graphic delve into dickinson - Through the Dark Sod – as Education –

Through the Dark Sod – as Education
Reading & Teaching Dickinson’s Poems
Thursday, August 22, 6:30pm ET

VIRTUAL PROGRAM

graphic delve into dickinson - Through the Dark Sod – as Education – For any questions, please e-mail edmprograms@emilydickinsonmuseum.org

Registration is required for this virtual program and is offered on a sliding scale from $5 – $20.
Please select the ticket price that is right for you, and consider supporting the Museum and the participation of other educators through your purchase. Tickets are non-refundable.

Professional Development certificates are available upon request — please e-mail edmprograms@emilydickinsonmuseum if you are interested.

REGISTER

Through the Dark Sod – as Education –
The Lily passes sure –
Feels her white foot – no trepidation –
Her faith – no fear –
Afterward – in the Meadow –
Swinging her Beryl Bell –
The Mold-life – all forgotten – now –
In Extasy – and Dell – (Fr559)

If poets are “the unacknowledged legislators of the world,” as Shelley asserted (The Defence of Poetry), they are also the most underrepresented writers in the literature curriculum in many schools. Poetry is intimidating to many students—and to many teachers, too—because, unlike the Lily, we don’t always “pass sure” through the “Dark Sod” of convoluted diction, unfamiliar allusions, and concentrated ideas that characterize many poems.Like our students, we crave certainty and control.

The poems of Emily Dickinson can be especially challenging for students and teachers because, despite their simplicity of form, they deny straightforward readings or unified interpretations. But if we can learn to read with “no trepidation,” delving into Dickinson’s complexities can be a true delight, an opportunity for students and teachers alike to “swing their Beryl Bells” in “Extasy.”

In this workshop, we will read several poems together, developing our tolerance for ambiguity and sharing methods that help students overcome their fears of “getting it wrong” when they discuss Dickinson’s work. Using simple protocols, we will explore strategies for decoding the paraphrasable content of the poems, interpreting their evocative language, and making personal connections through low-stakes writing and discussion. We will also consider various approaches to choosing Dickinson poems for study and developing curriculum units.

Bruce M. Penniman, Ed.D., taught writing, speech, and literature at Amherst Regional High School for 36 years and is still an advisor to the Sene-Gambian Scholars exchange program there. He served as Site Director of the Western Massachusetts Writing Project at University of Massachusetts Amherst, where he has taught numerous graduate courses for teachers. In 1999 he was named Massachusetts Teacher of the Year and finalist for National Teacher of the Year, and he is the author of Building the English Classroom: Foundations, Support, Success (NCTE, 2009). He has been a teacher curriculum mentor in all four NEH Emily Dickinson: Person, Poetry, and Place workshops and has facilitated discussions for the Emily Dickinson Museum’s Poetry Discussion Group on topics ranging from “Emily Dickinson and the Bible” to “Emily Dickinson and Science.”

Questions?
Email edmprograms@emilydickinsonmuseum.org

3 people on a tour of Dickinson's bedroom

FREE Day [Sold Out]
Highland Street August Adventures
Weds., August 14

IN-PERSON PROGRAM

Photo by Lynne Graves

Join us for FREE admission to the Emily Dickinson Museum sponsored by Highland Street Foundation. Space is limited, register in advance.

Navigate to August 14 and select your timed entry to reserve your free Museum tickets! Find more information on guided and general admission experiences here.

THIS EVENT IS NOW SOLD OUT.

Special Program: 2PM-3PM Crafts and Conversation with illustrator Tatyana Feeney
Enjoy crafts and conversation with celebrated illustrator Tatyana Feeney, whose newest work illustrates Emily Dickinson’s poem ‘Hope is the thing with Feathers‘. Discover the joy of poetry in this simple introduction to Emily Dickinson, celebrating the power of hope perched within and the promise of sunnier days. Originally written in 1861, this enduring poem is now accessible to early learners. Books will be available for sale in the Museum’s gift shop.

Image of the cover of Tatyana Feeney's illustrated 'Hope is the Thing with Feathers'. A little girl walking outside under a rainbow, a bird perches on her umbrella overhead.

Tatyana Feeney grew up in Chapel Hill, North Carolina and spent a lot of her early childhood going to the library and listening to stories. She still loves books and reads as much as she can in her free time. She is now based in County Meath, Ireland where she spends a lot of time working on illustrations and new story ideas. Most of her artwork is done using monoprinting but she often adds collage or watercolor to the finished pieces. Her books have been nominated for several awards including: The UKLA Book Award, the Waterstone’s Children’s Book Prize, and the Kate Greenway Medal. Little Owl’s Orange Scarf was the winner of the Rotherham Children’s Book Award in the Picture Book Category in 2014. Her artwork has been exhibited in Dublin, Belfast, Vienna, Bologna, London and The Hague. Illustrations from Small Elephant’s Bathtime were included in the Society of Illustrator’s Original Art Exhibition 2015. In addition to children’s books, she has also provided illustrations for CD covers, magazines, greeting cards and websites. Learn more at tatyanafeeney.com

About August Adventures

August Adventures, modeled after Highland Street’s long-standing Free Fun Fridays program, will provide enriching opportunities for individuals, children, and families across the Commonwealth. From children’s museums, to art, to science and history, there is something for everyone.

