Emily Dickinson's handwriting on a letter and envelope

Poetry Discussion Group Spring 2024 Series

SOLD OUT

Join us for a lively virtual discussion of Emily Dickinson’s poetry and letters, meeting once a month from February to May. This program is designed to welcome newcomers and seasoned readers of Dickinson alike.

Topics and Leaders:

February: “Oh Sumptuous moment / Slower go”: Dickinson, Desire, and Temporal Dislocation with Emily Coccia
March: Emily Dickinson’s “Tempest” with Melba Jensen
April: “Emily Dickinson and the Invention of Faith” with Emily Seelbinder
May: Dickinson and Disability Poetics with Clare Mullaney

Format

As a registrant, you are signing up to join a small group of 25 or fewer regular participants for four 90-minute zoom sessions. Meetings are participatory, with video and audio encouraged. Because we want everyone to feel comfortable speaking, full sessions will not be recorded. The program is designed for adult audiences (18+).

Registration

We are offering an identical program for Wednesday and Friday groups. Please review the dates carefully — space is limited.
Refunds are not available for this program.

Wednesday Group (SOLD OUT), $100 program fee (inclusive of all sessions), limited to 25 participants
February 21, 6-7:30pm ET
March 20, 6-7:30pm ET
April 24, 6-7:30pm ET
May 22 6-7:30pm ET

Friday Group (SOLD OUT), $100 program fee (inclusive of all sessions), limited to 25 participants
February 23, 12-1:30pm ET
March 22, 12-1:30pm ET
April 26, 12-1:30pm ET
May 24, 12-1:30pm ET

Optional Meet & Greet for both groups: Wednesday, February 7 from 6-6:45pm

For Educators:
Educators may request a certificate attesting to your participation in the program. Those interested may attend an additional session on May 29 from 6 to 7 to discuss curricular connections and ideas with fellow educators.

Reservations are made on a first-come, first-served basis.

Questions: Don’t hesitate to reach out at edmprograms@emilydickinsonmuseum.org with any questions about the program.

FEBRUARY

“Oh Sumptuous moment / Slower go”: Dickinson, Desire, and Temporal Dislocation
In the third season of Apple TV+’s Dickinson (2019-21), the poet finds herself transported out of her nineteenth-century context and into the 1950s, where a young Sylvia Plath provides Emily Dickinson with the words and inspiration to come out to her sister Lavinia. Although the time travel plotline is obviously fictional, there persists an image of Dickinson as a figure out of time—or out least out of temporal lockstep with her nineteenth-century moment. This discussion will consider both the ways Dickinson has been represented in relationship to her historical context and how she herself wrote about temporality. From seconds and moments to eternity and
infinity, Dickinson’s poems and letters abound with mentions of time and duration. Together, we will explore the different ways time is felt and experienced in individual works, paying particular attention to how Dickinson uses words to create “world enough and time” for her own queer desires.

Emily Coccia is a Ph.D. candidate in the joint program in English and Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of Michigan. Focusing on nineteenth-century genres of working-class and mass-popular literature, her research asks how American workingwomen’s creative reception practices allowed them to envision queer futures and to cultivate spaces for pleasure and intimacy. Her writing has appeared in journals including Legacy: A Journal of American Women Writers, Transformative Works and Cultures, and the Emily Dickinson Journal.

MARCH

Emily Dickinson’s “Tempest”
In William Shakespeare’s play The Tempest, the deposed Duke Prospero chooses between practicing his alchemical arts in exile and returning to govern Milan. In exile, he uses poetry, music, and language to control his dependents–enchanting his daughter Miranda with a pageant of divine love while thwarting his servants’, Ariel and Caliban, desire for freedom. In this discussion, we’ll trace how Dickinson alludes to these characters and their experience of poetry in four poems about the power of poetry. Participants do not need to read The Tempest to appreciate these poems or enjoy the discussion, but we will share resources for accessing the play and discussing the plot.

