Join us for a lively virtual discussion of Emily Dickinson’s poetry and letters, meeting once a month from March to June. This program is designed to welcome newcomers and seasoned readers of Dickinson alike.
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.
Topics and Leaders:
- March: Possession and Dispossession: Jewels in Dickinson’s Poetry with Kylan Rice
Examining Dickinson’s treatment of gemstones, with respect to her attitudes toward race and class privilege
- April: “Because I could not stop:” Courting Death in Apple TV’s Dickinson with Marianne Noble
Revisiting the poetry and plot of Apple TV+ first episode of Dickinson, with a focus on the oft-anthologized “Because I could not stop for Death”
- May: “Sphere of simple Green -” with Renée Bergland
A discussion on Dickinson and natural science, drawing from her recent book, Natural Magic
- June: “A formal feeling comes -“: Defining Nameless Feelings with Eliza Richards
A look at poems that explore feelings with no precise definition in English, such as “After great pain, a formal feeling comes”
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, $100 program fee (inclusive of all sessions), limited to 25 participants: SOLD OUT
March 19, 6-7:30pm ET
April 23, 6-7:30pm ET
May 14, 6-7:30pm ET
June 11 6-7:30pm ET
Friday Group, $100 program fee (inclusive of all sessions), limited to 25 participants: SOLD OUT
March 21, 12-1:30pm ET
April 25, 12-1:30pm ET
May 16, 12-1:30pm ET
June, 13 12-1:30pm ET
For Educators:
Educators may request a certificate attesting to your participation in the program.
Reservations are made on a first-come, first-served basis.
Questions: Don’t hesitate to reach out to edmprograms@emilydickinsonmuseum.org with any questions about the program.
MARCH
Kylan Rice, PhD, is a scholar of nineteenth-century American poetry. His work on the subject has appeared in ELH, Arizona Quarterly, CR: The New Centennial Review, Leviathan: A Journal of Melville Studies, and Women’s Studies. He is the author of An Image Not a Book, a collection of poetry, and his creative writing has been published in numerous literary journals, including Colorado Review, Image, and West Branch.
APRIL
Marianne Noble’s teaching and research interests include American literature, intimacy and the emotions, and philosophical approaches to literature. She is the author of Rethinking Sympathy and Human Contact in Nineteenth-Century American Literature: Hawthorne, Douglass, Stowe, Dickinson (Cambridge UP 2019) and The Masochistic Pleasures of Sentimental Literature (Princeton UP 2000), which won a Choice Outstanding Book Award. She co-edited Emily Dickinson and Philosophy (Cambridge UP 2013). Recently, she has published articles on Dickinson, Hawthorne, phenomenology, and human contact. In 2016, she was a Fulbright Scholar in South Korea.
MAY
Renée Bergland is a literary critic and a historian of science who teaches in the Department of Humanities at Simmons University where she is Program Director of Literature and Writing. Her most recent publication is Natural Magic: Emily Dickinson, Charles Darwin, and the Dawn of Modern Science (Princeton University Press, 2024). She contributed an essay, “Dickinson Emergent: Natural Philosophy and the Postdisciplinary Manifold”, to the Oxford Handbook to Emily Dickinson (2022). Bergland is writing a forthcoming general audience book examining Dickinson’s poetry as interpreted through the lens of different sciences, including astronomy, geology, and ecology. She is a member of the board of the Emily Dickinson International Society.
JUNE
Eliza Richards is the Director of Graduate Studies at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, where she teaches American literature with a specialization in American poetry before 1900. She is especially interested in the way historical events and changes in media networks shape and inform the way that people write poetry, as well as the ways poetry participates in cultural transformations. Her work broadens understanding and awareness of important nineteenth-century poetry written by women, African Americans, and popular writers. Her books include Battle Lines: Poetry and Mass Media in the US Civil War (U of Pennsylvania P, 2019) and Emily Dickinson in Context (edited collection; Cambridge UP, 2013), and she is currently working on The Collected Works of George Moses Horton: A Critical Edition.
IN-PERSON PROGRAM
Jane Wong is the author of the memoir Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City (Tin House, 2023) and two poetry collections, How to Not Be Afraid of Everything and Overpour. She holds an MFA from the University of Iowa and a PhD from the University of Washington and is an associate professor at Western Washington University. Her work appears in The New York Times, Best American Poetry, POETRY, and McSweeney’s. A Pushcart Prize winner, she has received numerous fellowships and exhibits interdisciplinary art nationally.
Anastacia-Reneé (she/they) is a queer writer, educator, and interdisciplinary artist. She is the author of Side Notes from the Archivist (HarperCollins/Amistad), named a New York Public Library Best Book of 2023 and an American Library Association Notable Book of 2024, along with (v.), Forget It, and Here in the (Middle) of Nowhere. A former Seattle Civic Poet, TEDx speaker, and radio host, she has received the James W. Ray Distinguished Artist Award and fellowships from Cave Canem, Hedgebrook, VONA, and Ragdale.
Jen Jabaily-Blackburn is the author of the full-length collection Girl in a Bear Suit (Elixir Press, 2024) and the e-chapbook Disambiguation (Salamander/Suffolk University, 2024). She’s the winner of the Louisa Solano Memorial Emerging Poet Award from Salamander, selected by Stephanie Burt. Recent work has appeared in or is coming soon from swamp pink, Villain Era, The Common, & On the Seawall. Originally from the Boston area, she now lives in Western Massachusetts with her family and serves as the Program & Outreach coordinator for the Boutelle-Day Poetry Center at Smith College.
Sara Eddy’s second full-length poetry collection, How to Wash a Rabbit, is forthcoming from Cornerstone Press. She is also author of Ordinary Fissures (2024), and two chapbooks: Full Mouth (2020), and Tell the Bees (2019). Her poems have appeared in many online and print journals, including Threepenny Review, Raleigh Review, Sky Island, and Baltimore Review, among others. She is assistant director of the Jacobson Center for Writing at Smith College, and lives in Amherst, Massachusetts, in a house built by Emily Dickinson’s cousin.
Aimee Nezhukumatathil is the New York Times best-selling author of the forthcoming poetry book, NIGHT OWL (Mar. 2026), and two illustrated collections of essays, BITE BY BITE and WORLD OF WONDERS: IN PRAISE OF FIREFLIES, WHALE SHARKS, & OTHER ASTONISHMENTS, which was chosen as Barnes and Noble’s Book of the Year and named a finalist for the Kirkus Prize. She also wrote four previous award-winning poetry collections: OCEANIC, LUCKY FISH, AT THE DRIVE-IN VOLCANO, and MIRACLE FRUIT. With the poet Ross Gay, she co-authored the chapbook LACE & PYRITE, a collaboration of epistolary garden poems. Her writing appears twice in the Best American Poetry Series, The New York Times Magazine, ESPN, Ploughshares, American Poetry Review, and The Paris Review. 
Amy Wright co-edited the Virginia volume of the Southern Poetry Anthology and is finalizing her fourth volume of poetry. She has also authored six chapbooks and a book of nonfiction, Paper Concert (Sarabande Books), which received a Nautilus Gold Award for Lyric Prose. Her work has also been recognized with two Peter Taylor Fellowships to the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop, an Individual Artist Grant from the Tennessee Arts Commission, and a fellowship to the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.