“As we celebrate our 35th anniversary this year, we are excited to partner with such a wide array of institutions, all of which add to the incredibly rich cultural fabric of our Commonwealth,” said Highland Street’s Executive Director Blake Jordan. “Increasing access and opening doors to wide and diverse audiences are shared goals of all of us and we hope to welcome many visitors during August Adventures.” The August Adventures program offers opportunities throughout the Commonwealth, from Greater Boston to Cape Cod, and out to Central and Western Massachusetts.

To learn more about August Adventures and the Highland Street Foundation, visit highlandstreet.org

About Highland Street Foundation
Founded in 1989, the Highland Street Foundation is committed to addressing the most pressing needs and concerns for children and families in Massachusetts. Highland Street Foundation provides access and opportunities in education, housing, mentorship, health care, environment, and the arts.

Tell It Slant Poetry Festival 2024 Schedule
September 23-29

That’s a wrap on 2024 Tell It Slant Poetry Festival, we hope to see you next year. Sign-up for our e-newsletter to be the first to know!

The Tell It Slant Poetry Festival returns September 23 – 29, 2024!

Join us for a week of events happening both online and in-person at the Museum.

The Emily Dickinson Museum’s annual Tell It Slant Poetry Festival is an event with international reach that celebrates Emily Dickinson’s poetic legacy and the contemporary creativity she and her work continues to inspire from the place she called home.

This year’s FREE and hybrid Festival includes events happening online, as well as in-person at the Museum under our heated tent.

This year’s line-up features a talented group of poets from around the country including readings by Pulitzer Prize winners Carl Phillips (2023) and Diane Seuss (2022), generative writing workshops, poetry panels, a masterclass with celebrated poet Oliver de la Paz, a musical theater performance by the Wilde Irish Women exploring Dickinson’s relationship to her Irish maid Margaret Maher, and more. The cornerstone of the Festival, the Emily Dickinson Poetry Marathon, is an epic reading of all 1,789 of Emily Dickinson’s poems across the Festival week. Learn more about the 2024 lineup below.

THE SCHEDULE:

REGISTER

Monday, September 23:
6-8:30pm [Virtual] — Emily Dickinson Poetry Marathon: Part 1
A group reading of all 1,789 poems by Emily Dickinson over the course of 7 sessions. This session takes place entirely virtually and is open to both readers and listeners. We will be reading from Ralph Franklin’s The Poems of Emily Dickinson: Reading Edition. Sign up as a listener by registering for the Festival, or learn more about signing up as a reader!

Tuesday, September 24:
12-2:15pm [Virtual] — Emily Dickinson Poetry Marathon: Part 2
A group reading of all 1,789 poems by Emily Dickinson over the course of 7 sessions. This session takes place entirely virtually and is open to both readers and listeners. We will be reading from Ralph Franklin’s The Poems of Emily Dickinson: Reading Edition. Sign up as a listener by registering for the Festival, or learn more about signing up as a reader!
6-7pm [Virtual] — Our Roots as Muse: Family & Ancestry as Creative Inspiration [SOLD OUT & RESCEDULED! Registrants have been invited to join us on Monday, October 14]
Facilitators will lead participants in a series of generative writing exercises using personal family and ancestral history as creative inspiration and content. Participants will leave the workshop with at least two writing sketches and other writing resources to continue developing their ideas and creatively archiving their own family histories.
Featuring .CHISARAOKWI. and Tamara J. Madison.
6:30-8pm [Virtual] — Telling our Medical Stories Slant [SOLD OUT!]
In this workshop, participants will learn how to translate their personal stories of illness and disability into poetry, something Dickinson herself practiced, and something that’s employed by practitioners of Narrative/Poetic Medicine.
Featuring Rosemarie Dombrowski and Catharine Clark-Sayles.