Melba Jensen has taught English, computer literacy, and mathematics to college students and high school students since 1986. She completed her Ph.D. in English with an emphasis in nineteenth-century American Literature at the University of Massachusetts in 2005. She has been a lecturer in American Literature at the University of Massachusetts and is a guide at the Emily Dickinson Museum.

APRIL

Emily Dickinson and the Invention of Faith
Though Emily Dickinson may not fit traditional molds for religious persons, in her own time or in ours, she was clearly fascinated by spiritual matters, and she explored such matters from differing, often contradictory points of view. Many readers/scholars have attempted to codify Dickinson’s religious perspective. Much has been made of her assertion to T. W. Higginson that her family was “religious” but she herself was not (L261), of her apparent practice of keeping the Sabbath by “staying at Home” (J324/Fr236/M 115), of her correspondence with several clergymen and her obvious interest in good preaching, and of her many statements expressing both belief and unbelief in poems, letters, and biographical anecdote. She has been claimed as both Catholic and Protestant, Calvinist and anti-Calvinist, firm believer and lifelong skeptic. She has also been identified as a mystic, an antinomian, and an existentialist. There is evidence in Dickinson’s life and work both to confirm and to disprove these claims. Adding to the difficulty for readers is Dickinson’s fondness for ambiguity and paradox, as well as her use of voices that contradict each other when poems on similar subjects are compared side by side. As we discuss
some of these poems, we will not attempt to pin Dickinson down. Instead, we will find a rich and diverse consideration of faith, scripture, theology, prayer, and other spiritual practices that likely will raise more questions than answers and spur us to explore these matters further in our reading of Dickinson and other poets.

Emily Seelbinder served as a Professor of English at Queens University of Charlotte from 1989 until her retirement as a Professor Emerita in 2019. Though she cultivated a reputation there as “the Meanest, Baddest English Teacher on the Planet,” she received the Fuqua Distinguished Educator Award twice and, in 2007, the Hunter-Hamilton Love of Teaching Award. At Queens she developed courses on African American literature and culture and on the U. S. Civil War and American Literature, as well as an interdisciplinary course entitled “Emily Dickinson and Her Descendants.” A self-proclaimed “Dickinson Evangelist” and longtime member of the Emily Dickinson International Society (EDIS) and of the Emily Dickinson Museum, she has frequently led workshops and discussions for high school students, book clubs, public library gatherings, church groups, senior citizens, and the Road Scholars programs of the North Carolina Humanities Council. In 2011 and 2014, she was a member of the faculty for the Museum’s NEH Landmarks of American History and Culture Summer Seminars for K-12 teachers. Her scholarly work has long focused on Dickinson’s use—and abuse—of scripture and on how contemporary composers “read” Dickinson through music. Her publications include a chapter on Dickinson’s Bible in Dickinson in Context (2003), essays in the EDIS Bulletin about musical settings of Dickinson’s work, and, in the Emily Dickinson Journal, an essay on “Teaching Emily Dickinson in the Trenches” (1999) and a review of Divide Light Opera Film (2022).

MAY

Dickinson and Disability Poetics
Description forthcoming.

Clare Mullaney’s research and teaching work at the intersection between nineteenth- and early twentieth-century U.S. literature, disability studies, and material text studies. Her book project, American Imprints: Disability and the Material Text, argues that acknowledging texts as made objects brings into focus how turn-of-the-century authors grapple with physical and mental impairments at the level of textual form. Her work has received awards from the American Antiquarian Society, the Emily Dickinson International Society, the Library Company of Philadelphia, the New York Public Library, the Society for Disability Studies, and the Society for Nineteenth-Century Americanists. She is currently a junior member of the Andrew W. Mellon Society of Fellows in Critical Bibliography and has previously taught at Bryn Mawr and Hamilton Colleges.

