The Emily Dickinson International Society

Volume 25, Number 2 November/December 2013

“The Only News I know / Is Bulletins all Day / From Immortality.” Emily Dickinson World Citizen Emily Dickinson International Society

Officers

President: Martha Nell Smith Vice-President: Barbara Mossberg Secretary: Nancy Pridgen Treasurer: James C. Fraser

Board Members

Antoine Cazé Jonnie Guerra Nancy Pridgen Paul Crumbley Eleanor Heginbotham Eliza Richards Cindy Dickinson (Honorary Board Member) Suzanne Juhasz Martha Nell Smith Páraic Finnerty Barbara Mossberg Alexandra Socarides James C. Fraser Elizabeth Petrino Hiroko Uno Vivian Pollak Jane Wald (Honorary Board Member)

Legal Advisor: [Position Open] Chapter Development Chair: Nancy Pridgen Nominations Chair: Alexandra Socarides Book Review Editor: Barbara Kelly Membership Chair: Elizabeth Petrino Bulletin Editor: Daniel Manheim Dickinson and the Arts Chair: Barbara Dana Journal Editor: Cristanne Miller

Sustaining Members

Mary Elizabeth Bemhard David Forsyth Niels Kjaer Richard Brantley James Fraser Martha Nell Smith Judith Farr Jonnie Guerra Gary Lee Stonum Lois Kackley

Contributing Members

Carolyn Cooley Daniel Manheim Robin Tarasov Marie Esteve Jonathan Morse Richard Tryon David Jamieson Ethan Tarasov

EDIS gratefully acknowledges the generous financial contributions of these members.

EDIS Bulletin (ISSN 1055-3932) is published twice yearly, May/June and November/December, by The Emily Dickinson International Society, Inc. Standard Mail non- profit postage is paid at Lexington, KY 40511. Membership in the Society is open to all persons with an interest in Emily Dickinson and her work. For further information, contact Jonnie Guerra, President, EDIS, 1812 Garden Street, West Lafayette, IN 47906 USA or [email protected]. Annual dues are $50.00 for regular members, $30.00 for students, $200.00 for sustaining members, $113.00 for institutional members, $100.00 for contributing members (all of whom receive the Bulletin and the Emily Dickin- son Journal), or $20.00 for associate members (Bulletin only). Membership inquiries should be directed to James C. Fraser, 159 Prospect St., Apt 7, Acton, MA, 01720-3654, USA. Membership applications and changes of address should be sent to The Emily Dickinson International Society, c/o Johns Hopkins University Press, P.O. Box 19966, Baltimore, MD 21211-0966, USA. Direct changes of address to [email protected], 800-548-1784 (U.S. and Canada), or 410-516-6987; fax to 410-516-3866. Ad- dress submissions for the Bulletin to Daniel Manheim, Centre College, 600 West Walnut St., Danville, KY 40422, USA or [email protected]. Submission deadlines are March 1 (Spring issue) and September 1 (Fall issue). All articles become the property of the Bulletin. Back issues are available for $5.00 each from the editor. Copyright © 2013 by The Emily Dickinson International Society, Inc. The Bulletin is indexed in EBSCO, Humanities International Complete, and the MLA Bibliography. www.emilydickinsoninternationalsociety.org In This Issue

EDIS Conference Coverage Reviews 4 Three Days in “Scarlet Maryland” 31 New Publications By Dan Manheim By Barbara Kelly, Book Review Editor

7 Georgiana Strickland Distinguished 33 Review of Alexandra Socarides, Dickinson Service Award Unbound: Paper, Process, Poetics Reviewed by Ellen Louise Hart 9 Reports on Scholarly Panels 34 Review of Gerbrand Bakker, Ten White 20 World-Class Entertainment for Emily Geese: A Novel and Claire Messud, The Dickinson Woman Upstairs By Emily Seelbinder Reviewed by Stephanie Tingley

35 Review of By the Oceans Passed, CD by Series Muse ConNAction Reviewed by Chelsea Apple 22 What’s Your Story? Georgiana Strickland: A Profile of the Editor Members’ News By Jane Donahue Eberwein 27 Obituaries Julie Harris, By Barbara Dana Features Dorothy Oberhaus, By Polly Longsworth 24 Interview 37 Chapter Group News Socarides Unbound: Marta Werner Talks to Alexandra Socarides about Manuscripts 39 Another Edward Dickinson Letter Found By Krans Bloeimaand

This issue is largely devoted to coverage of the EDIS International Conference, held in College Park, Maryland, in August 2013. The photographs on the front cover will take conference participants back to three sultry and stimulating days spent pondering many facets of the topic of Emily Dickinson World Citizen..

The images on the back cover are from the final event of the conference, high tea at the Willard Hotel, where Emily Dickinson stayed when she visited her father when he was his district’s representative to Congress, and where Julia Ward Howe wrote “The Battle Humn of the Republic.”

Special thanks are due to Rebecca Mooney, EDIS webmaster, for serving as the conference photographer. All photographs from the conference are hers, unless otherwise marked.

The Editorial Assistant for this issue was Laura K. Zolman

Dickinson poems are reprinted by permission of the publishers and the Trustees of Amherst College from the following volumes: The Poems of Emily Dickinson, Thomas H. Johnson, ed., Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Copyright © 1951, 1955, 1979, 1983 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College; The Poems of Emily Dickinson: Variorum Edition, Ralph W. Franklin, ed., Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Copyright © 1998 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College; The Poems of Emily Dickinson: Reading Edition, Ralph W. Franklin, ed., Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Copyright © 1998, 1999 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College; The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, Thomas H. Johnson, ed., Copyright © 1929, 1935 by Mar- tha Dickinson Bianchi, Copyright © renewed 1957, 1963 by Mary L. Hampson: Little Brown and Co., Boston. Dickinson letters are reprinted by permission of the publishers from The Letters of Emily Dickinson, Thomas H. Johnson, ed., Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Copyright © 1958, 1986 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College; 1914, 1924, 1932, 1942 by Martha Dickinson Bianchi; 1952 by Alfred Leete Hampson; 1960 by Mary L. Hampson. Emily Dickinson: World Citizen Three Days in “Scarlet Maryland” By Dan Manheim

o someone driving through Maryland sketches from James and Twain, but more Dickinson’s description of an idyllic Mount Tand Virginia, the modern world can seem pertinently in Thomas Wentworth Higgin- Vernon, a description in sharp contrast to the a palimpsest over haunting lessons learned in son’s famous portrait of Dickinson in his reality of Mount Vernon in 1857, as repre- high school and visualized in the stark im- Preface to the first edition of her poems, sented by Eastman Johnson – a shabby estate ages of early photography. Here democracy from 1890. The portrait of the reclusive in- badly in need of maintenance and repair – received its first strong challenge, and here valid who poured her soul into her verses, Farr described the establishment of this trope the duties and costs and rewards of citizen- never intended to publish, and was rescued of landscape paradise in Dickinson. She then ship were explored by a still-experimental from obscurity by a kind relative or friend showed how the romantic landscape had nation. Thus it is fitting that a conference ad- was not intended to present Dickinson as a been associated with the Garden of Eden dressing Emily Dickinson as a World Citizen fascinating enigma, but rather as simply a since Thomas Cole’s 1828 painting of that should take place not simply in proximity to poetess, a stock character from an earlier age name, and explored the transformation of the a city that every day sees the best (and worst) reemerging in the 1890s. In other words, he elements of that Eden – sunset, river, lush of modern citizenship, but to a region and a reconstituted her in the very role she sought vegetation – into romanticized representa- time when citizenship was weighed and con- to escape. tions of exotic lands by Frederick Church. tested. Church located his personal Eden first in the The second keynote of the first morning, Middle East, and then in the tropics of South The scholarly presentations opened with a “Emily Dickinson and the Tropical Eden, America. The underlying implication is that keynote address by Alexandra Socarides en- was presented by Judith Farr. In an argument “Paradise is of the option” – that by loving titled “Escaping Emily” (an interview with more divergent than simple summary may God’s creation we can in some measure get Alex and a book review appear on pages convey, she demonstrated how Dickinson’s ourselves back to the Garden. 24 and 33, respectively). Telling the story well-known tropical imagery was encoded as of writing her dissertation, Alex character- Edenic in contemporary arts. Beginning with For Dickinson, the return to the Garden was ized her relationship with the poet as a “dys- met to some extent through her own humble functional romantic” one. By turns beset gardening, but in the painter’s many images by awe and dread, she periodically fled the of Chimborazo she saw something at once very quarry she had set out to pursue. Much tropical and lofty and erotic. “Love – thou of what she sought to escape lay in Dickin- art high – ” Dickinson cried in her own son’s tone in courting the allegiance of her Chimborazo poem (Fr452); accordingly, the own friends, a tone Socarides characterized equatorial volcano became a dense image of as “passive-aggressive.” tropical bliss, Edenic beauty, and amorous aspiration. It also signified labor: the ardu- But Socarides realized that Dickinson, too, ousness of returning to the Garden tallied wanted to escape: from expectations regard- with the arduousness of Love. Farr, who in ing marriage, religion, and publication, and The Passion of Emily Dickinson (1992) ex- from the whole culture in which women’s plored the possibility that certain Dickinson poetry was little more than a thing to mock. poems constitute a sort of “narrative” delin- The 1850s saw an explosion of anthologies eating the course of her amorous relation of women poets – “poetesses” – and it gave with Church’s friend Samuel Bowles, next certain male readers a sense of unwelcome observed that Bowles himself was figured inundation. The image of the poetess of the in letters and poems as “Eden,” his spirit generation immediately prior to the war was Photo courtesy of Anthony Arkin inevitably characterized as “tropical.” Ulti- still alive toward the end of Dickinson’s life: Jane Sheldon performed an “Evening of ‘Bolts mately, whatever Dickinson loved would be Socarides sees the image not only satirical of Melody’” – reviewed on page 20 emblematized as tropical and Edenic: “Af-

4 | EDIS Bulletin fection gropes through Drifts of Awe – for sought to touch the bereaved and coax them his Tropic Door –” (L621). toward renewed engagement following a pe- from “unable” riod of grief. Must be Though saddened by the unavoidable absence an anti-script of of panel member Barbara Mossberg, the audi- Like Wald, Professor Cazé spoke about Dick- ence at Friday afternoon’s “Emily Dickinson, inson’s expansive concept of neighborhood. pure lightlessness World Citizen” roundtable were compensated The main question he pursued concerned the pouring forth from the hand of by interconnected presentations by Emily ways in which language served as Dickinson’s care, envy, rage, grief Dickinson Museum director Jane Wald and means of “neighboring” the world. By inviting in a letter, across University of Paris professor (and host-in- the recipient of a letter or reader of a poem to prospect of the next international conference!) appreciate the play of her language, she was in a letter perhaps Antoine Cazé. While two speakers could nev- effect inviting that person to share a common to no ultimate point beyond er make a table round, Wald and Cazé present- space with her. Ironically, such neighboring assuring scholars ed papers with contrasting manner and dove- could happen only at a certain distance from this letter was tailing matter, both considering dimensions of the person with whom she shared the created Dickinson’s sense of community. space: as she suggests, “Play” requires being in some sense “Away.” Through writing, she could encoun- answered Jane Wald saw Dickinson’s sense of citizen- ter others while still remaining in her secure * ship emerging out of her letters and poems of place – the place with the security necessary consolation and sympathy, especially those for democratic engagement. Only then could Must be this page is the written in the mid to late 1870s. Noting Dick- she become an ethical host. inson’s civically engaged family – Mabel creation, and the black of the Loomis Todd once wrote to Austin Dickinson The ethics of hospitality proved no challenge cancelling hand, that no one in town could take up any project to the organizers of Friday evening’s enter- without his being near – Wald described po- tainment, where a ballroom full of Dickin- the flourish of a Manichean. ems that center in the extremely local but take sonians received their meal’s blessing from in vast expanses of territory, moving between not one but three poets: David Keplinger of * the house and the newly settled territories in American University, Elizabeth Arnold of Must be the West (Fr1069), or from the coffin to the the University of Maryland, and the eminent this annihilating realm of the “citizen of Paradise” (Fr890). Marilyn Nelson. Warmed by these rich pre- Accordingly, from her own base of freedom liminary offerings, the audience then heard post-script is malevolent and independence, her bedroom with the se- songs performed by a Swedish nightingale: tendency rising from the singing of cure lock, the poet reached out to the town and not Jenny Lind, who so entranced Dickinson the name of the beyond, by means of letters and poems that when she visited Amherst in 1851, but Sofie beloved. Livebrant, composer of * the pieces on the CD Em- ily and I (see the review in Must be the Bulletin, Spring 2012). an anti-logos Ms. Livebrant’s music pro- there before any voked people to rise apon- word, before even the paper itself taneously and dance with a lithe and lissome extrava- the blackness gance. before the page was, The evening keynote was soaking through from behind delivered in the form of a pulled into visibility poem. Joseph Donahue, of Duke University, read from with a a multi-volume poem in pen stroke. Joe Donahue addressed the mysterious creative power of love. progress: “Terra Lucida.”

