IN-PERSON PROGRAM

UPDATE: This program is now SOLD OUT. Sign up for our volunteer newsletter to learn more about future opportunities!

Come celebrate the beauty of spring during Garden Day at the Emily Dickinson Museum! As spring temperatures arrive in Amherst, Emily’s garden begs to be tended. Join Museum staff and fellow volunteers to aid in the cultivation and growth of the historic Dickinson family landscape. On Garden Day, participants will help to weed, divide older perennials, plant new perennials and annuals, edge flower beds, and more! 

This in-person program is free to attend. Registration is required. 

Phosphorescence April 2026 featured poets:
Matthew Johnson and Oak Morse

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:

Matthew Johnson is the author of the poetry collections, Jackie Robinson’s Real Gone: Baseball Poems of New York (forthcoming 2026), Far from New York State (2023), and Shadow Folk and Soul Songs (2019), and the chapbook, Too Short to Box with God (2024). He is the recipient of multiple Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominations. He has received support from the Hudson Valley Writers Center and from Sundress Publications. He is a finalist for the 2023 Diverse Book Award (Grand View University) and the 2025 E.E. Cummings Poetry Prize (New England Poetry Club). His poetry has appeared in Apple Valley Review, The London Magazine, New York Quarterly Magazine, Northern New England Review, and elsewhere. He is the managing editor of The Portrait of New England and the poetry editor of The Twin Bill. matthewjohnsonpoetry.com 

Oak Morse lives in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and holds an MFA from Warren Wilson College and an MLIS from the University of Southern Mississippi. He is the recipient of the 2025 Larry Levis Post-Graduate Award and the 2024 A Public Space Writing Fellowship. Oak has received support from PEN America and fellowships from Brooklyn Poets, Twelve Literary Arts, Cave Canem’s Starshine, and Clay, as well as a Stars in the Classroom honor from the Houston Texans. His work appears in POETRY, Callaloo, Electric Literature, Black Warrior Review, Obsidian, Painted Bride Quarterly, and Hobart, with work forthcoming in Rattle, among others. oakmorse.com

Support Phosphorescence
While Phosphorescence events are free to attend, they are 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.

SUBMIT FOR PHOSPHORESCENCE

Only complete submissions made through the SurveyMonkey Apply (via Amherst College) platform linked above will be considered. (You may be prompted to create a free account if you do not already have one.)

SUBMISSION DEADLINE: Sunday, February 15, 2026, 11:59pm ET.

Please direct questions about submissions to EDMprograms@EmilyDickinsonMuseum.org

About the Tell It Slant Poetry Festival

Produced by the Emily Dickinson Museum, the Tell It Slant Poetry Festival celebrates the poetic legacy of Emily Dickinson and the contemporary creativity she continues to inspire from the place she called home. The Festival’s name, “Tell It Slant,” pays homage to Dickinson’s poem, “Tell all the truth but tell it slant.” This title underscores the revolutionary power of poetry to shift our perspective and reveal new truths.

The Festival is a hybrid event, with programs happening in-person at the Museum and online, for both in-person and virtual audiences throughout the week of September 21 -27. We invite you to “dwell in possibility” and submit your most inventive proposals for in-person or virtual, generative workshops and panels! Submissions for virtual programs should be for live, synchronous content only. Honoraria of $350 are provided per event. There is no fee to submit proposals.

View last year’s Festival schedule

The Festival organizers especially welcomes the following submission qualities:

• From groups of 2 – 4 facilitators
• Generative writing programs
• Creatively encourage audience participation or foster a strong sense of community
• Engage young attendees and/or those new to poetry
• Ensure people with a range of abilities can participate meaningfully

Organizers are seeking submissions for the following program types:

IN-PERSON OR VIRTUAL WORKSHOPS:

• Public poetry workshops are typically 90-minutes long.
• Workshops must be interactive and generative, centering around skill-building activities.
• Virtual workshops must be adaptable for large virtual audiences of around 200.

IN-PERSON OR VIRTUAL PANELS:

• Public poetry panels are typically 90-minutes long.
• Panels must consist of at least three people, including a facilitator.
• Panels should foster a strong sense of community and include moments for audience participation. They may include short readings by panel members.
• Virtual panels will be recorded and live-streamed to large virtual audiences of around 200.

SUBMIT FOR THE FESTIVAL

Only complete submissions made through the SurveyMonkey Apply (via Amherst College) platform linked above will be considered. (You may be prompted to create a free account if you do not already have one.)

SUBMISSION DEADLINE: Sunday, February 15, 2026, 11:59pm ET.

SUBMIT FOR PHOSPHORESCENCE

SUBMIT FOR THE FESTIVAL

Phosphorescence submissions will be notified of their acceptance status by April 2. Festival submissions will be notified of their acceptance status by May 1. Participating poets and presenters will be asked to sign a letter of agreement confirming participation on assigned dates.

Please direct questions about submissions to EDMprograms@EmilyDickinsonMuseum.org

VIRTUAL PROGRAM

REGISTER

Designed for K-12 educators, the workshop will examine Dickinson’s poetry in light of the rhetoric of her day, as Americans grappled with a national identity one century on from the American Revolution. Through creative writing and engagement with contemporary poets, participants will also explore how Dickinson’s rule-breaking, revolutionary poetry sparks the imaginations of new generations.