Group Tour Policies

VISITING US
Food and drink with the exception of water are not allowed in the historic rooms. Backpacks or large bags will need to be checked in the Tour Center. You may wish to leave these items in your vehicle.

BATHROOMS
Please note that the Tour Center only has one bathroom, which is a single-stall accessible restroom. We advise that you plan to use a rest-stop prior to your visit.

CHECKING IN
Please plan for your scheduled arrival and check-in at our Tour Center, located at the back of the Homestead. Please designate someone to share a guest count and pay your remaining balance in full at the register upon arrival.

FEES
Deposits are due one week following the invoice date and are non-refundable. Payment can be made via phone (413) 542-5073 or check, mailed to the Emily Dickinson Museum c/o Programs Department, 20 Triangle St, Amherst MA 01002.

Your reservation is not confirmed until we have received your tour deposit. The remaining balance for your tour is due upon arrival to the Museum.

GROUP SIZE
Upon requesting your visit, we ask you to provide an estimate of your group size. Your final numbers are due 3 weeks in advance of the tour. If your group size changes after we have received your final number, please notify us 48 hours in advance of the change. After 48 hours, we reserve the right to charge full admission for any “no shows” on the day of the tour. Please note, the Museum may not be able to accommodate increases in group size.

If your party is split into more than one group, we recommend splitting them in advance of their arrival.

BUSES AND PARKING
Arrival by Car: Metered parking is available on Main Street, as well as in the Amherst Center Parking Garage. On site parking is limited to two spaces for vehicles with an accessible parking tag only.

Arrival by bus: The Museum driveway is a steep grade which prevents most buses from driving in. Buses should pull alongside the sidewalk on Main Street in front of the Museum on the metered side to unload passengers safely. A town ordinance prohibits buses from idling longer than five minutes. Bus parking is available in Amherst College’s East Parking lot.

LATE ARRIVALS
Your group will be given an arrival and departure time to ensure an organized visit. If your group experiences delays, please call the Tour Center (413) 542-2947 to notify our staff. We reserve the right to shorten your tour to conclude at the scheduled time.

CANCELLATION
If for any reason you need to cancel your visit, please notify the Museum 48 hours in advance of the tour by emailing edmreservations@emilydickinsonmuseum.org.

CODE OF CONDUCT
At the Emily Dickinson Museum, the health and safety of our staff and visitors is our top priority. We are dedicated to providing a welcoming experience for everyone. The Museum does not tolerate discrimination or any form of unlawful harassment. By purchasing tickets and visiting the Emily Dickinson Museum, you are agreeing on behalf of your group to comply with the requirements for visitor conduct. Group leaders are responsible for communicating these expectations with all visiting group members.

ACCESSIBILITY
The Emily Dickinson Museum welcomes all visitors. For accessibility information, please see Accessibility. Care partners of visitors with disabilities are admitted free of charge. Please share any known needs in advance with our group tour coordinator so that we can plan the best experience for your group.

Poetry Discussion Group:
Spring 2023 Series

Each session is facilitated by a guest scholar with unique expertise, who leads the group in discussion following an introductory talk. Brief reading handouts will be distributed prior to each month’s program. February and May’s sessions will be extended, for those who would like more time to connect with fellow group members.

Topics and Leaders:

February: “I think the Hemlock likes to stand”: Emily Dickinson’s Trees with Marta McDowell
March: “The Life That Tied Too Tight Escapes”: The Visual Legacy of Dickinson’s Imaginary with Zoë Brigley
April: “…an instant’s act”: Exploring the Architecture and Ecology of Ruins in Dickinson’s Poetry” with Ryan Heryford
May: “Emily Dickinson’s Master Hours”: Reading Dickinson’s Master Letters with Marta Werner

Format

As a registrant, you are signing up to join a small group of 30 or fewer regular participants for four 90-minute zoom sessions. Meetings are participatory, with video and audio encouraged. Because we want everyone to feel comfortable speaking, sessions will not be recorded. The program is designed for adult audiences (18+).

