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 line-up features a talented group of poets from around the world including a headliner reading from acclaimed poets Victoria Chang and Samyak Shertok, generative writing workshops, poetry panels, an open mic, 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.
The 2026 Emily Dickinson Poetry Marathon is supported by a donation from Martha Nell Smith and Marilee Lindemann and held in memory of Eleanor Heginbotham, who dwelled in Possibility!
Learn more about the 2026 lineup below.
FESTIVAL TICKETS:
General Festival Registration: Registrants are encouraged to choose a "Pay Your Way" ticket that matches their expected level of participation. The price per person of $25 covers the base cost of a single Festival event. Revenue from Festival tickets supports honoraria for participating poets and the production costs of high-quality hybrid Festival events. Free Festival tickets are also available at registration.
Small Group Workshops: This year, the Festival is offering four workshops for in-person participants on Friday and Saturday. Due to the limited event capacity, these workshops are available for a fee of $35/person. Tickets for small group workshops must be purchased separately from Festival registration. See the Festival ticket menu.
VIP Festival Tickets: A limited number of VIP tickets are available. VIP ticketholders receive a heightened Festival experience that includes access to all Festival events and the small group workshops of your choosing, reserved seating at Headliner Night, a Festival swag bag, two free vouchers for a tour of the Museum, and a private dinner reception with Emily Dickinson Museum Executive Director Jane Wald and our headlining poets Victoria Chang and Samyak Shertok.
For all tickets, donations in support of the Museum’s programming are welcome in the final step of registration. Your support is deeply appreciated.
REGISTER FOR THE FESTIVAL
SCHEDULE:
Monday, September 21:
6-8:30pm [Virtual Program] — Emily Dickinson Poetry Marathon: Part 1
Tuesday, September 22:
12-2:15pm [Virtual Program] — Emily Dickinson Poetry Marathon: Part 2
3-4:30pm [Virtual Workshop] — Three Perspectives, Three Possibilities: Japanese Poetics and Emily Dickinson with Miho Kinnas, Crystal Simone Smith, and Holly Thompson.
6:30-8pm [Virtual Panel] — Porosity of Poetry with Livia Meneghin, Oliver Baez Bendorf, and Patrycja Humienik.
Wednesday, September 23:
12-2:15pm [Virtual Program] — Emily Dickinson Poetry Marathon: Part 3
2:30-4pm [Virtual Workshop] — 'Slow tramp the Centuries': Time Traveling with Emily Dickinson with Michael Coplen.
7-8:30pm [Virtual Program] — Thank You for the Surgery: The Poet-Editor Relationship with Elizabeth Metzger, Callie Siskel, and Dorothea Lasky.
Thursday, September 24:
12-2:15pm [Virtual Program] — Emily Dickinson Poetry Marathon: Part 4
3-4:30pm [Virtual Workshop] — This is the Good Fight: Power and Protest Poetry Workshop with Dorsía Smith Silva and Jennifer Maritza McCauley.
6-7:15pm [Virtual Reading] — Phosphorescence Contemporary Poetry Reading with Michelle Peñaloza, Jane Wong, and Anastacia-Reneé,
Friday, September 25:
12-2:15pm [Virtual] — Emily Dickinson Poetry Marathon: Part 5
3-4:30pm [In-Person *Small Group Workshop*] — Shawl We: Swirling Poetry Patterns with Deborah Bernhardt. Paid registration required.
3-4:30pm [In-Person *Small Group Workshop*] — Finding Emily in a Found Poem with Joaquin Zihuatanejo. Paid registration required.
7-8:30pm [Hybrid Performance] — Open Mic Night - Reader sign-ups TBA!
Saturday, September 26:
9:30am-12pm[Hybrid] — Emily Dickinson Poetry Marathon: Part 6
1-2:30pm [Hybrid Panel] — I Could Not Stop: Poetry and Persistence with Amy Dryansky, Enzo Silon Surin, and January O'Neil.
3-4pm [In-Person *Small Group Workshop*] — Small and Bold: Poetry of Small Objects and Narrow Spaces with Arden Levine, Rico Frederick, Cynthia Manick, and Joanna Solfrian. Paid registration required.
3-4pm [In-Person *Small Group Workshop*] — Poetry in Panels: Creating Poetry Comics with Max Barnewitz and Christine Adams. Paid registration required.
7-9pm [Hybrid Reading] — Headliner Night with Victoria Chang and Samyak Shertok.
Sunday, September 27:
10-11:30am [Hybrid Panel] — Look Again: Documentary Interventions with Visual Archives with Jennifer Steinorth, Victoria Chang, Jenny Molberg, and Caridad Moro-Gronlier.
12:30-2:30pm [Hybrid] — Emily Dickinson Poetry Marathon: Grand Finale
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 Terrance Hayes, Carl Phillips, 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
The Tell It Slant Poetry Festival is sustained by the Emily Dickinson Fund, which provides critical, unrestricted support for the Museum’s day-to-day operations. Your generous donation helps us offer immersive poetry programs to a global audience and preserve the historic Dickinson legacy in Amherst. As the Fund supplies 36% of our annual budget, your tax-deductible contribution is essential to our mission. Join us in inspiring learners of all ages by making an immediate impact today.
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.