Participants will spend an immersive week in Dickinson’s hometown of Amherst, Massachusetts, enriching their understanding of her poetry and its broader context in nineteenth-century New England. They will be joined by faculty who have written or edited significant works about Dickinson in the past five years, including a new biography, complete edition of her letters, and an Oxford Handbook, and have access to institutions with significant holdings of her manuscripts and related material culture. In addition to plenary talks and workshops, participants will be divided into learning cohorts supported by seasoned teachers to complete an outcome-based learning project.

This virtual session is designed to help educators prepare applications for this opportunity. Meet the Program Directors, preview the week’s schedule, and learn about the application process. The program will be followed by a Q&A.

Summer Institute Dates:

• Session I: July 8, 6:30-8:30PM ET live virtual session, July 19-24, 2026, in-person in Amherst, MA
• Session II: July 15, 6:30-8:30PM ET live virtual session, July 26-31, 2026, in-person in Amherst, MA

For further information about the program schedule, eligibility, and application information, please visit the program website.

For questions, please write education@emilydickinsonmuseum.org. 

Revolution is the Pod
Systems rattle from
When the Winds of Will are stirred
Excellent is Bloom

But except it’s Russet Base
Every Summer be
The entomber of itself,
So of Liberty –

Left inactive on the Stalk
All it’s Purple fled
Revolution shakes it for
Test if it be dead –
(F1044)

VIRTUAL PROGRAM

This free event has limited capacity, we encourage you to register in advance.

REGISTER

In an 1872 letter to her beloved cousin, Louise Norcross, Dickinson considered the passing of time and the enduring power of language. She wrote, “We turn not older with years, but newer every day.”

Join the Emily Dickinson Museum as we look back at a year full of new programs, sights, and sounds at the poet’s home in Amherst, Massachusetts. We will learn about recent developments in wallpaper conservation at The Evergreens, explore the art installation that opened in August in the Homestead, celebrate creative projects inspired by Dickinson in other parts of the world this year, and more. And along the way we’ll hear special birthday messages to the poet from fans you just might recognize.

Special guests will be joining us on zoom to discuss their artistic practice and what Dickinson means to their work. 
Adrien Broom will share photos from her exhibition Holding Space: The Historic Homes of Artists and Writers now on view at the Mark Twain House & Museum. Ligia Bouton and Matt Donovan will discuss A Something Overtakes the Mind, — their collaborative multi-media installation using objects from the Emily Dickinson Museum’s collections — on view now until December 21. 

All are welcome to this free VIRTUAL program. Space is limited, register in advance. Pay Your Way tickets support free programs at the Emily Dickinson Museum.

This year there are three programs to celebrate Dickinson’s birthday with us!:

195th Birthday Open House
Saturday, December 6, 1-4:30pm ET
Free In-Person Program

Emily Dickinson Birthday Tribute:
Celebrating Jane Austen at 250
Co-Presented with the Folger Shakespeare Library
Tuesday, December 9, 7:30pm ET
Paid Online or In-Person (at the Folger) Program

Newer every day
A Dickinson Birthday Celebration
Wednesday, December 10, 6pm ET
Free Virtual Program

Celebrate Emily Dickinson’s 195th Birthday with a Gift in her Honor

Emily Dickinson, the middle child of Edward and Emily Norcross Dickinson, was born on December 10, 1830, in the family Homestead on Main Street in Amherst, Massachusetts. She celebrated 55 birthdays before her death in 1886. As an adult she wrote, “We turn not older with years, but newer every day.” (Johnson L379) This year, as we celebrate Emily’s 195th birthday, we invite you to honor her with a gift to the Museum. Our goal is 195 gifts by her 195th birthday, each one a gesture of appreciation to the poet who continues to inspire “Forever—is composed of Nows (Fr690).” Your contribution to the Emily Dickinson Fund keeps her voice vibrant and her story alive for generations to come. Thank you!

GIVE A BIRTHDAY GIFT

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Adrien Broom is an award-winning photographer, set designer, and filmmaker based in NYC and Connecticut. Drawing upon her multidisciplinary background in animation, fine art, photography, and decorative arts, Broom creates intricate, handcrafted sets that transport viewers to fantastical realms, exploring the intersection of nature and fantasy. Broom meticulously constructs physical sets that invite viewers into tangible, imaginative worlds. Her practice spans gallery and museum exhibitions, commercial projects, private commissions, and conceptual portraiture—all unified by her consistent artistic vision and creative philosophy. Influenced by diverse artists from Gregory Crewdson and Jim Henson to John Singer Sargent and Shona Heath, Broom has developed a signature approach to creating extraordinary worlds both photographically and as installations. Her award-winning work has been exhibited at the Centro di Cultura Contemporanea (Florence), Hudson River Museum (Yonkers), Southern Vermont Arts Center, and Edward Hopper Museum (Nyack among others). In 2025, Broom will present solo exhibitions at the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art in Oklahoma and the Mark Twain Museum in Hartford, CT. Her touring exhibition, A Colorful Dream (2019-2026), exemplifies her commitment to inspiring wonder.