Registration

Registration is now closed. Thank you for your interest!
Sign up for our e-newsletter to be the first to know about our next Poetry Discussion Group

We are offering an identical program for the Wednesday and Friday groups. Please review the dates carefully. Because space is limited, we hope only those who can commit to attending will register. Refunds are not available for this program.

Wednesday Group, $100 program fee (inclusive of all sessions), limited to 30 participants
February 22, 6-7:30 ET, optional sign-on at 5:30 to meet the group!
March 22, 6-7:30 ET
April 19, 6-7:30 ET
May 17, 6-7:45 ET

Friday Group, $100 program fee (inclusive of all sessions), limited to 30 participants
February 24, 12-1:30 ET, sign on at 11:30 to meet the group!
March 24, 12-1:30 ET
April 21, 12-1:30 ET
May 19, 12-1:45 ET

Reservations are made on a first-come, first-served basis.

Questions: Don’t hesitate to reach out at edmprograms@emilydickinsonmuseum.org with any questions about the program.

FEBRUARY

“I think the Hemlock likes to stand”: Emily Dickinson’s Trees

Marta McDowell teaches landscape history and horticulture at the New York Botanical Garden and consults for private clients and public gardens. Her latest book, Unearthing The Secret Garden explores the plants and places that inspired Frances Hodgson Burnett to write the classic children’s book. Timber Press also published Emily Dickinson’s Gardening Life, The World of Laura Ingalls Wilder, All the Presidents’ Gardens, and Beatrix Potter’s Gardening Life. All the Presidents’ Gardens made The New York Times bestseller list and won an American Horticultural Society book award in 2017. Beatrix Potter’s Gardening Life won the Gold Award from the Garden Writers Association and is now in its eighth printing. Her books have been translated into Chinese, Japanese and Korean. She is the 2019 recipient of the Garden Club of America’s Sarah Chapman Francis Medal for outstanding literary achievement. martamcdowell.com

MARCH

The Life That Tied Too Tight Escapes: The Visual Legacy of Dickinson’s Imaginary, featuring the art of Victoria Brookland

Zoë Brigley is the author of three books of poetry published by Bloodaxe: Hand & Skull (2019), Conquest (2012), and The Secret (2007), and recently published chapbooks with Broken Sleep: Aubade After A French Movie (2020), and Verve: Into Eros (2021). She also wrote a collection of nonfiction essays Notes from a Swing State (Parthian 2019) and co-wrote a pamphlet of creative nonfiction with Kristian Evans, Otherworlds: Writing on Nature and Magic (Broken Sleep 2021). Brigley is Assistant Professor in English at the Ohio State University where she produces an anti-violence podcast: “Sinister Myth”. She won an Eric Gregory Award for the best British poets under 30, was Forward Prize commended, and is listed in the Dylan Thomas Prize. zoebrigley.com/

APRIL

“…an instant’s act:’ Exploring the Architecture and Ecology of Ruins in Dickinson’s Poetry”

Ryan Heryford is Associate Professor of Environmental Literature in the Department of English at California State University East Bay, where he teaches courses in nineteenth and twentieth century American literature, with a focus in cultural narratives of environmental justice. Recent publications can be found in ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies of Literature and the Environment, The Mark Twain Annual, and The Emily Dickinson Journal.

MAY

“Emily Dickinson’s Master Hours”: Reading Dickinson’s Master Letters

Marta Werner is the Martin J. Svaglic Chair in Textual Studies at Loyala University in Chicago. She is the author/editor of Emily Dickinson’s Open Folios: Scenes of Reading, Surfaces of Writing (1995), Radical Scatters: An Electronic Archive of Emily Dickinson’s Late Fragments and Related Texts, 1870-1886 (1999), and Writing in Time: Emily Dickinson’s Master Hours ( 2021). Werner is currently working on two related projects: a sound installation of Dickinson’s bird-poems that seeks to re-conceive the archive as a living, evolving, but also dying space, and a collection of essays titled “‘Conjecturing a Climate’: Reading Dickinson at the End of the World.”

