.