For Dan Blom, Who Loves Emily Dickinson
By Nicole Heath, Emily Dickinson Museum Board Member

Not long ago, while going through my late father’s belongings, I uncovered a treasure: a signed original poem written by Kathleen Flenniken, the Poet Laureate of Washington State. It had been penned for my father’s 93rd birthday in 2012, celebrating his life during an event at the Rainier Club in Seattle.

My father, Dan Blom, was a lawyer by profession, but his heart belonged to literature. As chairman of the Rainier Club’s literary committee, he curated events that spotlighted novelists, poets, and non-fiction writers. Through that work, he formed a warm personal friendship with Flenniken, who learned about my father’s deep, lifelong love for Emily Dickinson and crafted this birthday poem in his honor.

After my father passed away, finding this poem among his papers felt like a sign. It felt like a testament to how Dickinson’s legacy reaches far beyond the meadows of Amherst. It brought me back to my childhood.

In our household, poetry was a living, breathing presence. Reciting verse from memory was a family sport, as my parents were constantly trying to outdo one another with quotations at the dinner table. Naturally, I memorized Dickinson from a very young age, and I made sure to pass that same love of poetry down to my own children. 

Two of Emily’s poems, in particular, serve as bookends to my family’s history:

“There is no Frigate like a Book” (Fr1286) was my father’s absolute favorite, and it became mine, too. The poem functions as a sort of mission statement for anyone devoted to the world of literature. It was so fitting for a man who collected rare books and championed authors that, as a gift, I hand-embroidered the poem for him on fabric. My mother had it framed, and it hung in my parent’s home for decades.

When my mother passed away, “If I can stop one Heart from Breaking” (Fr982) was the poem we selected for her memorial service. It personified her altruistic, generous spirit and felt like a perfect tribute.

Given my family history, my path to the Museum almost felt preordained and when I first stepped onto the grounds, I was immediately smitten. Each visit here feels like a homecoming. 

What I love most about serving on the board is the community behind the Museum. The board, staff, and visitors, all share a genuine affection for Dickinson’s work. To be here is to be inspired by her words and it is the spirit of this place that compelled me to join. Serving the Museum continues to be an ongoing education. It offers constant opportunities to dig deeper into Emily’s writing, her era, and the rich history of Western Massachusetts.

For my family, Dickinson was a lens through which we viewed generosity, curiosity, and imagination. Being part of the Emily Dickinson Museum allows me to honor my parents’ legacy while helping ensure that Emily’s “Frigate” continues to take future generations “Lands away.”

To learn more about how you can support the Emily Dickinson Museum, please visit:
emilydickinsonmuseum.org/emily-dickinson-fund/

Between the Dashes #3 – An Emily Dickinson Museum Blog  • August 19, 2026 

This guest post is authored by Mary A. van Balgooy and was originally and independently published in Engaging Places, a design and strategy firm that connects people and historic places. 

The Emily Dickinson Museum is grateful for feedback from visitors like Mary and deeply appreciated her insights on our tour. 

A House That Reveals a Poet
By Mary A. van Balgooy

Before visiting the Emily Dickinson Museum in Amherst, Massachusetts, I knew surprisingly little about Emily Dickinson. The Museum encompasses two historic houses: the restored Homestead, where Dickinson was born, died, and wrote most of her poetry, and the unrestored Evergreens, the neighboring home of her brother Austin, his wife Susan, and their family. Although the Museum includes both houses, it was the Homestead that demonstrated how a historic house can become the key to understanding a poet.

I knew Emily Dickinson was one of America’s greatest poets, that she published very little during her lifetime, and that she lived much of her adult life in relative seclusion. I was also familiar with a few of the recurring stories surrounding her life—her correspondence with Thomas Wentworth Higginson, her close relationship with her sister-in-law Susan Gilbert Dickinson, and the questions surrounding her withdrawal from society. Beyond that, she remained something of a mystery. What I did not expect was that the house itself would become the key to understanding her.

Many literary house museums preserve the places where authors lived and worked. The Emily Dickinson Homestead does something more ambitious. Rather than treating the Homestead simply as the place where Emily Dickinson lived, the guide used the house as a framework for understanding the person behind the poet. Each room served as a setting for exploring a different aspect of her life. This was done not through dates and events alone, but through her own poetry, her education, her family relationships, her intellectual curiosity, and her creative choices. In doing so, the house became not simply the setting for Dickinson’s story but an essential part of telling it.

Instead of beginning with furniture or architecture, the guide frequently began with one of Dickinson’s poems. Often, one of Dickinson’s poems opened a conversation, and the room became the backdrop for understanding the experiences, questions, and relationships that informed her writing. The library became a place to discuss education and the books that expanded her thinking. Her bedroom became a place to examine the extraordinary burst of creativity that produced more than a thousand poems in just a few years. Family spaces became opportunities to explore the network of people who made her work possible—from her father, who supplied books; to her sister Lavinia, who assumed many household responsibilities; to sister-in-law Susan, her closest reader and intellectual companion. The result was a tour that never reduced Dickinson to either biography or legend. It was one of the most effective literary house tours I have experienced.

What impressed me most was the guide’s willingness to embrace uncertainty. Rather than presenting tidy answers, she repeatedly acknowledged where historians continue to debate Dickinson’s life. Why did she withdraw from much of Amherst society? What was the nature of her relationship with Susan Dickinson? How should we understand her religious beliefs? Instead of resolving these questions, the tour demonstrated that uncertainty itself was central to Dickinson’s way of thinking. She resisted simple conclusions in both her life and her poetry, and the interpretation respected that complexity.

The house itself became more than a collection of historic rooms. It became evidence of the environment that shaped Dickinson’s intellectual and creative life. Visitors could see the spaces where Dickinson read, wrote, observed, questioned, and developed the distinctive poetic voice that challenged nineteenth-century literary conventions. The physical setting helped explain not simply where she lived but how her intellectual world was formed.

That approach sets the Homestead apart. Many literary house museums understandably focus on the author’s daily life or preserve rooms much as they appeared during the occupant’s lifetime. The Dickinson Homestead certainly does that, but it goes further. The furnishings and objects rarely become ends in themselves. Instead, they serve the larger goal of helping visitors understand the development of a remarkable mind.

By the end of the tour, I realized I wanted to do something I had not expected: read more Emily Dickinson. Not because I felt obligated to appreciate a famous poet, but because the tour made me curious. It introduced Dickinson not as an icon frozen in history but as an endlessly questioning thinker whose poems continue to reward careful reading.

That may be the highest compliment one can give a literary house museum. It did not simply teach me about Emily Dickinson. It made me want to know her better.

Historic house museums often ask visitors to imagine what life was like within their walls. The Emily Dickinson Homestead accomplishes something more difficult. It uses the house, its objects, and Dickinson’s own words to illuminate the experiences, ideas, and relationships that shaped one of America’s greatest poets. Emily Dickinson remains unknowable in many respects—as all remarkable people do—but I left feeling that I understood not simply more about her life, but more about the mind that produced her poetry.

PLAN YOUR VISIT