Ligia Bouton was born in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and currently divides her time between Massachusetts and New Mexico in the US.  Her creative work combines sculpture and photography with performance and digital video to recreate appropriated narratives and research drawn from the history of science, literature, and other sources.  Bouton’s recent projects have been shown at museums such as the Copenhagen Contemporary (Denmark), Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Guildhall Art Gallery (London, UK), Minneapolis Institute of Art, SITE Santa Fe, the New Mexico Museum of Art, the Philadelphia Art Alliance, Bellevue Arts Museum, the Minneapolis Institute of Art, and the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art.  In 2016, Bouton’s work was featured in the exhibition, “Charlotte Great and Small,” celebrating the bicentenary of Charlotte Brontë’s birth at the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Yorkshire, England.  Bouton’s video work has been shown at Art Claims Impulse in Berlin, in the Biennial of Contemporary Art, Nimes, France, and at the Temporary Art Center, Eindhoven, The Netherlands, as well as in The Female Avant Garde Festival in Prague.  Reviews of this work have appeared in Art in America, Art Papers, The Art Newspaper, Art Ltd., and The New York Times.  She is the recipient of a 2016 Creative Capital grant for the opera “Inheritance” which premiered at University of California, San Diego in 2018 and a 2020 Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship for her project “25 Stars: A Temporary Monument for Henrietta Swan Leavitt”.  Her work can be found in numerous public and private collections including Crystal Bridges Museum, the Albuquerque Museum, St. John’s College, and the Falconer Gallery at Grinnell College. Bouton is currently Professor of Art Studio at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts.

Matt Donovan is the author of four books and two chapbooks: We Are Not Where We Are (an erasure of Walden, co-authored with Jenny George, Bull City Press 2025), The Dug-Up Gun Museum (a collection of poems about guns and gun violence in America, BOA 2022), Missing Department (a collaborative collection of art and poetry created with artist Ligia Bouton, Visual Studies Workshop 2023), A Cloud of Unusual Size and Shape: Meditations on Ruin and Redemption (a book of lyric essays, Trinity University Press 2016), Rapture & the Big Bam (selected by Lia Purpura for the Snowbound Chapbook Competition, Tupelo Press 2016), and Vellum (selected by Mark Doty for the Bakeless Contest, Houghton Mifflin 2007). Donovan is the recipient of a Whiting Award, a Rome Prize in Literature, a Pushcart Prize, a Levis Reading Prize, and an NEA Fellowship in Literature. His work has appeared in numerous journals, including AGNI, American Poetry Review, The Believer, Kenyon Review, The New England Review, Poetry, Threepenny Review, and Virginia Quarterly Review. Donovan serves as Director of the Boutelle-Day Poetry Center at Smith College.

IN-PERSON PROGRAM at the Emily Dickinson Museum in Amherst, MA

This program is now SOLD OUT. Please join us online for our virtual birthday celebrations (see below).

You are cordially invited to the Emily Dickinson Museum’s celebration of the poet’s 195th birthday! On Saturday, December 6, join us in person at the Homestead and The Evergreens for a free open house with tours, crafts, music, hot cider and gingerbread cookies! 

Emily Dickinson, the middle child of Edward Dickinson and Emily Norcross Dickinson, was born on December 10, 1830, in the family Homestead on Main Street in Amherst, Massachusetts, now the site of the Emily Dickinson Museum. She celebrated 55 birthdays before her death in 1886. Some of the poet’s most favored themes were time and im/mortality; she wrote, “We turn not older with years, but newer every day.” (Johnson L379) 

Event registration is required. Free tickets are available; Pay Your Way tickets support free programs at the Emily Dickinson Museum.

REGISTER

This year there are 3 programs to celebrate Dickinson’s birthday with us!:

195th Birthday Open House
Saturday, December 6, 1-4:30pm ET
Free In-Person Program

Emily Dickinson Birthday Tribute:
Celebrating Jane Austen at 250
Co-Presented with the Folger Shakespeare Library
Tuesday, December 9, 7:30pm ET
Paid Online or In-Person (at the Folger) Program

Newer every day
A Dickinson Birthday Celebration
Wednesday, December 10, 6pm ET
Free Virtual Program

Celebrate Emily Dickinson’s 195th Birthday with a Gift in her Honor Emily Dickinson, the middle child of Edward and Emily Norcross Dickinson, was born on December 10, 1830, in the family Homestead on Main Street in Amherst, Massachusetts. She celebrated 55 birthdays before her death in 1886. As an adult she wrote, “We turn not older with years, but newer every day.” (Johnson L379) This year, as we celebrate Emily’s 195th birthday, we invite you to honor her with a gift to the Museum. Our goal is 195 gifts by her 195th birthday, each one a gesture of appreciation to the poet who continues to inspire “Forever—is composed of Nows (Fr690).” Your contribution to the Emily Dickinson Fund keeps her voice vibrant and her story alive for generations to come. Thank you! GIVE A BIRTHDAY GIFT