Group Tour Request

Thank you for your interest in visiting the Emily Dickinson Museum! We look forward to meeting you.

Please review our Group Tour Policies before submitting your request.

Our current pricing:
– Adult $17
– Youth (17 and Under) $7
– Caregiver/Personal Attendant Free

Group Coordinator Name (first, last) *

Daytime Phone Number *

Coordinator Email *

Cell phone number (day-of visit contact): *

Organization Name

Address (city, state, zip) *

Group Escort (first, last)

(If different than trip coordinator)

Number of Guests *

If uncertain, please provide your best estimate.

Which type of visit is best for your group? *

Preferred Date *

Let us know the preferred date for your visit. An estimate or range is fine. Please note weekends are not available for group tour bookings.

Preferred Time: Monday - Tuesday

We encourage groups of larger than 20 to book on Mondays when possible.

Preferred Time: Wednesday - Thursday

Day and Time Notes:

You may share alternate days and times, or add.

About Your Group

Please let us know about your group so that we can plan the best experience for you. You can also use this space to list any accessibility needs or additional requirements for the booking.

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Name

Poetry Discussion Group:
Spring Series

In February, meet-and-greet with fellow participants, share Dickinson stories, and learn from the Museum (and one another) about the poet’s publication story, editions of her work, and resources.
March through May’s sessions are facilitated by guest scholars, who will lead the group in discussion following a talk about their work. Brief reading handouts of 4-8 poems and/or letters will be distributed prior to the month’s program. May’s session will last an additional 15 minutes, giving the group time to celebrate, say goodbye, and reflect on the season’s poems.

Topics and Leaders:

February: Introduction with the Emily Dickinson Museum
March: Dickinson’s Natural Music with Gerard Holmes
April: Dickinson’s Long-Histories of Environmental Change with Ryan Heryford
May: Dickinson and Her Surprisingly Twenty-First Century Art of Trans Poetics with Joy Ladin

Please review full descriptions and bios below.

Format

As a registrant, you are signing up to join a small group of regular participants for four 90-minute zoom sessions. Meetings are participatory, with video and audio encouraged. Because we want everyone to feel comfortable speaking, sessions will not be recorded. The program is designed for adult audiences (18+).

Registration

We are offering an identical program for a Wednesday and Friday group. Please review the dates carefully. Because space is limited, we hope only those who can commit to attending will register. Refunds are not available for this program.

Wednesday Group, $75 program fee (inclusive of all sessions), limited to 25 participants
February 23, 6-7:30 ET
March 23, 6-7:30 ET
April 13, 6-7:30 ET
May 11, 6-7:45 ET

Friday Group, $75 program fee (inclusive of all sessions), limited to 25 participants
February 25, 12-1:30 ET
March 25, 12-1:30 ET
April 15, 12-1:30 ET
May 13, 12-1:45 ET

Reservations are made on a first-come, first-served basis. While our Wednesday group is now closed, we have just a few spaces left in our Friday group. Please learn more about registration and request a space via this form.

Questions: Don’t hesitate to reach out at edmprograms@emilydickinsonmuseum.org with any questions about the program.

MARCH

Emily Dickinson’s Natural Music
Emily Dickinson knew music well as a performer and a listener in parlors, churches, and other indoor spaces. But she also spent a lot of time outdoors, in the garden, walking her beloved dog Carlo, and exploring Amherst. Like many other writers of her time, Dickison wrote of natural sounds as having musical qualities. Wind, rain, cicadas, and of course birds all show up in her poems as sources of music, and as inspiration for her own distinctive poetic music. We will discuss how poets important to Dickinson wrote about the sounds of the natural world, and how Romantic musical composers and performers built sounds of nature into their work, before exploring together some of Dickinson’s poems that treat natural sounds musically.

