[armedgorilla]

Fortunately we have troves of her handwritten documents; all of her poems were first printed posthumously. To me, she's using the punctuation as pacing or tonal markers as opposed to ligatures ("I'll clutch— and clutch— " vs "I'll clutch-and clutch-"). Many publishers style these marks as longer than normal m-dashes for that reason, which makes sense seeing as they are rarely used as asides.

I interpret her marks—

as breathless pauses—

that— having no unicode—

should be given to m—

and space—

https://www.edickinson.org/editions/2/image_sets/12170035

[phlakaton]

Em-dashes have been the norm in every Dickinson poem I read, and I think it might have derived from the preferences of Victorian publishers, who I understand loved those long dashes.

[mmooss]

Great comment. Thank you!