Wednesday, September 25:
12-2:15pm [Virtual] — Emily Dickinson Poetry Marathon: Part 3
A group reading of all 1,789 poems by Emily Dickinson over the course of 7 sessions. This session takes place entirely virtually and is open to both readers and listeners. We will be reading from Ralph Franklin’s The Poems of Emily Dickinson: Reading Edition. Sign up as a listener by registering for the Festival, or learn more about signing up as a reader!
4:30-6pm [Virtual] — Poetry, Spirituality, and New Forms of Attention
Emily Dickinson’s poems interact with silence to open spaces of questioning, recognition, and keen attention to spiritual matters and questions of meaning. In this workshop, we’ll place our own poetry in the context of Dickinson’s poetry, offer a short guided meditation and generative prompts for participants to explore their own relation to silence, voice, and spiritual attention.
Featuring Rachel Zucker and Nadia Colburn.
7:30-9pm [Virtual] — “Bee! I’m expecting you”: Dialogues with the Non-Human
Emily Dickinson lived in a time of ecological change and painful civil conflict. Against this backdrop, Dickinson’s poems reach out to the world around her—the frog, the snake, the hummingbird, train, “slant of light,” even the “loaded gun,” addressing these others as companions, fellow witnesses. In this panel, poets explore both Dickinson’s and their own dialogues with the nonhuman.
Featuring Carolina Ebeid, Julia Guez, Anna V. Q. Ross, and Tess Taylor.

Thursday, September 26:
12-2:15pm [Virtual] — Emily Dickinson Poetry Marathon: Part 4
A group reading of all 1,789 poems by Emily Dickinson over the course of 7 sessions. This session takes place entirely virtually and is open to both readers and listeners. We will be reading from Ralph Franklin’s The Poems of Emily Dickinson: Reading Edition. Sign up as a listener by registering for the Festival, or learn more about signing up as a reader!
6-7:15pm [Virtual] — Phosphorescence Contemporary Poetry Reading
Festival edition of the Museum’s monthly poetry reading series. Hear from poets around the world as they read their work and discuss what poetry and Dickinson mean to them.
Featuring Jane Huffman, Molly Akin, and Diane Seuss.

Friday, September 27:
12-2:15pm [Virtual] — Emily Dickinson Poetry Marathon: Part 5
A group reading of all 1,789 poems by Emily Dickinson over the course of 7 sessions. This session takes place entirely virtually and is open to both readers and listeners. We will be reading from Ralph Franklin’s The Poems of Emily Dickinson: Reading Edition. Sign up as a listener by registering for the Festival, or learn more about signing up as a reader!
3-4:30pm [Hybrid] — Poetry Masterclass with Oliver de la Paz
This generative workshop, with the Poet Laureate of Worcester Oliver de la Paz, will attend to the possibilities of creating new work that is in-tune with a subject that haunts you. We will be looking at how to write and sustain work within a singular focus, obsession, or motif.
7-8:30pm [Hybrid] — Open Mic Night with Oliver de la Paz and Diannely Antigua
Bring your poems to Emily Dickinson’s garden! Readers will have 4 minutes each to make us feel “physically as if the top of [our] head[s] were taken off!” (Emily Dickinson to Thomas Wentworth Higginson, 16 August 1870) Featured poets Oliver de la Paz and Diannely Antigua will follow the open mic. Open mic sign-ups will be handled in advance via a Google Form, and selected readers will be notified. Submit to read by Wed., Sept. 11th.

Saturday, September 28:
9:30am-12pm[Hybrid] — Emily Dickinson Poetry Marathon: Part 6
A group reading of all 1,789 poems by Emily Dickinson over the course of 7 sessions. For this session, readers must be present on-site, but listeners are welcome both in-person and online. We will be reading from Ralph Franklin’s The Poems of Emily Dickinson: Reading Edition. Gingerbread cookies inspired by Dickinson’s own recipe will be served. Sign up as a listener by registering for the Festival, or learn more about signing up as a reader!
1-2:30pm [Hybrid] — Poets of the Public: New England Poet Laureates
Poets will share about their role as Poet Laureate in their respective communities, sharing information about the programming we each developed, and will discuss what it means to be a “Civic Poet” with a broad set of responsibilities and audiences while also maintaining one’s own personal writing practice.
Featuring Oliver de la Paz and Diannely Antigua.
3:30-5pm [Hybrid] — “I am afraid to own a Body”: Continuing Dickinson’s Legacy of Braving the Body
A discussion of Dickinson’s poems about the body and embodied experience, particularly her exploration into the often-contradictory needs between body and mind. A selection of contemporary poems by women and non-binary poets from Braving the Body who have been inspired by Dickinson’s work. Prompts will be provided for a generative writing exercise.
Featuring Jennifer Franklin, Pichchenda Bao and Nicole Callihan.
7-9pm [Hybrid] — Headliner Night and Garden Party with Carl Phillips and Sebastian Merrill
Join us in Emily Dickinson’s garden or virtually for a celebration of creativity and poetry! Our headlining poets, 2023 Pulitzer Prize recipient Carl Phillips and Sebastian Merrill, read from their work and discuss poetic practice and inspiration.