November/December 2013 | 5 The full work will ultimately address various deification feeds. The part of “Terra Lucida” to discover poets’ creative responses to Dick- dimensions of 19th-century American art, lit- from which Donahue read was entitled “un- inson in the Poet to Poet Series, and spoke erature, and religion, among them the religion able,” after Dickinson’s line, “Unable are the about her own realizations about the creative of sentimental love – a religion in which “the loved to die, / for Love is immortality” (Fr951). process through her encounters with the work act of writing is an act of deification.” (An ex- and working of Argentine painter Juan Carlos cerpt from his reading appears above.) Saturday was a day for panel discussions, Aznar. Garbowsky addressed how the use with scholars and artists from around the of other artworks in class can help students Donahue took as his point of departure the no- world sharing their research and insights on a to realize their responses by “thinking word- toriously alarming manuscript of Dickinson’s variety of subjects directly, or at least tangen- lessly about the poems.” Dana, who in the early poem, “One Sister have I in the house” tially, connected to the picture of Dickinson as Spring 2013 Bulletin explored her experience (Fr5), the whole text of which was obliterated a “World Citizen.” (Accounts of panels begin writing a novel about Dickinson and playing by some unidentified hand (even while the on page 9.) the poet in The Belle of Amherst, likewise sheet itself was preserved). Donahue called spoke about wordless dimensions of words: this unnamed effacer an “artist” who under- Early Saturday afternoon, however, there was for Dana, knowing a poem means experienc- stood on some level that “a part of Love’s ag- a different sort of panel discussion: a round- ing it in one’s blood, not just in one’s mind. ony is precisely to experience, within the act table discussion on the question of “Knowing Seelbinder likewise described how the other of desiring, such a negation as the blackening Emily Dickinson through the Arts.” Thurs- arts can help pedagogically, before ending up out of the letter enacts.” That is, if writing the day evening’s presentations by Barbara Dana with a narrative of her encounters with com- love letter is an act of deification, then part of and William Andrews (see Seelbinder, p20) poser Leo Smit, who when setting Dickinson that act may involve a simultaneous desire to and Friday night’s beautiful songs by Sofie songs said he “felt Emily was giving him the obliterate the very ardency upon which the Livebrant had already stimulated a lot of pri- music of her score.” Last, Tammaro described vate reflections about what compiling the poems for the first of his tribute happens when a Dickinson anthologies for American poets: Visiting Em- poem is rendered in another ily, Visiting Walt, Visiting Frost, and Visiting medium: an audience mem- Dr. Williams (all co-edited by Sheila Coghill, ber was overheard to say, from U of Iowa Press). “It was lovely; but I don’t know if it’s the poem or After a presentation about an astonish- not.” Addressing just such ing three new collections of essays about ruminations, a panel includ- Dickinson that are either in print or nearing ing outgoing EDIS presi- production, and entertainment provided by dent Jonnie Guerra, author more artists who base their performances on and actress Barbara Dana, works by Dickinson (yes, one of them was to Maryanne Garbowsky of have been performed by Barbara Mossberg), County College of Morris the conference was nearing its end. Sunday NJ, Emily Seelbinder of morning’s highlight, after the passing of Queens University (NC), the EDIS presidency from Jonnie Guerra to and poet Thom Tammaro, Martha Nell Smith, was a discussion of “Pre- of Minnesota State, all ad- sentation & Editing of Her Writings,” with dressed different dimen- Harvard’s Leslie Morris, Amherst’s Mike sions of their own or others’ Kelly, and Smith herself discussing recent artistic engagements with advances in their various digital archives. Dickinson’s poems. (This Cristanne Miller described her forthcoming panel, too, was to have in- edition of the fascicle-bound poems, which cluded a contribution from will complement the Franklin variorum edi- Barbara Mossberg!) tion by maintaining the archival presentation of the poems; and Marta Werner discussed Guerra thanked former the late works, which were available for pe- Bulletin editor Georgianna rusal in Werner’s own gorgeously presented Strickland for inviting her The Gorgeous Nothings.

6 | EDIS Bulletin Distinguished Service Award to Bulletin Editor Georgiana Strickland

stablished with the objective "to promote, of the regular se- Eperpetuate, and enhance the study and ries, “What’s Your appreciation of Emily Dickinson throughout Story?” The sub- the world," the EDIS Distinguished Service ject of this issue’s Award has been granted periodically since feature is Georgie 1992 to recognize not just scholars, but also herself. See page others whose service has been of outstanding 22.) What follow value to Dickinson studies. The list of those are the tributary re- who have received the award is impressive marks from current and decidedly international: Richard Sewall, EDIS president Ralph Franklin, Brita Lindberg-Seyersted, Jonnie Guerra, for- and Roland Hagenbüchle. This year the mer Journal editor EDIS Board unanimously voted to grant Suzanne Juhasz, the award not to a scholar but to the long- and current Bul- time editor of EDIS Bulletin, Georgiana letin editor Dan Strickland. (Georgie is currently the editor Manheim. Photo courtesy of Eleanor Heginbotham

Tributes to Georgie Strickland from Suzanne Juhasz, Jonnie Guerra, and Dan Manheim

wenty-five years ago, when EDIS was privileges from the University of Kentucky from the editorial position, she continued to Tformed, we decided that we needed Press. offer aid to the new editors as they learned something like a bulletin to send to mem- the ropes. She even returned to guest edit the bers, to keep in touch and to pass on infor- In a matter of a few years the scope of the Oxford University International Conference mation about the Society and Dickinson. EDIS Bulletin expanded greatly in length Issue in 2010. Margaret Freeman and Cristanne Miller and content, filled with fascinating columns created two issues that formed the basis and articles on a range of topics related to She is also an author. While Bulletin editor, for the present Bulletin and also sent out a Dickinson, including features on Dickin- she published “Emily Dickinson’s Colorado” request for an editor who could be devoted son and the visual arts, Dickinson on stage, (1999), and later, “Emily Dickinson in Phila- to the publication and make it an ongoing Dickinson scholars, and a column called delphia” (2001) and “In Praise of Ramona: venture. “Poet to Poet,” accompanying our regular Emily Dickinson and Helen Hunt Jackson’s material such as convention coverage, pub- Indian Novel” (2010), all in the EDJ. A member named Georgiana Strickland re- lication announcements, and news. sponded, offering her services. She was, in Over the years she has become a valued fact, a real editor: Managing Editor at the Georgie’s editorial skills were matched only friend as well as an active member of the University of Kentucky Press! “The editing by her imagination. Through her twelve Society. She is a warm and gracious woman, of the Bulletin is a task I take on with great years as Editor, what I remember most is with a subtle sense of humor. One special pleasure, since it draws together the threads her gentle but firm administrative powers. moment that I remember with a smile is her of my vocation, editing scholarly works, Deadlines were deadlines. At the same time portrayal of the Dog, on hands and knees and my chief avocational interest, Emily she always welcomed new ideas, and her with floppy ears, in a dramatic rendition of Dickinson,” she wrote in the third edition careful shepherding of them into excellent “I Started Early – Took my Dog – ” (Fr656) (1990). Quickly and with little fuss she took articles was impressive. Her devotion to the at an Annual Meeting in St. Paul. Georgie is over the reins, and our publication became Bulletin was strong and unwavering, and one EDIS’s most cherished members. truly a capital B Bulletin. She had a myriad each issue was a treat for EDIS readers. We of ideas for features and topics that might were so very lucky to have her at the helm Suzanne Juhasz was Vice President of EDIS be included, and she had as well the where- of what has become an important publica- from 2000-2003. She was the founding editor withal to publish and obtain bulk mailing tion. Even after she formally stepped down of The Emily Dickinson Journal.

November/December 2013 | 7 n 1992, the Emily Dickinson Internation- during her tenure. The Series was only one Georgie is currently at work on a discog- Ial Society established the Distinguished of Georgie’s many creative ideas, and it raphy of Dickinson musical settings, and Service Award to recognize individuals continues to be a favorite feature of Bulle- we look forward to the benefits of such a whose scholarship and/or service supports tin readers. I also want to comment briefly resource to advance Dickinson study in the its goal “to promote, perpetuate, and en- on Georgie’s dedication to expanding the area of music. hance the study and appreciation of Em- knowledge of our membership about Dick- ily Dickinson throughout the world.” This inson and music. Those of you who attend- The framed award the Society is present- evening the Society is privileged to present ed the lively event in 2002 will remember ing to Georgie was hand calligraphied by the award to Georgiana Strickland, former it as one of the Society’s most ambitious graphic artist Bill Waddington of Universal editor of the Bulletin, former member of annual meeting programs. In a Bulletin re- City, Texas, who is a member of the San the EDIS board of directors, and organizer port that followed, Jane Eberwein applaud- Antonio EDIS chapter. It reads: “The Em- of the 2002 EDIS annual meeting “Emily ed Georgie’s “imaginative and painstaking ily Dickinson International Society honors Dickinson in Song.” preparations” which resulted not only in a Georgiana Strickland for her distinguished pleasurable experience of Dickinson’s po- service as editor of its Bulletin and her In a few minutes, others will reflect on the etry, but also, as Jane put it, in “an occasion leadership in promoting knowledge of mu- contributions Georgie made through her for enhancing or (for the more tin-eared sical adaptations of Dickinson poems.” twelve years of editorship, but I want to ac- among us) developing appreciation for the knowledge my own enjoyment of serving twentieth- and twenty-first-century Ameri- Jonnie Guerra is the out-going President as the Editor of the “Poet to Poet” Series can art song.” As some of you may know, of EDIS

eorgie: without her I would certainly Second, she prepared me to do it. It began copyediting. She set me up with a printer Gnot be editing the Bulletin right now. with a lesson in layout software (about who was generous enough to overhaul my Before reproachful glances turn her way, I’ll which I knew not a thing), then followed first issue’s images with Photoshop – com- explain. a detailed and accurate description of the pletely gratis. process. Finally, she equipped me with well First, she persuaded me to do it. Plying me over half an issue’s worth of material, along She gave me a gracious introductory inter- with lunch at the excellent restaurant at Lex- with very sound suggestions for gathering view in her series that made me look surpris- ington’s Joseph-Beth Books, she dispensed more. ingly professional and interesting. with each and every one of what were, in fact, quite substantial reasons why I would not So much might any former editor do for a Beyond all this personal support, she con- have the time to learn to edit the newsletter. new and inexperienced successor. But Geor- tributes a series with a variety of subjects gie had only begun to help. that keep it from ever becoming tired or re- She critiqued my early ef- dundant. forts at layout, making me pay attention to things And most of all, she has provided a model I’d never noticed before, of care, thoroughness, and high standards in any magazine, and she that leave me, who has already a tendency gave me sage advice about to combine a crippling self-criticism with some delicate hazards con- a kind of swaggering last-minute reckless- fronting an editor’s han- ness, always aware of how much better I dling of authors. need to be the next time around.

