Fame is a fickle food Summary & Analysis
by Emily Dickinson

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Emily Dickinson's "Fame is a fickle food" presents celebrity as something volatile and unpredictable. Getting a taste of this metaphorical food one day is no guarantee that you'll get it the next. Even unscrupulous scavengers like "crows" steer clear of fame's dubious "crumbs," the speaker says, preferring the humble yet reliable nutrition of "Farmer's corn." Like most of Dickinson's poems, "Fame is a fickle food" was discovered after her death and published in the posthumous 1924 collection, The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson.

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