Sunday, September 29:
10-11:30am [Virtual] — “Picnic, Lightning”: Concision, Compression, & Brevity in the Very Short Poem [SOLD OUT!]
Emily Dickinson is one of the greatest masters of the short poem. In this workshop for writers at all stages in their practice, we’ll focus on the Very Short Poem, the highly pressurized lyric that casts off a resonance far bigger than its real estate.
Featuring Patrick Donnelly.
11:30am-1pm [Hybrid] — Margaret Maher and the Celtification of Emily Dickinson
Featuring the poems of Emily Dickinson with music and lyrics by Rosemary Caine. If the Irish can claim they saved civilization, then the Wilde Irish Women dare to claim that Margaret Maher saved Emily Dickinson’s poems. Experience the lauded musical play that reveals the unlikely story of a humble Irish maid’s influence on her reclusive mistress, Emily Dickinson. Margaret Maher defied Emily’s deathbed decree to burn her poems. Her brave, independent thinking and courageous action came from being born in Ireland, a country where poems are respected, not burned. But there is so much more to the story…
Featuring Rosie Caine and Wilde Irish Women.
2-4pm [Hybrid] — Emily Dickinson Poetry Marathon: Grand Finale
A group reading of all 1,789 poems by Emily Dickinson over the course of 7 sessions. For this session, readers must be present on-site, but listeners are welcome both in-person and online. We will read from Ralph Franklin’s The Poems of Emily Dickinson: Reading Edition. Stay to the end to enjoy a celebratory slice of coconut cake inspired by Dickinson’s own recipe. Sign up as a listener by registering for the Festival, or learn more about signing up as a reader!

REGISTER

About the Festival:

The Emily Dickinson Museum’s Annual Tell It Slant Poetry Festival is an event with international reach that celebrates Emily Dickinson’s poetic legacy and the contemporary creativity she and her work continues to inspire from the place she called home.

The Festival is named for Dickinson’s poem, “Tell all the truth but tell it slant,” underscoring the revolutionary power of poetry to shift our perspective and reveal new truths. Festival organizers are committed to featuring established and emerging poets who represent the diversity of the contemporary poetry landscape and to fostering community by placing poetry in the public sphere.

This year’s line-up features workshops, panels, and readings, by a diverse and talented group of poets from around the world. The cornerstone of the Festival, the Emily Dickinson Poetry Marathon, is an epic reading of all 1,789 of Emily Dickinson’s poems.

To follow along with the Emily Dickinson Poetry Marathon, get your copy of the Franklin edition from the Emily Dickinson Museum Shop.

The annual event attracts a diverse audience of Dickinson fans and poetry lovers, including students, educators, aspiring writers, and those who are new to poetry and literary events. Past Festival headliners have included Marilyn Nelson, Abigail Chabitnoy, Tracy K. Smith, Tiana Clark, Tess Taylor, Ada Limón, Jericho Brown, Franny Choi, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Paisley Rekdal, Adrian Matejka, Kaveh Akbar, and Ocean Vuong.

Support The Tell It Slant Poetry Festival:
Admission to all Poetry Festival events is free–made possible by contributions from Museum supporters.
Please consider making a donation of any size during the registration process or anytime on the Museum’s website.

Improving the Environment for Collections at The Evergreens

INTRODUCTION
parlor of evergreens with furniture, piano and paintings The Emily Dickinson Museum (EDM) received a Sustaining Cultural Heritage Collections grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to enhance environmental conditions renowned poet and her family. The largest and most varied collection of non-manuscript objects associated historically with the poet and her family had been stored since 1916 in The Evergreens, an Italianate two-story wood-frame house built by the Dickinson family in 1856.

THE PROBLEM
The Evergreens has been heated by a residential-grade forced hot air gas furnace through a distribution system that has changed little since the mid-20 th century. Heat reached heated only five of the eleven first floor rooms and only two of the six rooms on the second floor. There was no form of air conditioning until 2007. Monitoring data confirmed that significant swings in temperature and humidity between different areas of the house and across seasons threatened very limited life expectancies for Dickinson family artifacts including art, family furniture, and personal possessions. The central problem has been the “stack effect” caused by The Evergreens style of architecture. Stack effect results from infiltration of cold outdoor air through crevices in masonry, gaps between window sash/frames and door frames, and openings for building systems, and exfiltration of warmed air through gaps on upper floors. The Evergreens open main hall and the difference in height between perforations in the three-story structure create the stack effect which reaches extremes in the winter. The effect is reversed in summer with exfiltration of cooled dehumidified interior air at perforations in lower stories and infiltration of warm moist air in upper stories and attics.