Gerard Holmes completed a PhD in English Literature at the University of Maryland, College Park in 2020, with a dissertation titled “‘Discretion in the Interval’: Emily Dickinson’s Musical Performances.” He has published in The Emily Dickinson Journal and Reception, co-edited a 2021 special issue of Women’s Studies with the theme: New Directions in Dickinson and Music,” and contributed a chapter to The Oxford Handbook to Emily Dickinson, forthcoming from Oxford University Press in April 2022. In addition to teaching writing and literature, he is a nonprofit administrator, program manager, and fundraiser.

APRIL

“…an instant’s act:” Dickinson’s Long-Histories of Environmental Change
This discussion will consider the importance of Dickinson as a poet of the Anthropocene, that proposed geologic epoch in which human activity has rendered irreversible transformations to our global climate and conditions for life on earth. While Dickinson was certainly not aware of climate change, nor she could have possibly predicted our current ecological precarity, we will explore particular Dickinson poems that focus on geologic time, wide-scale environmental transformations, and human/nonhuman entanglements, as sites to better consider our own individual, communal and species-based relations to contemporary environmental issues.

MAY

Emily Dickinson and Her Surprisingly Twenty-First Century Art of Trans Poetics
As those who love her know, Dickinson often writes first-person poems describing states of being that don’t fit socially recognized categories, and which, as a result, have few terms or poetic conventions for expressing them. What kind of person, for example, would introduce themselves by saying “I am afraid to own a Body – / I am afraid to own a Soul,” or locates themselves in terms like these: “`Tis Miracle before Me – then – / `Tis Miracle behind – between”? Poets and scholars (including me) started using the term “trans poetics” – that is, poetic techniques for representing ways of being human that don’t fit conventional terms or categories – a little over a decade ago, to describe the growing body of work by transgender and nonbinary poets. But it didn’t long before critics began to realize that because “trans poetics” are required whenever poets represent unconventional ways of being human, the practice has a much longer lineage in American poetry, one that, as these examples show, reaches back at least to Emily Dickinson. In this discussion, we will examine a number of poems to see what Dickinson, in the middle of the nineteenth century, had already learned about the twenty-first century art of trans poetics.

Joy Ladin, who started leading classes on Dickinson’s poetry in the Homestead itself in the mid-1990s and has loved it every time, has been dubbed “the godmother of trans poetics.” She has published ten books of poetry, including National Jewish Book award-winner The Book of Anna, reissued by EOAGH Press, and just-published Shekhinah Speaks (Selva Oscura). She is also the author of a booklength study of Dickinson, Soldering the Abyss: Emily Dickinson and Modern American Poetry; a a memoir of gender transition, National Jewish Book Award finalist Through the Door of Life; and Lambda Literary and Triangle Award finalist, The Soul of the Stranger: Reading God and Torah from a Transgender Perspective. Episodes of her online conversation series, “Containing Multitudes,” are available at www.jewishlive.org/multitudes; links to her writings, readings, interviews and talks are at her website, joyladin.wordpress.com.

Virtual Poetry Discussion Group
May 18 & May 28

The Emily Dickinson Museum’s Poetry Discussion Group meets monthly, September through May, for lively conversation about Emily Dickinson’s poetry and letters.

Join us on Tuesday, May 18 or Friday, May 28 from 1pm to 2:30pm EST on Zoom. Space is limited. To request a space, please fill out this registration form.

This program is free of charge, but we encourage those who are able to do so to make a donation after the program.

“Receiving Emily: Dickinson’s Addressed Poems”

In this session, we will look closely at the social life Emily Dickinson created with her poetry. While certainly not a social butterfly, Dickinson was nevertheless extensive in her social calls via the poetry she sent in, with, or as letters. What was it like to receive a poem from Emily? Through a discussion of poems and their variants, we will consider the ways she addressed her friends and acquaintances, and how we are addressed by her today. Poems for discussion include: variants of “Except the smaller size” (Fr606); variants of “Your – Riches – taught me – poverty!” (F418) and more.