She has taken the time to Georgie stopped editing the Bulletin in critique my recent efforts 2002; but she’s still present in every issue: at layout, as well – I could here’s a tribute from someone who knows do this for twelve years, how to be grateful. and her eye would still be much sharper than mine Dan Manheim is the current editor of the Photo courtesy of Yanbin Kang for visual details and for EDIS Bulletin

8 | EDIS Bulletin Emily Dickinson World Citizen

What follows are reports about individual panels from the conference. To address the question of world citizenship, scholars considered these and other topics such as “Transdisciplinary Poetics” or offered “Transoceanic” readings. Abstracts remain available on the EDIS website. Religion: Amherst to the World By Jane Donahue Eberwein Chair: Jane Donahue Eberwein, Oakland University; Presenters: Jennifer Leader, Mt. San Antonio College; Rich- ard Brantley, University of Florida; Roger Lundin, Wheaton College of Illinois

his richly informative session began with sions among seminarians were hermeneutical tality bespoke hope for “a better dialogue in TJane Eberwein reminding attendees that, rather than theological,” Leader focused at- Heaven.” when Emily Dickinson was born, the Con- tention on Horace Bushnell’s radically meta- gregational Church was still legally estab- phoric approach to scripture that ignited the Roger Lundin carried this discussion of in- lished in Massachusetts and faith closely tied “paper wars” fought in theological journals. tellectual/artistic affiliations into the twenti- to citizenship. Three speakers then discussed Two passages from Dickinson’s writing that eth century by beginning “Vicariously from complexities within the poet’s local religious Leader highlighted were a letter declaring Vesuvius: Dickinson Meets the World” with culture as well as ways the broader world that “The Fiction of ‘Santa Claus’…illus- reference to Alfred Hitchcock as one of many influenced Dickinson’s thinking and expres- trates – Revelation” and the poem “What is – creative analogies useful in helping Dick- sion. ‘Paradise,’” (Fr241) both prompting Leader’s inson’s readers cope with what Jay Leyda conclusion that “Dickinson’s confidence in termed her “omitted center.” Positing a con- Jennifer Leader discussed contentions with- language as a medium that could yield stable nection between her seclusion and the cre- in New England Congregational circles in interpretations over time…is more akin to ative use she made of biblical language and “‘Wicked as I am, I read my Bible some- Bushnell’s belief in language as living meta- her religious training, Lundin identified forces times’: Emily Dickinson in Her New Eng- phor than her friend Wadsworth’s sense that counteracting her isolation: newspapers and land Hermeneutical Community,” highlight- language is ‘true representation.’” books along with friends who became “her ing disputes over biblical interpretation that vicarious representatives in the world.” Argu- shaped the poet’s approach to language. Richard Brantley reinforced Leader’s ob- ing that Dickinson engaged in what Kenneth Leader traced three main lines of scriptural servation that Dickinson waged her struggle Burke calls the “borrowing back” of religious reading available to Dickinson: Presbyterian/ for religious knowledge within a community terminology, he discussed “Should you but Princeton Scholasticism; Congregational/ rather than in isolation when he placed her in a fail – at Sea – ” (Fr275) and “The Soul selects New Divinity; and Congregational/New broadly inclusive intellectual context in “The her own Society” (Fr409) to show how she Haven. Leaders of the New Divinity school Interrogative Mood of Emily Dickinson’s “borrowed back” Calvinist language of elec- included theologians Edwards Amasa Park Quarrel with God.” Brantley emphasized tion. Although Lundin judged that such uses and Henry Boynton Smith, educators Ed- how she gravitated toward “obstinate ques- of biblical language served Dickinson well at ward Hitchcock and Mary Lyon, and First tionings” rather than trying to resolve thorny times of psychological strength, he posited Church ministers Aaron Colton and Henry problems in theodicy. Emphasizing “Appar- that “in times of difficulty and doubt…she Hubbell. Horace Bushnell was the most influ- ently with no surprise – ” as key to her think- turned to a form of Lutheran psychology that ential thinker in the Yale group, and Edward ing, he argued that she “sarcastically gives up drew upon the Incarnation in ways Calvinism Dwight and Jonathan Jenkins represented on God and triumphantly spurns Him with- rarely did.” Like Brantley, Lundin stressed that tradition within the Amherst church. out either denying that He existed, at least in her attention to “the incarnational humanity Charles Hodge and Charles Wadsworth were the past, or waiving the right to speak with of Jesus,” concluding that the suffering Jesus key figures within the Princeton group. Lead- Him again.” Her tough-minded persistence provided her companionship in the wilder- er connected their concerns to Dickinson’s, in questioning distinguished Dickinson from ness and “enabled her to become, through her arguing that these theological teachers “won- Wordsworth and aligned her more closely letters, an emissary of the kind Higginson, dered about the viability of personal experi- to Darwin, Dostoevsky, and Hopkins. In his Bowles, Wadsworth, and others had been for ence in the perception of spiritual truths and treatment of the “cat and mouse game” of her.” Lively discussion followed these three about the role of propositional or figurative divinely sanctioned suffering, Brantley paid illuminating papers, raising issues regarding language in its interpretation.” Pointing out particular attention to Dickinson’s sympathy such questions as the sources of her knowl- that “in the years of Dickinson’s child- and with the suffering, human Jesus, suggesting edge about both the Higher Criticism and Lu- early adulthood…the most vigorous discus- that Dickinson’s continuing focus on immor- theran thought.

November/December 2013 | 9 Emily Dickinson World Citizen

Emily Dickinson’s “Supposed Person” and the Art of Dramatic Lyric By Marianne Noble

Presenters: Páraic Finnerty, University of Portsmouth, UK; Paula Bernat Bennett, Southern Illinois University Car- bondale emerita; Faith Barrett, Duquesne University; Respondent: Cristanne Miller, Universtiy of Buffalo

aradigm-Changing.” “I will never see Em- sonality in order to get inside those of others. poetry was far more porous than it is today and Pily Dickinson the same way again.” “This Thus the speaker and the poem in both Dick- poetry was viewed generally as a performative is going to be a major new trend in Dickinson inson and Browning express different mean- art – a fact supported by the enormous popu- scholarship.” ings. Rather, the poem offers an opportunity larity of the dramatic lyric itself. The poems to listen to, inhabit, and assess the intimate do not give voice to a singular, coherent, uni- These are some the phrases overheard fol- thoughts of another; its meaning resides in fied and stable self, but rather one constituted lowing the panel on “Dickinson’s Supposed the judgment the auditor brings to it. Dickin- in contradictions. Bennett concluded with Persons.” This convergence of seasoned Dick- son’s imitative use of the dramatic monologue a quotation from Jed Deppman’s Trying to inson scholars, all with multiple books on form, for Finnerty, suggests a sympathetic and Think With Emily Dickinson (2008): these po- Dickinson to their credit, gave the weight of democratic ethos pervading her poems in the ets “became aware of themselves as sites of authority to the new approach they were ad- “I” voice. intellectual conflict torn or traversed by com- vocating. peting language games and they responded Paula Bennett agreed that Dickinson writes with great intensity, passion, and creativity, by The presenters shared central argument is that dramatic monologues rather than lyrics ex- developing a “variorum” poetics that scattered we must take far more seriously Dickinson’s ploring her private subjectivity. She cited a their voices into myriad personae and vocabu- claim that “When I state myself, as the Repre- similar idea in Jane Eberwein’s 1981 book, laries.” sentative of the Verse – it does not mean – me Dickinson: Strategies of Limitation, which ar- – but a supposed person” (L268). We must let gued that Dickinson incorporated “a substan- Faith Barrett also finds an unstable self fore- go the conviction that this was somehow a coy tial measure of dramatic objectivity into her grounded in Dickinson’s “I” poems, similarly deflection, they jointly claimed. When we do apparently subjective verse.” Lamenting the using the context of the poetry of her peers so, we discover a poet who was seriously and relative paucity of attention to this claim, Ben- to clarify her claims. Her paper suggested consistently attempting to think and feel her nett cheerfully observed a trend towards ap- that we can gain a clearer sense of Dickin- way into the experiences of others, commu- preciating Dickinson’s dramatic monologues son’s voice by comparing her poetry to that nicate their experiences, establish a seriously in recent work by Leigh-Anne Marcellin, Jed of Phoebe Cary. Poems and Parodies opens other-oriented form of poetry. Deppman, Paraic Finnerty, Cristanne Miller, with section of poems that do not challenge and others. Bennett’s paper analyzed the in- genre expectations, and it then features a sec- Paraic Finnerty compared Dickinson’s poems terface between Dickinson’s use of supposed tion of parodies of almost entirely male po- to Robert Browning’s dramatic monologues. persons and that of the poets who were her etic voices. Cary gains aesthetic freedom by He opened by quoting a letter in which Eliza- American peers, many of whom wrote “dra- putting these two forms together, in that she beth Barrett Browning complained that Eng- matic lyrics” rather than careful expressions unsettles our assumptions about the project lish readers dismissed her husband’s works of personal emotion. Bennett cited Julia Ward of the lyric. Barrett then applied the insights as being incomprehensible and – as she put Howe’s poem “The Lyric ‘I,’” which insists gleaned from Cary to clarify points she wanted it – “spasmodic.” But as Finnerty showed, that the speaker of the poems is not Howe to make about Dickinson. She suggested that Americans prized precisely these qualities in herself; rather, the poem is the lyric artwork Dickinson’s seemingly conventional poem “If Browning, finding his dramatic monologues of an infinitely malleable self. Bennett argued I can Stop One Heart from Breaking” might to be democratic (readers participate in mak- that the “I” that Howe describes is the same indicate Dickinson’s determination to claim a ing meaning), individualist, and original. They one to which Dickinson refers, and on which variety of voices, including conventional ones. even appreciated the passion of his “spasmod- the dramatic lyric as a genres turns. Bennett She is neither simply the defiant and ironic ic” verse and its relative obscurity. Accord- distinguished between those dramatic lyrics wife of “Title Divine, is Mine” nor the self- ing to Finnerty, Dickinson modeled her own which testify to the lives of others distinct effacing speaker of “If I can Stop One Heart.” poetry on Browning’s. That is to say, she, like from the poet’s self, and those which focus on Rather, she uses a variety of voice effects to Browning, wrote dramatic monologues. Her the diversity within themselves. In both cases, explore a variety of affects and ideas, in a way “I” poems represent an effort to transcend per- Bennett insisted, “the line between drama and that rejects any sense of a stable “I.”