THE PROJECT

Cellar mechanicals at The Evergreens

The Emily Dickinson Museum established seven objectives for the environmental improvements project, and all have either been accomplished or will be born out through further monitoring and evaluation.
1. Set realistic expectations for building and system performance. A first step was a study of the building’s “comportment” – that is, the limits of an improved environment that the structure’s architectural style, building materials, and location in a New England valley climate will allow. The results of the study helped the Museum establish refined and more reasonable performance standards.
Specification for ASHRAE Classes and Proposed Class Control for the Evergreens table
2. Reduce the loss of conditioned air and the intrusion of water vapor. Non-mechanical improvements to the building envelope included attic insulation and a vapor barrier combined with storm window upgrades, weatherstripping, air-sealing, and segregation of unconditioned spaces to reduce exfiltration/infiltration.
3. Reduce the sensitivity of the internal environment to external conditions. Upgraded insulation and reduction of cold air and moisture infiltration will do a better job of maintaining relatively constant conditions inside the building even though outdoor climate conditions change more quickly.
4. Filter pollutants and inhibit conditions leading to pest infestation and growth of mold and mildew. The system criterion for MERV 13 filtration standard, recommended by previous conservation assessments, has been implemented in this project. Standards for relative humidity are set to inhibit mold/mildew growth, which had been a persistent issue in the uncontrolled Evergreens environment. In past years, some visitors remarked on the house’s dank air quality. Although the general public may not be aware of the specific benchmarks the Museum wishes to achieve, those familiar with the house who have entered since the system has become operational have remarked on the improvement in visitor comfort.
5. Reduce thermal, solar radiation, and ultraviolet loads at windows and French doors. New solar shades have significantly reduced the infiltration of visible light as well as UV light.
6. Control temperature and humidity within acceptable ranges. The new HVAC system has proven its ability to control temperature and humidity during variable winter conditions and has successfully transitioned into spring. Continuous monitoring and immediate response to anomalies solidify both temperature and relative humidity control.
7. Significantly enhance the building and collections environment while controlling operating costs. The Museum has noted that the switch from gas to electric heat has had a positive sustainability impact and has not increased operating costs.

THE OUTCOME
Since 2003, the Emily Dickinson Museum has charted a steady course to improve its historic
physical plant. Focusing first on a healthy infrastructure, EDM has undertaken numerous
projects to stabilize and protect The Evergreens as a singular expression of nineteenth-century
history and culture and as a unique component of Emily Dickinson’s life and legacy.
This environmental improvement project is the last in a series of “invisible” upgrades leading to
the goal of conserving the evocative interior finishes and collections as they were left by the
Dickinson family. Ultimately, this project has enabled the planned conservation and
interpretation of a unique collection for its highest humanities purposes as well as the
preservation of distinctive decorative and architectural finishes representing the evolution of
provincial nineteenth-century New England aesthetic values.

READ THE WHITE PAPER

What I can do – I will –

What I can do – I will –
Though it be little as a Daffodil –
That I cannot – must be
Unknown to possibility –

Fr641

image of the Homestead in spring

Inspired by the continuing wave of intense interest in Emily Dickinson around the world, we’re building a multi-year education plan to bring the wealth of the Museum’s historical, interpretive, and pedagogical expertise to K-12 and College educators and students. Immersive in-person learning experiences and dynamic virtual/remote modules will offer multiple ways to access the Museum’s education programs. Our goal is to bring the power of Emily Dickinson’s poetry, place and life’s story to bear on inquiry-based education experiences that kindle curiosity, creativity and self-expression in learners of all ages.

We’re beginning our education initiatives with a six-session educator professional development series that explores Dickinson-related digital resources, object-based learning, teaching Dickinson’s poetry, and creative writing responses. Over the next couple of months, we’ll develop a robust curriculum unit for middle and high school teachers and learners focused on the ways Dickinson embraced her unique personal vision, defying expectations in her life and in her poetry. On tours of the Homestead, students will consider why and how Dickinson used poetry to ask questions and challenge norms. Through hands-on exercises, they’ll learn about Dickinson’s experiments with poetic form and variant word choices – that is, the nuts and bolts of the creative process. Newly designed education kits will be available physically or digitally to support this and other outreach programs.

SUPPORT EDUCATION INIATIVES

The Emily Dickinson Museum is also developing new interpretive themes and tools to give visitors a broader range of ways to experience Emily Dickinson’s home, poetry, and life’s story. Bringing interpretive interventions to the Homestead — lively vignettes, poetry and musical soundscapes, projection mapping to enliven our sense of Dickinson’s nineteenth century milieu – will require research, design, writing, and staff training.

Meanwhile, at The Evergreens, we’ve just re-opened the house after a substantial upgrade to the air handling systems to protect the large collection of Dickinson family possessions. One of the most significant aspects of opening is the need to train new guides in updated interpretive information for visitors. This intensive training takes weeks to complete so that guides are fully ready to offer visitors an informative and exhilarating experience. And, now, with the systems work behind us, we’ll begin a deliberate multi-year process of room-by-room preservation, which we intend to carry out as part of the tour interpretation.

