Kevin’s Meandering Thoughts | Standing Inside Emily’s Writing Room

(Observe: it is a shadow silhouette simply down the road from the Emily Dickinson Museum. Subsequent to it’s one other shadow silhouette, of Robert Frost, who additionally lived in Amherst for elements of his life, as a professor. They might not have recognized one another, because of years lived, however Frost little doubt knew of Dickinson’s poetry)

I’ve lengthy admired Emily Dickinson for her poetry and her amazingly fertile thoughts. I’ve learn books about her and explored a few of her poems. What I hadn’t accomplished is visited the Emily Dickinson Museum. Which is odd, since it is just a few 20 minute drive from the place I reside and I handed by the Amherst, Massachusetts website usually sufficient on the best way to different issues.

I mounted that yesterday, spending just a few hours on the historic website, which has two major buildings: the house the place Emily Dickinson lived and wrote, for many of her grownup life, and the adjoining residence the place her brother and her sister-in-law lived. (Her sister-in-law, Susan, was a key participant in Emily’s life, with loads of romantic hypothesis, however on the very least, Emily wrote and despatched almost 250 poems to Susan).

You be taught quite a bit about her life, in fact, however I discovered essentially the most attention-grabbing area was her room, and the chair and little desk the place she spent a lot time, pondering, after which writing her poems and letters. The desk is ready in entrance of a window that, on the time, offered a large view of the middle of Amherst (with farmlands in between). There’s a sense of marvel on the thoughts at work, within the quiet, and principally by herself, as she penned poetry that may in the future turn into the fascination of the literary world (because of her sister, who found the 1800 poems after Emily’s loss of life).

I had some inklings in regards to the authorized battles that happened over her poems, however the extra I discovered in regards to the two camps — one, led by her niece, was to maintain her punctuation and phrases intact, whereas the opposite was in favor of heavy modifying, including punctuation and rhyming phrase replacements — the extra I considered Emily, writing her days away, capturing the world on scraps of paper, stuffed into her pockets and desk.

Remark: I used to be the one male in our tour of about 12 individuals. A lot of the different have been younger ladies from across the nation, and most had not solely watched the Dickinson TV present (on Apple, which makes use of historic info however with a contemporary twist) however have been fascinated by the props that the TV present donated to the museum, and have been rapt listeners because the tour information shared poems all through the occasion. I had the sense that a few of these younger ladies have been writers and poets, come to see how Dickinson lived and wrote on the earth.

If you wish to be taught extra about Emily Dickinson’s poems, my Western Massachusetts Writing Challenge colleague (and former website director, and my good good friend) Bruce Penniman is internet hosting a digital workshop by means of the museum in late August entitled “By way of The Darkish Sod” and it’s designed for educators. Extra info is right here.

Peace (and poems),
Kevin