10 | EDIS Bulletin Emily Dickinson World Citizen

Inscriptions 2 By Melanie Hubbard Presenters: Andrew Dorkin, University of Buffalo; Katelyn Durkin, University of Virginia; Yumiko Koizumi, Ibaraki University, Japan; Chair: Melanie Hubbard, New College of Florida

ndrew Dorkin proposed to look at the writing with printed text. Durkin focused on a into a sacred song by ending the poem with Apoems and letters that contain referenc- columned student ledger containing the poem a full rhyme. The correspondence of sounds es to or depictions of language itself, asking, beginning “We talked with each other” (and in terminating words in the last stanza brings do Dickinson’s recorded thoughts about lan- ending upside down) (A516), as well as on an this heaven to earth through the use of “that guage offer any evidence of her conceiving organ concert programme in which the prose Keyless Rhyme.” A lively conversation was language as a fundamentally visual or mate- fragment valorizes silence while itself using provoked by one of the Conference’s per- rial medium? The evidence points as much to the stops and sounds of its t’s and s’s. Dick- formers, pianist Nicole Panizza, who asked in aural as to visual values, and a reading of the inson stages the poet as student and performer what way a poem directs or opens out to its eye- and ear-rhymes of “One note from One while presenting these relatively fixed and re- oral performance. It seemed clear that Dick- Bird” (Fr1478), implies her trajectory toward petitive functions as negative examples for her inson’s poems lent themselves to “stops” and a poetics that, far from asserting the primacy own notion of the poet as one who engages in “sounds” via syntax, dashes, line breaks, and of either the visual or aural dimensions of lan- fluid processes of creation and interpretation. other decision-points. The discussion also ac- guage, seeks – much more characteristically knowledged that syllable, rhythm, and sound – to cultivate tensions between them. Yumiko Sakata Koizumi presented on the are materials; rhyme in particular seems to need to attend to Dickinson’s deliberate use of insist on this, while also providing the collec- Katelyn Durkin presented an exploration of full rhymes; in a setting marked by deficient tive “song” that the “hum” of a keyless rhyme the poet’s interaction with, not isolation from, rhymes, a full rhyme at the end of a poem might imply. Much talk ensued about jazz print culture by examining Dickinson’s frag- has a great impact. In “Better – than Mu- improvisation, Dickinson’s piano knowledge, ments – her drafts, notes, and word variants sic!” (Fr378), the poet attempts to create the and the poet’s preference of silence to the op- written on scraps of paper that juxtapose her very moment when earthly humming turns pressive tones of the organ.

Orientalisms By Nelly Lambert Presenters: Katsuya Izumi, SUNY, Albany; Yanbin Kang, University of Buffalo; Adam Katz, University of Buffalo; Nelly Lambert, Catholic University

or the “Orientalisms” panel, an audience passages about the East in Emerson and Tho- The discussion that followed, as with many of Fof about fifteen to twenty people gathered reau’s work. these panels, was lively and engaged. Audi- in a small seminar room to listen to four talks ence members helped parse out the difference on allusions or similarities to eastern tradi- Adam Katz used Dickinson as a way into between direct influence and “coincidence” tions in Dickinson’s poetry. a discussion of mindfulness in Buddhism; in Dickinson’s allusions to the East. Kang’s Dickinson’s work partially but not entirely paper spoke of traceable influences; the other Katsuya Izumi outlined principles of Zen matches with these particular Buddhist tenets, three reflected striking coincidences. One au- Buddhism that could be helpful in understand- he claimed. dience member finally asked whether it was ing Dickinson’s references to the mind as an useful to compare Dickinson to traditions with inadequate organ of sense, her inferences that Last, Nelly Lambert discussed wine imag- which she may or may not have been closely death is a form of liberation, and how subject ery in Dickinson’s poetry, comparing it to familiar. Another responded that Emily Dick- and object are often indistinct in her poetry. the rich spiritual, cultural, and philosophical inson would have been delighted by this panel tradition of invoking wine in medieval Per- and the discussion that followed, noting that Yanbin Kang’s talk traced intertextual con- sian poetry to show that Dickinson’s tones these four papers had brought Dickinson, as it nections between Dickinson’s poetry and of ecstasy were “wild and free.” were, around the world.

November/December 2013 | 11 Emily Dickinson World Citizen

Dickinson and Children’s Literature By Barbara Dana Chair: Barbara Dana, playwright, screenwriter, writer, actor; Presenters: Kathryn Burak, Boston University; Lesley Clement, Lakehead University; Burleigh Mutén, children’s writer; Respondent: Eleonar Linafelt, Takoma Park, MD

athryn Burak opened this lively and en- ture.” She explained that liminal space can Anni, asked her mother to help her rearrange Kgaging session by describing the genesis also be used to signify an interior state – a pro- her bedroom so her night table could become of her novel for young adults Emily’s Dress jection of creative power, a metaphor for the her writing table, like Emily’s. She wrote her and Other Missing Things (Roaring Brook imagination. As we followed the exquisite il- first poem that night using phonetic spelling, Press, 2012) the story of a young woman who lustrations pictured on the slides, we noticed later bobbing up and down on her toes as she turns to Dickinson’s poetry looking for kinship the use of liminal space and how it drew in the read her poem to the family. in the darkness and ultimately discovers how reader. With no frames other than the edge of much light, life and redemption she can actual- the page and with images often cropped by the snow falling from ly find there. In Burak’s presentation “At That boundary of the page, the reader is engaged the white sky Exact Moment When Poetry Might Change quickly and dramatically. children playing in Your Life: Bringing Emily Dickinson into the the frosty cold air Lives of Teen Readers through Fiction,” Burak Burleigh Mutén’s delightful presentation, “Our their voices giggle the stars shared her belief that poetry can be a guiding Laughing Goddess of Plenty: Writing About light for teens, perhaps even more than any Dickinson to Capture Young Readers,” point- Respondent, 10th grader Eleanor Linafelt, who other readers. The idea that Dickinson’s poetry ed out that Dickinson was an extraordinary joined EDIS at the age of 7, continues to be might be transformational in young lives was adult in the lives of the children who knew her, an avid fan of Dickinson’s poetry. She told us the pivotal impetus for embarking on her work. sharing their fresh view of the world, their love that what really drew her to the poetry at such She spoke about the importance of authenticity of nature, and at times participating in their a young age was the rhythm of it and the way in writing books meant for teens, after which games. “Not only did Emily Dickinson grow it sounded, but the illustrations and the annota- she read from the book, bringing the story to up in Amherst just like you,” Mutén tells her tions by editors helped greatly in deciphering vibrant life. We were treated to a glimpse into kindergarten students. “She loved nature (just the meaning. Responding to the presentations the mind and subsequently the heart of with straightforward clarity, she shared the main character, young Claire, as we her thoughts. “As Burleigh’s anecdote joined her on a journey filled with mys- about taking her class to The Homestead tery, heartache and humor. and Kathryn’s YA novel suggest,” she explained, “Emily’s house is a perfect Next, Lesley Clement discussed two place to experience the spirit of Emily. children’s books about Dickinson, Jane The character of Claire in Emily’s Miss- Yolen’s The Emily Sonnets: The Life of ing Dress and Other Missing Things Emily Dickinson, illustrated by Gary feels a strong connection to Dickinson Kelley (Creative Editions, 2012) and when she is in the house, and is inspired Isabelle’s Arsenault’s My Letter to the to write poetry of her own. The house World and Other Poems (Kids Can has the same affect on the young girl press, 2008). Her presentation, “The Anni, from Burleigh’s paper. And when Last Resort: Death and Liminal Spaces Lesley Clement presents to an attentive audience. I stood in her bedroom at 7 I felt it too. in Children’s Picture Books on Em- I knew that Emily Dickinson was still ily Dickinson,” included slides of illustrations like you) and she liked to write about it.” We there, in those walls and floor, a liminal space from both books. Clement discussed the suit- were treated to scenes from Mutén’s forthcom- between her life and her death. It takes a child ability of Dickinson’s poetry as a mechanism ing poetic narrative Miss Emily (Candlewick, to feel that kind of enchantment and wonder, to introduce the concept of death to child read- 2014) portraying a midnight escapade to greet and a young imagination, with the help of a ers through the picture book format. Her talk the circus gypsies as they arrive in town by rail few picture books, to feel as though they are focused on the use of liminal space, or spaces in which Miss Emily portrays her loyal com- right back in the 19th century.” defined as those that are “projected outside of mitment to children. The presentation ended society and symbolize a borderland through with a treasure. After taking her kindergartners This was a thoroughly heartwarming and in- which the protagonist passes to re-enter struc- to The Homestead, one of the girls, named spiring panel!

12 | EDIS Bulletin Emily Dickinson World Citizen

Inscriptions By Andrew Dorkin

Presenters: Jayne Chapman, University of New South Wales; Seth Perlow, Oklahoma State University; Stephen Rojcewicz, University of Maryland; Christina Pugh, University of Illinois Chicago

n the first of two panels devoted to Dick- ticipates in the modern literary practice of Became Emily.” A retired psychiatrist cur- Iinson’s “Inscriptions,” three scholars re- fetishizing the writing hand. rently pursuing a Ph.D. at the University of considered Emily Dickinson’s manuscripts Maryland, the conference’s host institution, as literary and historical objects – not only as The second presentation was “Erased Dickin- Rojcewicz proposed an alternative reading sites of Dickinson’s composition but also as son: Janet Holmes and the Trace as Historical of Dickinson’s poem “The Crickets sang” perpetual canvases for creative interpretation Absence” by Seth Perlow, an assistant profes- (Fr1104). The final line of this poem, printed or manipulation. sor at Oklahoma State. The object of Perlow’s in type, “And so the Night became –, ” is inquiry was Holmes’s The ms of m y kin the final line of a letter-poem sent to Susan Jayne Chapman, a doctoral candidate from (2009) a strategic erasure of The Poems of Dickinson, immediately preceding her signa- the University of New South Wales, opened Emily Dickinson that transforms Dickinson’s ture “Emily.” But this signature, Rojcewicz the panel with her essay “Fetishizing Em- Civil War-era poems into a commentary on argued, offers itself as the object of the verb ily Dickinson’s Hand.” From her title, one 2000s political history and especially the “became,” such that the line properly reads, might expect a critique of scholars who wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Perlow posed “And so the Night became Emily”; examin- “fetishize” Dickinson’s hand-writing and questions about the meaning and function of ing the way this changes the meaning, syntax, manuscripts, but Chapman defied such ex- Holmes’s “conversation” with Dickinson: and prosody of the poem, his presentation pectations by arguing instead that Dickinson why does Holmes need Dickinson? what does highlighted the intricate flexibility of Dickin- fetishized her own hand in writing. Taking it mean to find, for example, Dick Cheney hid- son’s compositions. Interpreting Dickinson’s for granted that Dickinson devoted “incred- den beneath the surface of Dickinson’s texts? identification with the night as identification ible attention” to the details of her hand- Reading The ms of m y kin as an act of Dick- with sexuality, danger, and gender flexibility, writing, Chapman focused on references to inson criticism, Perlow argued that we should Rojcewicz also read the poem’s opening line hands in Dickinson’s poems – particularly reconceive Holmes’s erasure as redaction in as an allusion to Shakespeare’s Cymbeline, instances where Dickinson writes about order to illuminate its disciplinary functions; where the phrase “The crickets sing” appears hands while writing by hand. By comparing under this paradigm, Perlow invited the audi- in the context of gender-disguise and danger. such references – in poems like “The Spirit ence to imagine actually erasing a Dickinson Underscoring the broader implications of his last – but in what mode – ” (Fr1627), “Going manuscript, to ponder what such an act would argument, Rojcewicz concluded his presenta- to Him! Happy letter!” (Fr277), and “There mean and what its consequences would be. tion by insisting on the importance of exam- is a word / Which bears a sword” (Fr42) – ining all manuscript versions when attempt- to Roy Ellen’s four processes of fetishism, Stephen Rojcewicz presented the panel’s ing a comprehensive reading of a Dickinson Chapman demonstrated how Dickinson par- third and final paper, entitled “The Night poem.