SUPPORT POETRY

Year after year, the Museum presents programs focusing exclusively on poetry – Emily Dickinson’s own work, the monthly Phosphorescence Contemporary Poetry Series featuring both established and emerging poets, and our week-long Tell it Slant Poetry Festival each fall. These programs gather a community eager to experience Dickinson’s revolutionary poetic voice and the work of those for whom Dickinson was a singular inspiration. For our virtual programs, participants tune in from all over the world to celebrate, learn, and connect with others who value poetry as they do.

To produce such vibrant poetry programming, Museum staff spend weeks each year soliciting and reviewing program proposals, working with a streaming service to share our larger events (though expense prohibits us from streaming all events), and setting up a digital event platform where participants can network, find event links, and reserve seats. For the Poetry Festival, our largest hybrid program, the Museum staff send numerous communications to the thousands of event registrants with event links and program-specific information. Extra staffing is required to not only ensure orientation and welcome of in-person visitors, but to run the virtual space, ensuring that the live stream is an engaging experience for remote participants.

SUPPORT OUR PROGRAMS

We’re truly excited about these three vital areas of programming, which are offered at low cost or no cost to make them broadly accessible. For that reason, we’re especially grateful for your support in enacting our core mission to “spark the imagination by amplifying Emily Dickinson’s revolutionary poetic voice from the place she called home.” To initiate new programs and to sustain existing efforts, we hope you’ll consider making a gift for education, interpretation, and poetry. If you’d like to talk over these goals, I would be very pleased to set up a phone, Zoom, or personal meeting with you!

With my appreciation and best wishes,
Jane H. Wald Jane and Robert Keiter Family Executive Director

the Homestead lights are on at night time

Phosphorescence Contemporary Poetry Series 2024

To Emily Dickinson, phosphorescence, was a divine spark and the illuminating light behind learning — it was volatile, but transformative in nature. Produced by the Emily Dickinson Museum, the Phosphorescence Poetry Reading Series celebrates contemporary creativity that echoes Dickinson’s own revolutionary poetic voice. The Series features established and emerging poets whose work and backgrounds represent the diversity of the flourishing contemporary poetry scene.

The 2024 Series is a virtual program. Join us on a Thursday Zoom for the last Thursdays of each month to hear from poets around the world as they read their work and discuss what poetry and Dickinson mean to them.

Support Phosphorescence and Honor Someone Special:

Admission to all Phosphorescence events is free, but online donations, especially those made in honor or memory of family, friends, or colleagues are heartily encouraged and vital to the future of our programs. All gifts are tax deductible.

For more information on our upcoming Phosphorescence Readings, sign up for our e-newsletter.

Phosphorescence 2024 Schedule:

Thursday, May 16, 6pm ET

Featuring poets: Richard Michelson, Ivy Schweitzer, and Al Salehi

Thursday, June 20, 6pm ET

Featuring poets: Benjamin Grossberg and Julien Strong

Thursday, July 25, 6pm ET

Featuring poets: Rosa Lane and Patrick Donnelly

Thursday, August 15, 6pm ET

Featuring poets: Omotara James, Willie Lee Kinard III, and Joshua Jennifer Espinoza

Thursday, September 26, 6pm ET

Featuring poets: Jane Huffman, Molly Akin, and Diane Seuss

Thursday, October 17, 6pm ET

Featuring poets: Stephanie Choi, Saba Keramati, and Samyak Shertok

Support Phosphorescence and Honor Someone Special:
Admission to all Phosphorescence events is free, but online donations, especially those made in honor or memory of family, friends, or colleagues are heartily encouraged and vital to the future of our programs. All gifts are tax deductible.

Phosphorescence Contemporary Poetry Series
Thursday, October 17, 6pm ET

Phosphorescence October 2024 featured poets:
Stephanie Choi, Saba Keramati, and Samyak Shertok

VIRTUAL PROGRAM

This virtual program is free to attend. Registration is required.

REGISTER

To Emily Dickinson, phosphorescence was a divine spark and the illuminating light behind learning — it was volatile, but transformative in nature. Produced by the Emily Dickinson Museum, the Phosphorescence Contemporary Poetry Series celebrates contemporary creativity that echoes Dickinson’s own revolutionary poetic voice. The Series features established and emerging poets whose work and backgrounds represent the diversity of the flourishing contemporary poetry scene. Join us on a Thursday evening each month to hear from poets around the world as they read their work and discuss what poetry and Dickinson mean to them.