About the Facilitator
Judith Scholes is Assistant Professor of English at St. Mark’s and Corpus Christi Colleges at the University of British Columbia, in Vancouver, Canada. She has a PhD in English from UBC, and specializes in nineteenth-century American print culture, women’s poetry and editing, and Emily Dickinson. She is currently completing a book that examines the rhetoric of women’s poetry as it emerged in mid-nineteenth century American periodicals, and shaped Emily Dickinson’s understanding and representation of herself as a poet. She is also pursuing a new book-length project that investigates the existence and rhetoric of women’s editorial work at U.S. daily newspapers during the first 70 years (~1830-1900) of women’s presence in newsrooms. Her work has appeared in the Emily Dickinson Journal, American Periodicals, and is forthcoming in the Oxford Handbook of Emily Dickinson.

Questions? write edmprograms@emilydickinsonmuseum.org

“A Mighty Room” Virtual Studio Session: Bedroom
Friday, May 7, 12-1pm

Sweet hours have perished here;

This is a mighty room;

Within its precincts hopes have played, —

Now shadows in the tomb.

-J1767

VIRTUAL PROGRAM

Space is limited for this program and you may be added to a waitlist.
Update: Registration for this program has filled.

Spend a “sweet hour” in Emily Dickinson’s creative space where she penned her startling poetry. Whether you are a writer, an artist, a composer, or a poet, you’ll find solace and inspiration for your artistic output in Emily Dickinson’s bedroom. Let this quiet virtual experience jumpstart your next creative journey.

What to expect: As one of a limited number of remote participants, you will need to find a quiet spot with a good internet connection from which to be immersed in a live feed from the poet’s bedroom in the Dickinson family Homestead. Plan to have your camera and audio on. In this room Dickinson found freedom working up late by lamplight. A facilitator in the room welcomes you and gently guides you through three inspirational writing prompts to help you explore this unique physical and psychic space and unleash your own creativity over the course of the hour. Focused on reflection and quietude, this program is not a writing workshop, but you will have the opportunity at the end for a short share-out with the group if you wish.

Virtual Poetry Discussion Group
April 16 & April 20

The Emily Dickinson Museum’s Poetry Discussion Group meets monthly, September through May, for lively conversation about Emily Dickinson’s poetry and letters.

Join us on Friday, April 16 from 12pm to 1:30pm EST or Tuesday, April 20, from 6pm to 7:30pm EST on Zoom. Space is limited, and registration for this program is now closed.

This program is free of charge, but we encourage those who are able to do so to make a donation after the program.

Topic: “We – Bee and I – live by the quaffing –”: Exploring Emily Dickinson’s Bees
Bees were incredibly popular figures in nineteenth-century American poetry: Emerson’s “The Humble-Bee” is one celebrated example, but bees also play prominent roles in poems by Henry David Thoreau, Edgar Allan Poe, John Greenleaf Whittier, Priscilla Jane Thompson, among many others. What distinguishes Emily Dickinson from these other poets is the breadth of her representations of bees. Dickinson’s use of bees lends itself to discussion of a remarkably rich array of themes: gender and sexuality, class and race, scientific and ecological discourse, religion, and aesthetics (and no doubt many more). Reflecting on this symbolic density, our discussion will chart points of congruity and incongruity between Dickinson’s changeable bees.

About the Facilitator
Claire Nashar is a scholar, translator, editor, and poet. She earned her Ph.D. from the University of Buffalo (SUNY), supported by a Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Completion Fellowship. Winner of an Excellence in Teaching Award, she has published two books of poems, Lake (2016) and Handmade (2015) and a number of interviews, translations, poems, and critical essays. She edited a special issue of Formes Poétiques Contemporaines and is at work on a book-length translation of Louis Aragon’s Le Fou d’Elsa (1963). Nashar served as curator of the online Australian Poetry Library and as Assistant Project Editor and Manager for the Marianne Moore Digital Archive.