Dickinson Pop-Culture Trivia and Prizes! By Kate Dunning

Presenters: Scott Pett, Rice University; Jessica Beard, University of California at Santa Cruz; Catherine Forsa, Case Western Reserve University; Nate Allen, University of Buffalo

t this year’s international conference, the many aspects of contemporary popular cul- science and archive formation, digital interac- Agraduate student members of EDIS were ture, as well as popular culture in Dickinson’s tion with Dickinson, an interactive creative delighted not only to participate in numerous time, the panel included pecha kucha style writing exercise, a “‘Hope’ is the thing with panels, but to host a panel considering Dick- presentations, a Polish YouTube video rendi- feathers” magnet for all participants, and a de- inson and popular culture as well. Reflecting tion of one of Dickinson’s poem, questions of licious Dickinson-inspired snack.

November/December 2013 | 13 Emily Dickinson World Citizen

Scott Pett, a Ph.D. student from Rice Universi- Catherine Forsa, a Ph.D. student at Case the site, whether it be managing forums, pro- ty, presented “Representations of ‘Pure Mad- Western Reserve University in Cleveland, viding usage feedback and update suggestions, ness’ in Polish Media.” Pett began by catch- took advantage of the popular culture panel or raising awareness among graduate students, ing the entire room off guard with a bizarre, to use some popular culture technology to should contact Kate Dunning (crd60@case. slightly grotesque music video titled “Czyste present from afar. Her presentation, “Crys- edu). Visit www.edisgrad.org and sign up for a Szalenstwo,” translated into Polish from talline Planes: Measures of Science, Feeling, free login to see the website. “Much Madness is divinest Sense.” While the and Form in Dickinson’s Science Poetry” video, for the audience, appeared to come out switched gears a little bit to bring to the panel The panel rounded out with Kate Dunning of nowhere, Pett spent the next few minutes some questions about popular culture during passing around several stacks of Dickinson contextualizing the 2009 independently fund- Dickinson’s time. Forsa’s pecha kucha style related children’s books and leading a Dick- ed film by Michael Jaskulski within Polish art presentation explored Dickinson’s depiction inson inspired creative writing exercise. In and history. Ultimately, Pett illustrated that the of measurement, working together the threads one of the books, the fictionalized Emily representation in the film stemmed directly of science, feeling, and poetic form that Forsa grumbles about having to make everything – from “a long tradition of nightmarish aesthet- argues are prevalent in Dickinson’s science like butter, flour, and her baked goods – from ics in Polish media.” poems. Using the poem “After great pain, a scratch when it would be immensely easier to formal feeling comes –, ” Forsa illustrated that buy them ready made. In a nod to one of the Jessica Beard, a Ph.D. student working on Dickinson’s science poems frequently view popular stories about Dickinson, as well as her dissertation at the University of Califor- seemingly empirical truths from new perspec- the presumption that Dickinson would have nia Santa Cruz, presented her work on “Em- tives. loved a bread maker had she been able to get ily Dickinson’s Archive at Play.” Beard, the her hands on one, Dunning passed around general editor of the Dickinson Electronic Ar- Buffalo based web designer Nate Allen shared freshly made, historically accurate ginger- chive, pushed the audience to challenge their the most recent updates in the ongoing devel- bread, as well as a history of gingerbread conception of the Dickinson archive and how opment of the graduate student website. This recipes over the past six centuries. Who knew we use it. Her expertly executed pecha kucha online space is meant to be a virtual communi- that Dickinson and popular culture could presentation shared her exploration of how the ty bringing together graduate students around taste so good? work of Jay Leyda and Joseph Cornell relates the world who are interested in Dickinson. to the Dickinson archive. In particular, Beard Non-graduate students are welcome to join Overall, the panel offered a wide variety of advocated Leyda’s approach to Dickinson’s the site, with the understanding that every- approaches to questions of historical and con- biography as an example of how one might re- thing is organized around the graduate student temporary popular culture in the context of sist accepting the archive as a solidified record. perspective. Anyone interested in helping with Emily Dickinson’s life and writing.

Conditions By Dan Manheim

Presenters: Mita Bose, Indraprastha College for Women, University of Delhi; Jill Spivey Caddell, Cornell Univer- sity; Alison Fraser, University of Buffalo; Amanda Licato, University of California Berkeley

espite their different topics, the four plored the importance of Dickinson’s voice found on the internet, Dickinson was “a hero Dpresenters on this panel all considered for readers in her native India, where in addi- because she was a joker.” Dickinson’s channels to “oblique places” – tion to multiple contemporary translations of oblique, that is, from the Amherst-centered the poems currently being undertaken, there Jill Spivey Caddell delivered a rich and universe in which readers have traditionally are also performances of the poems and even complicated paper entitled “War’s Oblique seated the poet. Emily Dickinson impersonators. Likewise, Places: Dickinson, Higginson, and the Ge- there are similarly avid readers in many oth- ographies of Correspondence.” Centering Mita Bose’s paper on what she coins as Dick- er countries: the poet’s role-playing invites in Dickinson’s famous letter to Higginson inson’s “Enigmatical Sublime,” addressed readers to play roles: Dickinson is became in South Carolina (L280), she addressed the the poet as “an enduring world icon for fe- a model of how to escape stereotypes. Ac- ways in which correspondence during the male dissent and self sufficiency.” She ex- cording to one Japanese reader whom Bose war proved a means for writers to meditate

14 | EDIS Bulletin Emily Dickinson World Citizen on distance, time, and their personal relation Alison Fraser likewise considered Dickin- more boys to send to war.” In general, Fraser to the public catastrophe of civil conflagra- son’s voices as reflecting on the Civil War. sees the poem as expressing the “domestic im- tion. The letter could in some sense “follow She, however, in line with papers earlier in pact the war had on women of the era.” the soldier to the battlefield,” while simulta- the conference about the art of dramatic lyric, neously acknowledging the writer’s disloca- argued, in “Dickinson’s Domestic Battle- Women’s domesticity was also the subject tion from the action on which she comments. front,” that the notorious crux, “Rearrange a of Amanda Licato’s paper, “‘I tried to match Thus her remark in that letter that Higginson ‘Wife’s’ Affection” (Fr267) can be read as a it – Seam by Seam – / But could not make had become “improbable” to her must be monolog in the voice of a woman on the home them fit –’: Clothing, Sewing, and Self in seen in the light of the temporal disjunction front, articulating a domestic reaction to the the Poetry of Emily Dickinson.” Licato con- in which letters were unlikely to arrive at war that partakes of battlefield language and fessed that it was her first conference paper, all; in which conditions reported in one let- imagery. Noting Dickinson’s awareness of but it was with seasoned assurance that she ter would certainly have been superseded women making supplies for soldiers, she sug- explained how Dickinson, a “poet of border- by further events by the time the letter was gested that some of the terms from the poem lands,” used seam imagery in order to negoti- read; and in which the attempt to defy the – “crown,” “thorns,” “diadem,” “bandage” – ate questions of stability and instability, parts difference between the domestic world of could be seen as figuring dressings of a head and wholes, interiors and exteriors. The im- the writer and the space of war gives way to wound in addition to their more conspicuous age addresses those parts of the self that aren’t a spatial/temporal deferral of the reconcilia- Christian associations. And she described a complete, that struggle to find a fit. Sewing tion of the separated correspondents. Dick- court case Dickinson likely knew about in imagery enabled Dickinson to engage house- inson’s letters to the battlefield meditated on which a Lysistrata-like woman deserted her hold economy and commercial labor, as well that paradox. marriage bed because she “refused to have any as psychology and aesthetic form.

Affect By Anne Ramirez

Presentors: Patrice Chaudron, University of Buffalo; Ann Shih-Yuan Chou, National Chengchi University; Laura Dawkins, Murray State University; Anne Ramirez, Neumann University; Dali Tan, University of Maryland

hese panelists explored Dickinson’s re- presentation, “Where the Meanings Are – The described is not “now” but still to be antici- Tception and influence from a wide range unpresentable in Emily Dickinson’s Love pated. of perspectives across time and space. In “A Poems.” She noted that Dickinson’s cryptic Route of Evanescence: Emily Dickinson’s language calls upon the reader to take part Laura Dawkins examined a very different New England Moment of Modernity in the in making meaning; the poet often begins in selection of poems in “Their coming back 1890’s,” Patrice Chaudron described the im- the midst of an experience or event without seems possible: Dickinson’s Ghosts.” Af- pressions of Dickinson’s early reviewers, who providing background information about the ter summarizing psychoanalytical theories tended to categorize her as a New England lo- imagined relationship. Dickinson’s silences concerning the inner phantoms often imag- cal-color writer with marked eccentricities in often suggest that the nature of love cannot be ined and assimilated by mourners, Dawkins her language. Many reviewers emphasized her fully presented in words. Shih-Yan Chou con- focused on a number of Gothic poems. In biography; some regarded her as an outdated cluded by interpreting three poems, “There some the speaker tries to subsume the lost recluse while others saw her as proto-modern- came a Day – at Summer’s full – (Fr325), loved one’s phantom into her own being, ist in form, if not in content. One must recall “Forever at His side to walk” Fr264, and “He while in others the speaker presents herself that these early readers had access to only a was my host – he was my guest” (Fr724), as as following the beloved dead into a kind of small fraction of Dickinson’s poems. Particu- illustrations of Dickinson’s ideal relationship. shadowed half-way existence between time larly interesting was Chaudron’s explanation In subsequent discussion, it was suggested and eternity. Such poems may demonstrate of conflict arising between those who roman- that these poems portray a rather subordi- the speaker’s longing for connection with the ticized Dickinson’s work as the spontaneous nate female voice rather than an independent dead even at the price of her own psychic in- overflow of feelings and those who thought woman’s perspective. Others believe the po- tegrity, yet Dawkins notes that Dickinson can she was trying too hard to make an impression. ems imply a balanced relationship rather than detach herself from the mood she is describ- a master – handmaid scenario. Furthermore, ing – consciously crafting the poem from a Shih-Yuan Chou examined Dickinson’s com- “Forever at His side to walk” concludes with stance outside the emotional turmoil within plex treatment of human relationships in her the impression that the happy existence just it.

November/December 2013 | 15 Emily Dickinson World Citizen

In “Emily Dickinson’s Momentous Mission er world, to be crafted into missives of good ism and other Eastern philosophies through – Messenger Between the Worlds,” Anne news to recipients in distant lands or times. her intensive reading of Ralph Waldo Em- Ramirez approached Dickinson’s role as As a mysterious example of poets transmit- erson. Dali Tan explained that Dickinson’s “World Citizen” through the perspective of ting remarkably similar messages with simi- work and Chinese poetics have striking af- the poet’s own use of the word “world” and lar imagery, “A solemn thing within the soul” finities in their emphasis on the affective- related travel imagery. Very often, Dickinson (Fr467) was compared to Robert Frost’s “Af- expressive rather than the mimetic. Both employs the word “world” in reference to the ter Apple-Picking,” – which was composed also share continual experimentation with temporal world and the world to come, rather prior to any known publication of this Dick- language to create ambiguity and multiple than in a spatial or geographical context. The inson poem. meanings, and both place importance on the possibility, difficulty, or methods of travel or senses of taste and smell – difficult to forget communication between this world and the Finally, Dali Tan traced even more remote but hard to describe. Comparing and con- next, or between past, present, and future on parallels between Dickinson and other poets trasting the poetic sensibilities of different a more modest scale, are among her lifelong in her fascinating presentation “Emily Dick- cultures can foster new reading dynamics of preoccupations. In addition to several poems inson’s Affectivism: Decoding the Power of Dickinson and help us better understand the directly illustrating this pattern, Ramirez ex- Her Poems from the Perspective of Chinese power of her poetry. The combined effect of amined the late poem “Cosmopolites without Poetics. Direct influence remains difficult this panel’s presentations was to justify our a plea” (Fr1592) and other examples of the to uncover, but it is possible that Dickinson contemporary perception that Dickinson ap- poet’s claim to receive messages from anoth- could have derived some elements of Tao- peals to an impressive variety of readers.