About this month’s poets:

Stephanie Choi’s poems appear in Copper Nickel, Blackbird, Electric Literature, and elsewhere. She is a graduate of the University of Arizona and the University of Utah. She is currently the poet-in-residence at Sewanee: The University of the South. Her debut collection, The Lengest Neoi, was selected by Brenda Shaughnessy for the 2023 Iowa Poetry Prize and will be published by the University of Iowa Press in 2024. xostephchoi.com

Saba Keramati is a Chinese-Iranian writer from the San Francisco Bay Area. Her debut poetry collection, Self-Mythology, was selected by Patricia Smith for publication in the Miller Williams Poetry Series at University of Arkansas Press, and is forthcoming in Spring 2024. A winner of the 2023 92NY Discovery Poetry Prize, Saba holds an MFA from UC Davis, where she was a Dean’s Graduate Fellow for Creative Arts. She is the Poetry Editor at Sundog Lit. sabakeramati.com

Samyak Shertok’s poems appear or are forthcoming in Poetry, The Cincinnati Review, The Gettysburg Review, The Iowa Review, The Kenyon Review, Best New Poets, and elsewhere. A Fine Arts Work Center Writing Fellow and a finalist for the National Poetry Series, the Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize, and the Jake Adam York Prize, he has received the Robert and Adele Schiff Award for Poetry, the Gulf Coast Prize in Poetry, and the Auburn Witness Poetry Prize. Originally from Nepal, he is currently the inaugural Hughes Fellow in Poetry at Southern Methodist University.

Support Phosphorescence and Honor Someone Special:

Phosphorescence Contemporary Poetry Series
Thursday, September 26, 6pm ET

Phosphorescence September 2024 featured poets:
Jane Huffman, Molly Akin, and Diane Seuss
Tell It Slant Poetry Festival 2024

VIRTUAL PROGRAM – Part of Tell It Slant Poetry Festival

This virtual program is free to attend. Registration is required.

Part of the 2024 Tell It Slant Poetry Festival!

REGISTER FOR THE FESTIVAL

About this month’s poets:

Molly Akin is a writer based in coastal Massachusetts. A Kansas City native, she explored the world as an “unschooled” teenager before earning a BFA from Tufts University and an MA from Harvard University. Her work has been recognized with an Honorable Mention in TulipTree Review’s 2023 Wild Woman Story Contest and a grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council. Molly was a 2024 FAWC Scholar, participating in a fully-funded workshop at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA. mollyakin.com

Jane Huffman’s debut collection, Public Abstract, won the 2023 APR/Honickman First Book Prize, selected by Dana Levin. Jane is a doctoral student in English and literary arts at the University of Denver and is an MFA graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. She is editor-in-chief of Guesthouse, an online literary journal. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry, The Nation, and elsewhere. She was a 2019 recipient of the Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation. janehuffman.com

Diane Seuss is the author of six collections of poetry. The most recent is Modern Poetry, (Graywolf Press 2024). frank: sonnets (Graywolf Press 2021) received the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and the Pulitzer Prize. Still Life with Two Dead Peacocks and a Girl (Graywolf Press 2018) was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Four-Legged Girl (Graywolf Press 2015) was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Wolf Lake, White Gown Blown Open (University of Massachusetts Press), received the Juniper Prize. Seuss was a 2020 Guggenheim Fellow, and received the John Updike Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2021. Seuss is a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets.

Support The Tell It Slant Poetry Festival and Honor Someone Special:
Admission to all Festival events is free, but online donations, especially those made in honor or memory of family, friends, or colleagues are heartily encouraged and vital to the future of this beloved annual event. All gifts are tax deductible and will be recognized as part of the Festival.

2024 Tell It Slant Poetry Festival Schedule

Phosphorescence Contemporary Poetry Series
Thursday, August 15, 6pm ET

Phosphorescence August 2024 featured poets:
Omotara James, Willie Lee Kinard III, and Joshua Jennifer Espinoza

VIRTUAL PROGRAM

This virtual program is free to attend. Registration is required.

REGISTER

About this month’s poets:

Omotara James is a writer, editor and visual artist. She is the author of the chapbook Daughter Tongue, selected by African Poetry Book Fund, in collaboration with Akashic Books, for the 2018 New Generation African Poets Box Set. A two-time Pushcart Prize nominee, she is a recipient of the 2019 92Y Discovery Poetry Prize. She earned her BA from Hofstra University and received her MFA from New York University. Her poems have appeared in Poetry Magazine, The Paris Review, The Academy of American Poets and elsewhere. She is a fellow of Lambda Literary and Cave Canem Foundation. Born in Britain, she is the daughter of Nigerian and Trinidadian immigrants and currently lives in New York City. omotarajames.com

Willie Lee Kinard III is a Black nonbinary poet, designer, educator & musician forged in Newberry, South Carolina. Holding an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Pittsburgh, their musings include gospel surrealism, Black romance & superstition. A Fellow of The Watering Hole & a Pushcart Prize nominee, their written work appears (or will soon) in Obsidian, Poem-a-Day, Best New Poets, The Rumpus, & elsewhere. williekinard.com

Joshua Jennifer Espinoza is a transsexual poet. Her work has been featured in Poetry Magazine, The American Poetry Review, Split Lip Magazine, Gulf Coast Journal, The Southeast Review, MoMA Magazine, and elsewhere. She is the author of I’m Alive / It Hurts / I Love It (2019) and THERE SHOULD BE FLOWERS (2016). She holds an MFA in poetry from UC Riverside and is currently a professor of creative writing. Jennifer lives in California with her wife, poet/essayist Eileen Elizabeth, and their cat and dog. joshuajenniferespinoza.com

Support Phosphorescence and Honor Someone Special:

Phosphorescence Contemporary Poetry Series
Thursday, July 25, 6pm ET

Phosphorescence July 2024 featured poets:
Rosa Lane and Patrick Donnelly

VIRTUAL PROGRAM

This virtual program is free to attend. Registration is required.