Questions? write edmprograms@emilydickinsonmuseum.org

Virtual Poetry Discussion Group
March 19 & 26

The Emily Dickinson Museum’s Poetry Discussion Group meets monthly, September through May, for lively conversation about Emily Dickinson’s poetry and letters.

Join us from 12pm to 1:30pm on Zoom for a discussion on March 19 or March 26. Space is limited. Please submit a registration request via this google form.

This program is free of charge, but we encourage those who are able to do so to make a donation after the program.

Topic: Yankee Doodle Variations: Emily Dickinson and Improvisation

The basic facts of Emily Dickinson’s known musical life have been well documented. She was said, at age 2 1/2, to enjoy playing “the moosic” on her aunt Lavinia’s piano. As a child, she took singing lessons, and later sang alongside other students at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, where she also likely heard the Hutchinson Family Singers perform. In her twenties, she wrote of hearing the internationally famous soprano Jenny Lind, collected dozens of pieces of sheet music, and earned a reputation as a striking improviser at the piano. In fact, the Hutchinsons and Lind, among other performers Dickinson heard, were also widely recognized for their improvisations.

Dickinson’s musical knowledge informed the writing of her poems. Judy Jo Small and other critics have noted that many poems follow familiar patterns of hymns, nursery rhymes, and ballads. Dickinson also wrote about music in letters and poems, demonstrating a nuanced grasp of musical principles. Finally, her poems’ formal qualities demonstrate the influence of improvisational performance practice. Those she kept for herself, in private, contain alternate words and markings, something like the annotated scores of a performing musician. Those she sent to friends and family were customized, often making use of these variants but seldom containing variants themselves. These function something like the extemporaneous piano performances for which she was known.

To set the stage for this discussion, I will begin by presenting some foundational information about Dickinson’s musical life and interests, including how people of her time experienced and thought about improvisation and spontaneity more generally, both in music and in writing. Then we will discuss several poems – and perhaps a letter or two – that touch on music in social and natural settings. We will close by discussing a poem across several extant manuscripts, as an example of improvised poetic performance.

About the Facilitator
Gerard Holmes completed a PhD in English Literature in 2020, at the University of Maryland, College Park, with a dissertation titled “‘Discretion in the Interval’: Emily Dickinson’s Musical Performances.” He has published in The Emily Dickinson Journal, Reception, and Women’s Studies, a special themed issue, “New Directions in Dickinson and Music,” which he also co-edited. He contributed a chapter to the forthcoming Oxford Handbook to Emily Dickinson.

Virtual Poetry Discussion Group, February 19 & 24

The Emily Dickinson Museum’s Poetry Discussion Group meets monthly, September through May, for lively conversation about Emily Dickinson’s poetry and letters.

Join us from 12pm to 1:30pm on Zoom for a discussion on February 19 or February 24. Space is this program is no longer available. For questions, please write edmprograms@emilydickinsonmuseum.org.

This program is free of charge, but we encourage those who are able to do so to make a donation after the program.

Topic: “Emily Dickinson’s Hearths and Homes”
Emily Dickinson’s experience of the family hearth and home became her metaphor for the transformation of thought into poetry. Six poems about homes and hearths show how Dickinson used these images, how they evolved over time, and, time permitting, how they contrasted with other writers’ images of the family hearth.

About the Facilitator
Melba Jensen has taught English, computer literacy, and mathematics to college students and high-school students since 1986. She completed her Ph.D. in English with an emphasis in nineteenth-century American Literature at the University of Massachusetts in 2005. She is a lecturer in American Literature at UMass-Amherst, and a guide at the Emily Dickinson Museum.