Ecocriticism By Lesley Clement Presenters: Kate Dunning, Case Western Reserve University; Mary Kuhn, Boston University; Leslie McAbee, Uni- versity of North Carolina; Emer Vaughn, Indiana University; Chair: Ellen Louise Hart, Portland State University

know the Butterfly – and the Lizard – and nition of nature poetry, which opens the worm is the ecologically ethical course of I the Orchis – potential for what Scigaj, citing Robert human action. Finally, for Scigaj, an eco- Pack’s afterword to Poems for a Small poet consciously writes to effect change Are not those your Countrymen? (L268) Planet (1993), describes as “‘a morality of through poetry that recognizes and raises Given Dickinson’s empathy with nature, restraint,’ ‘reverence,’ appreciation of nat- awareness of the complex cycles and con- it is not surprising that more and more ural beauty and a ‘capacity for empathy’ nections that keep humanity always with- scholars are approaching her work from toward nonhuman nature.” To illustrate, in and inherently part of nature. Because ecocritical perspectives. This session ex- Dunning examined Dickinson’s “The Day capturing the state of silence is essential amined the ways in which Dickinson fits came slow – till Five o’clock.” By set- to raise awareness, the visual and auditory – and does not fit – into the arena of eco- ting the poem up to appear as though hu- silences of “A Bird, came down the Walk” criticism. manity is the central figure around which (Fr359), Dunning suggested, encourage a nature is seen and then complicating this rethinking of the implications and values Appropriately, therefore, the presentations figuring, Dickinson both emphasizes and of Dickinson’s anthropomorphism. began with Kate Dunning’s “The Ecopo- undermines the ease with which we as etics of Emily Dickinson,” which imme- humans are willing to read the experi- With Dunning’s excellent overview of diately made the point that, although an ence and texts anthropocentrically. En- how each approach situates the human in application of ecocritical theories to Dick- vironmental poetry, according to Scigaj, relation to nature and how Dickinson’s inson’s poetry shifts our understanding of brings in a sense of ethics through human unsettling view of nature can contribute and attitudes towards the nature-human responsibility and accountability. To il- to the ecocritical conversation, the stage relationship, Dickinson is not an ecopoet. lustrate, Dunning examined Dickinson’s was set for an in-depth look at how this Dunning drew upon Leonard Scigaj’s cat- “Our little Kinsmen – after Rain” (Fr932), can be accomplished. Mary Kuhn’s paper egories in Sustainable Poetry (1999) to concluding that the speaker’s discovery on “Every Flower that Grows from Am- develop and explain her thesis. Much of of the history of the worms and the bird herst to Cashmere: Dickinson’s Global Dickinson’s poetry fits into Scigaj’s defi- influences the decision that “leaving” the Floral Network” and Leslie McAbee’s

16 | EDIS Bulletin Emily Dickinson World Citizen on “‘Memories of Palm’: Dickinson’s tion that Dickinson “untethers cultural inson in the context of the gradual transat- Tropical Commodities and Unstable Ge- and racial stereotypes” through “Eastern lantic decline of natural theology and rise ographies” looked to the natural world of figures” that “achieve a level of freedom of evolutionary theory, approaching her exotic plants and animals, respectively, and volatility that rattles the stability of poetry as a unique medium for investigat- finding connections in Dickinson’s poetry Western narratives of cultural and racial ing how these changing understandings of between the local and the global. Kuhn’s dominance.” the human’s place in the material world paper on global floral networks used the impact the sense of self. With her shift- domestic garden to unsettle our sense of Emer Vaughn’s paper, “The Circulatory ing subjectivities, Dickinson challenges Dickinson as an a-political poet, linking Self: Emily Dickinson’s Trans-Corpo- her readers through encounters with ani- gardens to imperialism and colonialism. reality,” returned to ecocritcal theory, mals, environments, and organic remains. For example, Kuhn observed that Dick- combining trans-corporeality with natu- Her poetry uses trans-corporeality to draw inson’s herbariums contain samples from ral history to draw further connections readers into a distinctly ecocritical posture not only her own garden but also the spe- between the local and the global in Dick- of respectful uncertainty rather than confi- cies that her friends sent her from Syria, inson’s poetry. Vaughn argued that, at the dent assurance. Lebanon, Greece, and other Southern level of individual identity, an awareness European and Middle Eastern regions, of natural history prompted Dickinson to A wide-ranging question-and-answer pe- which through garden and floral imagery imagine embodied subjectivities which riod followed, with much of the discus- find their way into her poetry and thus are traversed by environmental factors sion focusing on issues of gender and juxtapose the global and local. McAbee and which may inhabit multiple scales of post-humanism theorists such as Karen concluded her paper with the observa- space and time. Her paper situated Dick- Barad.

(Im)mortality By Anne Ramirez

Presenters: Karen Dovell, SUNY Suffolk Community College; Mary Schuhriemen, Catholic University

ersonal emergencies unfortunately The Battle of Thermopylae, in which horrors of warfare in “Dickinson’s Para- Pprevented three panelists from at- Spartan soldiers gave their lives defending doxical Union of War and Nature in a tending the EDIS conference. However, a mountain pass against the invading Per- New Civil War Poem.” She provided a the panel’s excellent quality was most re- sians, was repeatedly used in nineteenth- brief overview of scholarly work on the warding despite the lack of quantity. As century media as a symbol of heroic self- influence of the Civil War on Dickinson’s the two presentations were both related sacrifice, in reference to the Battle of the poetry, noting that numerous texts tra- to the subject of war and focused on a Alamo, the Mexican War, and the Civil ditionally read as nature poems are now limited number of specific poems, they War. Dickinson alludes to Thermopylae in believed to employ metaphors of nature precipitated a very lively discussion that poems Fr524, Fr1023, Fr1584, and in two to express the poet’s reactions to the war. filled most of the time available. letters. She acknowledges the soldiers’ courage but grimly questions whether Moving to her own extensive analysis of First, Karen Dovell explained her research such sacrifice is really necessary or worth- “The Sunrise runs for Both – ” (Fr765), on Dickinson’s references to Western clas- while, speculates about their immortality, Schuhriemen explained that this poem was sical tradition in “Classical Thermopylae and indicates her interest in the messen- written in 1863, a few months after the Bat- in Works by Emily Dickinson: War, Death, ger who escaped to tell the tale (thereby tle of Fredericksburg in December of 1862. and Immortality.” Although many scholars ensuring at least the immortality of fame The puzzling references to “Both” and have documented Dickinson’s familiarity for those who lost their lives). Dovall is “Two” become much clearer when the first with classical philology, history, mythol- currently working on a book which will stanza is read in this light. Most interesting ogy, and philosophy, there has been rela- include many other examples of Dickin- was the presenter’s research concerning the tively little focus on the poet’s actual ad- son’s adaptation of classical tradition. second stanza: on the night following the aptation of this knowledge in her poems, in battle there was a magnificent display of the the context of nineteenth-century American Mary Schuhriemen continued the theme Northern Lights, rarely seen so far south as reception of Greek and Latin tradition. of Dickinson’s reservations about the Virginia. This event of nature was not men-

November/December 2013 | 17 Emily Dickinson World Citizen tioned in any official news accounts, but Someone asked whether Dickinson might an independent thinker who was very much reported in several soldiers’ letters to their have known President Lincoln’s view of aware of contemporary affairs. It might be families. The final stanza employs imagery the Southerners as brothers, with whom appropriate to arrange more panels in the of the night embracing dead soldiers from Northerners should re-unite without mal- future that focus on a relatively small selec- “Both” sides, implying the poet’s distress ice. Since this was not the attitude of the tion of poems, fostering such fruitful group once again at the destructiveness of war majority in the North, both presentations discussion of Dickinson’s outstanding liter- contrasting with the calm beauty of nature. contributed to the portrait of Dickinson as ary achievements.

Citizenship By Cindy MacKenzie

Presenters: Sean Ash Gordon, University of Massachusetts Amherst; Dan Manheim, Centre College; Vivian Pollak, Washington University; Stephanie Tingley, Youngstown University; Marcy Tanter, Tartleton University

n the faculty lounge of Tawes Hall, a lation derived from private expressions poem sequences. Excerpts from Rukey- Ilarge crowd listened to five engaging of sorrow that could ultimately partici- ser reading helped to illustrate her mode and varied approaches to the question pate in public projects of reconciliation. of writing. of citizenship, the thematic emphasis of The accessibility to others’ pain in times this year’s conference, in Dickinson’s of suffering and the ways in which sym- Stephanie Tingley used a power point work. In the first paper, “Dickinson and pathy could work to reconcile a divided presentation to outline the way that Dick- Democratic Citizenship,” Sean Ash Gor- nation grew into a larger vision of her inson teaches her readers to think global- don questioned the way that Dickinson’s own poetic project, one in which the per- ly across both space and time. Referring poetry speaks to the experience of demo- sonal could embrace a wider democratic to the online archive “The Classroom cratic citizenship despite her apparent ab- sphere. Manheim ended his talk with ref- Electric (http://www.classroomelectric. sence of explicitly political commentary erence to the relevance of the powerful org/volume1/gruesz/index.htm), Tingley and her legendary reclusiveness. Raising poem by Yehuda Amichai, “Diameter of emphasized Dickinson’s geographical questions regarding her definition of po- the Bomb,” in which the repercussions of imagery and the resources that promoted litical terms such as “equality” and “de- a specific bombing spread throughout the it: education at Amherst College, lit- mocracy,” Gordon seeks to correct such world. erature, magazines, newspapers, and of misconceptions of the poet’s public inter- course, atlases. est by finding evidence of a political phi- In “Muriel Rukeyser, Emily Dickinson, losophy in both the content as well as in and Visionary Citizenship,” Vivian Pol- Finally, Marcy Tanter talked about the the formal characteristics of the poems. lak began with the question, “what is work of Elizabeth Stearns Tyler, who Gordon emphasized that his work is mo- it to be a visionary citizen?” Pollak’s served in France as secretary and inter- tivated by a belief in the capacity of liter- presentation, an excerpt from a larger preter for medical staff as part of the ature as a resource for becoming a better project of her study of poets after Dick- American Red Cross. Of particular inter- citizen so that he states at the end of his inson, emphasizes Muriel Rukeyser’s est to Tanter are the letters Tyler wrote presentation, “while political theory can representations of Dickinson in her 1949 home because they provide a view of the enhance literature, so, too, literature can manifesto, The Life of Poetry, in which end of the war that we do not typically enhance political theory.” Dickinson as woman poet exemplifies encounter. Martha Dickinson Bianchi, the problem of cultural waste. Referenc- a close family friend to Tyler, wrote an In “Emily Dickinson’s Republic of Suf- ing the Spasmodic poets who created elegy to her included in the publication fering,” Dan Manheim explored several gaps by way of voicing emotional inten- of her letters. As a “world citizen,” Tyler poems Dickinson composed in the after- sities, Pollak emphasizes the importance applied the values instilled in her home math of the Civil War to demonstrate how of voice and oral presentation in Rukey- in Massachusetts, to selflessly aid the she sought to develop a poetics of conso- ser’s theory of constructing of effective people of ravaged France.