REGISTER

About this month’s poets:

Rosa Lane, poet and architect, is author of four poetry collections including Called Back, a theatrical monologue in tribute to Emily Dickinson imagined (forthcoming September 2024, Tupelo Press); Chouteau’s Chalk (winner, 2017 Georgia Poetry Prize); Tiller North (winner, 2017 National Indie Excellence Award, Sixteen Rivers Press); and Roots and Reckonings, a chapbook that speaks to the generational and native culture of her coastal Maine fishing village. Her work won the 2023 Morton Marcus Memorial Poetry Prize, a Maine Literary Award, and the William Matthews Poetry Prize among other awards. In addition to her MFA at Sarah Lawrence, Lane earned a 2nd master’s and PhD in sustainable architecture at UC Berkeley. She splits her time between her native home in coastal Maine and the San Francisco Bay Area where she lives with her wife. rosalane.com

About Patrick Donnelly, Gregory Orr wrote “everything he writes is suffused with tenderness and intelligence, lucidity and courage.” Donnelly is the author of five books of poetry, most recently Willow Hammer (Four Way Books, 2025), and Little-Known Operas (Four Way Books, 2019). Nocturnes of the Brothel of Ruin (Four Way Books, 2012), was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award. Donnelly is Program Director of The Frost Place, Robert Frost’s old homestead in Franconia, NH, now a center for poetry and the arts, as well as Director of The Frost Place Poetry Seminar. Donnelly’s translations with Stephen D. Miller of classical Japanese poetry were awarded the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission Prize for the Translation of Japanese Literature by Columbia University. Donnelly’s other awards include a U.S./Japan Creative Artists Program Award, an Artist Fellowship from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and an Amy Clampitt Residency Award. A former Poet Laureate of Northampton, Massachusetts, Donnelly’s poetry explores topics like same-sex love and desire and the AIDS epidemic with lyric strategies. patrickdonnellypoetry.com

VIRTUAL PROGRAM

Through the Dark Sod – as Education – The Lily passes sure – Feels her white foot – no trepidation – Her faith – no fear – Afterward – in the Meadow – Swinging her Beryl Bell – The Mold-life – all forgotten – now – In Extasy – and Dell – (Fr559)

IN-PERSON PROGRAM

That’s a wrap on 2024 Tell It Slant Poetry Festival, we hope to see you next year. Sign-up for our e-newsletter to be the first to know!

THE SCHEDULE:

About the Festival:

What I can do – I will – Though it be little as a Daffodil – That I cannot – must be Unknown to possibility –

Fr641

Phosphorescence October 2024 featured poets: Stephanie Choi, Saba Keramati, and Samyak Shertok

VIRTUAL PROGRAM

About this month’s poets:

Phosphorescence September 2024 featured poets: Jane Huffman, Molly Akin, and Diane Seuss Tell It Slant Poetry Festival 2024

VIRTUAL PROGRAM – Part of Tell It Slant Poetry Festival

About this month’s poets:

Phosphorescence August 2024 featured poets: Omotara James, Willie Lee Kinard III, and Joshua Jennifer Espinoza

VIRTUAL PROGRAM

About this month’s poets:

Phosphorescence July 2024 featured poets: Rosa Lane and Patrick Donnelly

VIRTUAL PROGRAM

About this month’s poets:

Through the Dark Sod – as Education –
The Lily passes sure –
Feels her white foot – no trepidation –
Her faith – no fear –
Afterward – in the Meadow –
Swinging her Beryl Bell –
The Mold-life – all forgotten – now –
In Extasy – and Dell – (Fr559)

What I can do – I will –
Though it be little as a Daffodil –
That I cannot – must be
Unknown to possibility –

Phosphorescence October 2024 featured poets:
Stephanie Choi, Saba Keramati, and Samyak Shertok

Phosphorescence September 2024 featured poets:
Jane Huffman, Molly Akin, and Diane Seuss
Tell It Slant Poetry Festival 2024

Phosphorescence August 2024 featured poets:
Omotara James, Willie Lee Kinard III, and Joshua Jennifer Espinoza

Phosphorescence July 2024 featured poets:
Rosa Lane and Patrick Donnelly