18 | EDIS Bulletin Emily Dickinson World Citizen

Emily Dickinson’s Transatlantic, Transtemporal Contexts By Susanna Compton

Presenters: Elizabeth Petrino, Fairfield University; Cindy MacKenzie, University of Regina; Michelle Kohler, Tu- lane University; Melissa Girard, Loyola Baltimore

elissa Girard, Michelle Kohler, Cindy dead authors, arguing against a reading like poem, “Alone and in a Circumstance.” Work- MMacKenzie and Elizabeth Petrino each Jackson’s. By way of conclusion, Kohler sug- ing with the manuscript of the poem, Petrino considered ways in which Emily Dickinson gested takeaways for reading Dickinson’s own interpreted the collage poem as a text and a and her poetry extend beyond her contempo- “last poems,” which are, in effect, all of them. material object, which represented the female rary moment and New England location to Kohler introduced a dialectic between mis- creative artist. Given the article clippings reach a wide array of locales and literary eras, ery and jubilee, as Dickinson’s poetry is both about George Sand which Dickinson placed both during her life and posthumously. about her and detached from her: it is ours. on her collage, Petrino suggested that Dickin- son identified with certain elements of Sand’s First to present was Melissa Girard. She exam- Cindy MacKenzie investigated Emily Dickin- life: separation from her husband, bohemian ined Dickinson’s modernist reception and im- son’s participation in the widely debated po- life, her writing habits, transvestism, and her pact on literary culture, primarily in the realm litical issue of marital union in the nineteenth rejection of fame. of women’s poetry in the twentieth century. century. MacKenzie discussed the very pub- Girard contrasted reviews of Dickinson’s po- lic nature of the nineteenth-century marriage Petrino also interpreted Dickinson’s use of etry to reveal and complicate Dickinson’s con- contract and outlined how this contract would legal language, which embodied the central nection to imagism. beget “legal oneness” for man and woman. concern of the role of the female artist vis–à– Given the tradition of biblical male authority, vis the public, regarding the pressures of the Girard cited the conflicting reviews of Harriet union thus essentially reduced “the couple” to domestic sphere. Issues of intellectual prop- Monroe, Elizabeth Shepley Sergeant and Amy “the husband.” erty are at play, Petrino argued, and Dickinson Lowell to reveal different receptions of Dick- wished to find an alternate space for creation, inson, and juxtaposed an opening of Dickinson Through readings of Emily Dickinson’s mar- therein challenging preconceived notions of to a broader aesthetic world with the ground- riage poems, MacKenzie raised questions of poetry and presentation. ing of her poetry in American soil. Girard also love, commitment, and public drew on the literary criticism of Louise Bogan, order, ultimately asking whether arguing that her definition of “mysticism” al- Emily Dickinson could assume lowed modernist women poets to look back citizenship for herself, an unmar- to the nineteenth century, with a “formal lan- ried woman. In a sense, Dickinson guage” for their literary experiments. becomes a disenfranchised wife – or, “nobody.” Her poetry thus Michelle Kohler followed Girard by consid- allowed her to act as a non-citizen ering Dickinson’s poems about the deaths speaker staging a coup, MacK- of Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Charlotte enzie argued. Returning to ques- Brontë. Kohler prompted us to consider how tions of identity – does a woman readers mourn the (literal) death of authors, have an individual identity if the citing Virginia Jackson’s argument that Dick- husband is the full citizen of the inson hoped her readers would reconstruct her house? What is the identity of an contemporary moment and imagine the “his- unmarried woman? – MacKenzie torical person of Dickinson” through reading. reminded us that in Dickinson’s poetry, identity is “a process of be- Kohler presented several close readings, of coming.” poems Fr600 (“Her – last Poems –”), Fr637 (“I went to thank Her –”), Fr627 (“I think I Panel chair Elizabeth Petrino was enchanted”), Fr146 (“All overgrown by presented on the transatlan- cunning moss”), and Fr930 (“The Poets light tic connections between Emily but Lamps”). She interpreted these elegies as Dickinson and George Sand, spe- a critique of readings that focus too heavily on cifically evident in Dickinson’s

November/December 2013 | 19 Emily Dickinson World Citizen

World-Class Entertainment for Emily Dickinson World Citizen

By Emily Seelbinder

his already jam-packed conference and playing 1994 recordings of his rock Tfeatured many performers offering ‘n roll settings of three poems. When musical, dramatic, and even digital mash- technical difficulties threatened to derail his up interpretations of Dickinson’s life and presentation, Andrews treated his audience work. So many stimuli! Some might say to deeper insights into his composing process too many, but what or whom would one cut and the “quick gratitude” of working with from the conference program? Certainly not musicians who breathed life into his ideas. the performances of Diana Wagner, whose Sure enough, those songs rocked! guitar and vocals set a convivial tone for the conference’s opening reception and the light The rocking turned rollicking on Friday suppers served in Tawes Hall. evening, when Swedish vocalist Sofie Livebrant took the stage with her guitar, Nor the opening evening’s fare, which began accompanied by Lisa Eriksson Langbacka on with “Chanting to Paradise,” a recital by accordion, to perform some of the more than soprano Jane Sheldon and pianist Nicole twenty songs Livebrant composed over a two- Panizza of music found in Dickinson’s piano year period during which she and Dickinson bench and recently made available for perusal became “inseparable.” The performance online (http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:FHCL. included several songs not on Livebrant’s 2012 HOUGH:10951150). album Emily and I, among them “A Narrow Fellow in the Grass” and “Good Morning, In performing these pieces as Dickinson and Midnight.” The latter of these pulled many in others of her time might have heard them, the audience out of their chairs to frolic among Mac Davis was a bit of a loaded gun himself. Sheldon and Panizza allowed their audience the tables and in front of the stage. Livebrant these was a fascinating digital improvisation to experience the tenderness of familiar folk later posted a video of these festivities with this by Stephanie Strickland and Nick Montfort songs and to appreciate the depth and breadth descriptive comment: “The professors were with Sea and Spar Between, a poetry generator of Dickinson’s musical studies. dancing . . .” (http://www.youtube.com/watch that combines the lexicons of Dickinson’s ?v=wH6O5sHC93c&feature=share). poems and Moby Dick. Musical delights continued in a staged reading from “Wider than the Sky”: The Mystery of Music yielded the floor to drama on Saturday The rest of the evening was devoted to solo Emily Dickinson, written by Barbara Dana and evening in “Vitallist Expressions.” One of performances. Several monologues sought to directed by Anthony Arkin, which fill in blanks in Dickinson’s biography included song settings by Martin through imagined encounters with Hennessy (who also served as pianist her or members of her family. Walter for this performance), Vincent A. (Mac) Davis read from his play Persichetti, William Roy, Drew Abberation of Starlight a riveting Hemenger and others, all beautifully scene focused on the two nights performed by Kathleen Shimeta as Dickinson composed “My Life had “Eternal Emily.” Elizabeth Morton Stood – a Loaded Gun –. ” John Little delivered a strong performance as shared from his work-in-progress, “Emily,” while Laurie McCants and Tell It Slant, an intriguing scene Jamie Smithson brought nuanced in which Susan Gilbert Dickinson differences to their lively readings recalls her first conversation with of a variety of roles. the odd schoolmate with whom she would develop a complex lifelong Thursday evening closed with relationship. In Time Travel with Emily William Andrews introducing Sofie Livebrant and Lisa Eriksson Langabacka struck the right note. Dickinson, MiMi Zannino, in full

20 | EDIS Bulletin Emily Dickinson World Citizen

19th-century costume, wove selections from puppetry, paper-cutting, music, movement, at first sought a date and then wrestled, poems and letters into a lively conversation light and dark, and the weaving together of as Dickinson scholars are wont to do, Dickinson might have had over tea when she words” as “a daughter searches for what it is with dating the poems. Anderson’s efforts and her sister Lavinia visited their father in that ties together her mother, herself, and an to “problematize notions of critical and Washington. elusive poet.” The result is a mesmerizing and editorial authority, explore an ethics of deeply moving experience. criticism, and undermine all possibilities of Other performances explored readers’ certainty” brought great delight, as did all of experiences of Dickinson. Laurie McCants In Sincerely, Master, Emily Anderson took the performances at EDIS 2013. performed excerpts from Industrious Angels, the stage silently, sat in a chair with her a “solo hand-crafted-story-spinning-shadow- back to the audience, and proceeded to Emily Seelbinder teaches at Queens Uni- puppet-play with-music,” which she developed wrap herself in several sheets as she typed versity of Charlotte, North Carolina. She in collaboration with several other artists. In on a laptop. On the screen above her, a also edits a periodic series for the Bulletin McCants’s words, “The story unfolds through digital chat emerged in which the typist on Emily Dickinson and Music.

Further Images from the Conference

Photo courtesy of LeeAnn Gorthey

November/December 2013 | 21 What’s Your Story?

Series Editor, Georgiana Strickland Georgiana Strickland: A Profile of the Editor

By Jane Donahue Eberwein

ike many of the pay attention to LDickinson lovers the smallest detail Georgiana Strickland even as she devel- has profiled for the oped deeper ap- Bulletin’s “What’s preciation for lexi- Your Story?” series, cal nuances. she herself came somewhat belatedly In 1957, Geor- to enthusiasm for the gie married John poet – but not before Strickland, an art- fostering talents that ist, with whom she prepared her to make moved to Michi- exceptional contri- gan while he com- butions to the com- pleted two degrees munity of Dickinson at the Cranbrook readers. As the fa- Academy of Art vorite poem (Fr348) and she worked inscribed on the ci- for the Wayne tation for her Emily State University Dickinson Interna- Press. Later, she tional Society Dis- showed her to be. Georgie does not recall did freelance ed- tinguished Service Award testifies, Georgie studying Dickinson’s poems in the local iting in New York. When her husband’s has brought to her work of editing, organiz- schools but took a different route toward teaching career led the family to Auburn, ing, and documentation the skills and capa- her eventual role by seizing on the invitation Alabama, she worked on publications for bilities honed through a lifetime’s immer- from her eighth-grade teacher to edit the ju- the Cooperative Extension Service. John’s sion in the visual arts, music, and literature. nior high school newspaper. In high school, career move to the University of Kentucky It became apparent when I interviewed her she studied journalism while working on the School of Architecture brought the family for this article during the Society’s August school paper in a city where memories of (by then including daughter Cyndi and son 2013 international conference in Maryland Samuel Bowles and the Springfield Repub- Neal) to Lexington, where Georgie took a that Georgie Strickland’s scholarly accom- lican were still honored. After majoring in position with the University Press of Ken- plishments are deeply grounded in her ex- English at Middlebury College in Vermont, tucky. She worked there for twenty-nine periences as a reporter, editor, musician, Georgie took a job as editorial assistant for years, the last eight as managing editor. She and reader. the Merriam-Webster dictionary publishing credits her husband, a great reader of po- firm in Springfield, the company that had etry, for calling her attention to Dickinson Though born in Chicago to parents who bought the rights to Noah Webster’s diction- and recalls exploring with great interest the sparked her interest in the arts, Georgie ary in the mid-nineteenth century and still “wonderful” yet often “bewildering” poems spent most of her childhood in Springfield regards itself as the “supreme authority” on she encountered in the copy she gave him and Chicopee Falls, Massachusetts, where American English. She characterizes that of Thomas Johnson’s paperbound selection, she heard about Emily Dickinson as a lo- setting as a “somewhat weird place to work Final Harvest. cal poet and something of a “curiosity” but but a great place to start a career in publish- not yet regarded as the major literary fig- ing.” It was in that setting that she learned It was Georgie’s editorial responsibilities ure Thomas Johnson and Richard Sewall to proofread with great accuracy and to that directed her professional attention to

22 | EDIS Bulletin Dickinson. Having edited an earlier book inson collections at Harvard, an announce- to Georgie’s experience of the world. As by William Shurr, she was assigned to edit ment of plans for the Society’s upcoming a child, she studied piano for eight years The Marriage of Emily Dickinson as well. Washington conference, and a note from (as she does again now), and she has sung While checking quotations in Thomas John- Georgie ascribing the “little bit different” in church choirs and in Lexington’s large son’s variorum, she became fascinated with appearance of the Bulletin to the new logo community chorus for many years as well Dickinson’s manner of writing and curious rather than the new editor. Although she as holding leadership positions in the Lex- about how the poems related to the author’s confesses to wondering at first whether she ington Opera Society and its Bravo Guild. experiences. She credits her discovery of could find enough material for two issues a While living in New York, she volun- Dickinson at that point as a profound influ- year, Georgie encountered no problems at- teered for the classical radio station WBAI, ence on her own life. Seeing potential for an tracting contributions as the publication’s where she fell in love with art songs – first invigorating new project, Georgie decided size continued to increase over the eleven Schubert’s, then other German ones, then to devote herself to learning more through and a half years she served as editor. She those in other languages, and most recent- immersing herself in the poems. So she read published news of dramatic, musical, and ly American ones. Her acquaintance with them over and over while also delving into other performances related to Dickinson, Dickinson poems composed in twentieth- Johnson’s and Sewall’s biographies and wherever in the world they were presented. century musical idiom began with Aaron whatever new books came along. Shortly She enlisted Barbara Kelly to handle book Copland’s song settings but soon expanded after her husband’s death in 1987, she rep- reviews and other scholars to edit most of greatly. Friendships with Emily Seelbinder resented the Press at the 1988 Modern Lan- the series that still undergird the Bulletin’s and Virginia Dupuy convinced Georgie guage Association meeting in New Orleans, content: Dickinson and the Visual Arts; Poet that EDIS could stage a musical seminar, where she attended an evening session to Poet; and Dickinson Scholars. As editor, and she credits music faculty at Amherst sponsored by the Emily Dickinson Interna- she attended Board meetings and was then College and the University of Massachu- tional Society. Soon after she joined EDIS, a elected to the Board for successive terms. setts-Amherst, famed vocal coach Martin Bulletin arrived with a notice indicating that After resigning in 2002 (four years after her Katz, Ellen Bacon (widow of composer an editor was needed for that publication. retirement from the Press), Georgie took up Ernst Bacon), and Dickinson scholars Cris- Initial issues had appeared through the good her blue pencil again in 2010 to bring out tanne Miller, Judy Jo Small, and Carolyn offices of Margaret Freeman and Cristanne the fall Bulletin during a period of editorial Cooley among those who made that meet- Miller, and Georgie talked with them about transition. ing so memorable. that opportunity. By happy chance, she had an updated resume in hand; so she decided Georgie’s skill at gathering information Georgie’s current long-term research project to apply despite some apprehension about and deploying it in interesting ways has entails compiling a discography of Dickin- her lack of advanced degrees. She got the expressed itself in several admirably re- son poems that have been set to music and job, though she admits to learning many searched plenary presentations at the So- recorded on LPs, CDs, and audiotapes. Cur- years later how the selection process worked ciety’s meetings. At the Boulder meeting rently, she reports having documented 105 out. When she visited Margaret Freeman in in 1998, she spoke on Samuel Bowles and recordings by 84 composers (about a quarter California and happened to ask how many Helen Hunt Jackson as Dickinson’s guides of them women), which include about 600 applications they had received, Margaret to Colorado, and at the Philadelphia meet- individual song performances. She is trying replied “I’ve always hoped you wouldn’t ing in 2003, she delivered the closing ad- to decide how to handle YouTube and other ask me that. You were the only one.” It was dress on the poet’s experience of that city. sites with ephemeral content. So, although a fortunate choice for EDIS, and Georgie Three articles expanding on those talks have Georgiana Strickland “would not paint – a proceeded to fashion the Bulletin into an appeared in the Emily Dickinson Journal: picture,” she has heightened awareness of exceptionally varied and valuable literary “Emily Dickinson’s Colorado” (vol. 8,1); visual responses to Dickinson. Although she publication. “‘In Praise of Ramona’: Emily Dickinson “would not talk, like Cornets,” she contin- and Helen Hunt Jackson’s Indian Novel” ues to promote appreciation for the musi- Her passion for the performing arts ex- (9.2); and “Emily Dickinson’s Philadelphia” cality of Dickinson’s poems; and although pressed itself in the article featured in the (13.2). she would not “be a Poet,” she has contrib- first issue Georgie edited: an interview with uted richly to love of poetry. One wonders actress Julie Harris about The Belle of Am- Another accomplishment was organiz- whether Dickinson would have wanted to be herst (followed in May 2001 by an inter- ing “Emily Dickinson in Song,” the 2002 an editor if she had guessed how much qui- view with playwright William Luce). That annual meeting in Amherst that focused etly beneficial influence Georgie has man- first issue also included a report on Dick- on music. Music has always been central aged to exert.

November/December 2013 | 23 Socarides Unbound: Marta Werner Talks to Alexandra Socarides about Manuscripts

Marta Werner and Alex Socarides are among those who have turned readers’ attention to Dickinson’s quondam ignored late fragmentary writings. Socarides teaches at the University of Missouri. Her recent book, Dickinson Unbound: Paper, Process, Poetics (reviewed on page 33 below) occasions this interview. She is currently at work on a new book, tentatively titled, “The Lyric Pose: Nineteenth-Century Ameri- can Women’s Poetry and the Problem of Recovery.” Marta Werner teaches literature at D’Youville College. She has presented Dickinson’s fragmentary writings to the world in Emily Dickinson’s Open Folios: Scenes of Reading, Surfaces of Writing (1995), Radical Scatters: An Electronic Archives of Emily Dickinson’s Late Fragments and Related Texts (1999/2011), and The Gorgeous Nothings (2012/2013).

arta Werner: In your “Introduction” to also call attention to her difference or distance ship to poetics. In many ways, though, you MDickinson Unbound, you allude to the from these practices. Can you say more about don’t deal with the most intimate features of apparent “scenelessness” of Dickinson’s po- Dickinson’s absorption in and ambivalence to paper directly – the embosses, the chain lines, ems – i.e., to the “impression” the poems give these various practices? etc. – or with the sources of the stationery in us of having arisen apparently without labor. AS: The trickiest part about investigating nine- Dickinson’s household. Can you discuss what How has this impression influenced readings teenth-century material culture was figuring specifically about paper draws you? What, of Dickinson’s work? How does your reading out how any of it was related to Dickinson. In moreover, is distinctive about a “poetics that of Dickinson’s poetic process revise these ear- other words, I kept asking myself: Is this stuff is guided by paper”? lier readings? like or unlike what Dickinson was making? AS: It’s true that I don’t deal with those ele- lex Socarides: This apparent “scene- Very early on in this project I spent a month ments of the paper. Others – I’m thinking of Alessness” is interesting to me because I at the American Antiquarian Society looking you and Virginia Jackson in particular – have actually find so many of Dickinson’s poems at homemade scrapbooks and commonplace done such great work with embosses. I was to be very visual. I always see a “scene” – books and hymnbooks and diaries and alma- whether it’s a woman walking a dog, a bird nac and sermons. I wasn’t really sure what I hopping down a path, the earth tipping over was looking for; all I knew was that I was try- into darkness, a soldier dying on the battle- ing to figure out how people made books in field . . . Sometimes they don’t make much the nineteenth century and then how they used sense – like the visual composition of dreams these books. I eventually realized that Dickin- in which space and time don’t follow regular son was learning from lots of the book-making logic – but they are still “scenes” to me. So I practices that were popular in the nineteenth was fascinated by the fact that others read her century but that she wasn’t adopting any one poems as devoid of scenes. And I think this is technique wholesale. One could draw lots of connected to the fact that readers often think different conclusions from this fact. The con- of the poems as things that were produced clusion I drew was that there was something spontaneously and without work – as if the about the bound book – the book that requires apparent scenelessness of the poems is related start-to-finish reading, the book that mimics to the absence of the scene of composition. By print conventions, the book that doesn’t allow putting Dickinson’s labor back into the story, you to take out pages and put them back in I tried to show the made-ness of these objects, somewhere else – that Dickinson didn’t want. which I hoped might allow readers to “see” So instead, she used bookmaking techniques both what’s inside and outside the poems a but she made objects that allowed her to side- little differently, or more starkly. step the limitations of the book. It took quite a while for me to arrive at that formulation, MW: Your work in Dickinson Unbound plac- and it only happened because I spent so much es Dickinson in a complex relationship with time with lots of different kinds of nineteenth- nineteenth-century material culture. Yet at the century books. same time that you position Dickinson in re- lationship to her culture – especially to wom- MW: In Dickinson Unbound you often speak Alex Socarides writes a regular poetry col- en’s copying and bookmaking practices – you of the importance of paper and its relation- umn for the Los Angeles Review of Books.

24 | EDIS Bulletin more interested in the size and shape of the paper than in what else appears on the pa- By renouncing the search for fame and per, although in the final chapter I discuss re-directing her ambitions inward, Dick- other print that appears on her paper at times. inson traced a path towards a free space of I think more about the confines of the paper experimentation and liberty. She traced a – about the breaks between sides of a folded path, that is, toward the draft. The distinc- sheet, about tiny slips that were torn along the tiveness of Dickinson’s case in the history edges, about formal pieces of stationery paper. of the modern manuscript becomes clear- I’m drawn to paper because it’s a medium, but er the longer we study the trajectory of her one that we don’t think about in that way very writing. For Dickinson, the draft was not often. I did a fair amount of research on ex- the point of departure for poetry, but, in- actly where Dickinson got her paper from, but stead, its final destination. in the end I couldn’t nail down that informa- tion well enough to put it in the book. I was From “‘Reportless Places’”: curious about the fact that most people say she Facing the Modern Manuscript,” got her fascicle paper from a “local stationer” Textual Cultures 2011 so I went in search of who this might have been. I wanted to be able to name him, or, bet- ter yet, to find that the store still existed in the ing them as the most significant (and stable) Marta Werner concedes that she is seldom site of Dickinson’s poetic production, you see early twenty-first century and be able to tell my pictured without a cat. To the right is an them as just one of several sites of poetic pro- readers what the shop looked like and what the excerpt from one of her own reflections on paper smelled like. I had no such luck. I found Dickinson’s manuscripts. duction. Can you say more about these other out that there was a “local stationer” in Am- sites? How are the various sites of poetic pro- herst in the 1860s, but I couldn’t confirm that ters; sewing fascicle sheets; copying poems duction related; that is, how is each one reflect- Dickinson got her paper there. Then one of the onto loose sheets; and writing on scraps and ing on or predicting the others? many archivists I talked to suggested maybe fragments of paper. They are really only very AS: When I started writing this book, I thought she got the paper through the General Store roughly chronological, since Dickinson was I was just going to write about the fascicles, (where she got most supplies), which means often engaging in several of these at once (es- so it still takes me by surprise when I realize it mostly likely would have come from Bos- pecially the first three“phases”). I needed to that in some ways I ended up writing a book ton. So I read all the records from the General organize the book in a way that would help that destabilizes their position as the cen- Store from the 1860s and while I found lots of me move through each of these practices, but I ter of Dickinson’s writings. But the longer I interesting things that went into the Dickinson also wanted to emphasize that they weren’t dis- worked with them (and with her letters and Homestead during those years – so many pins! crete. Chronology is important to the final two loose sheets and late scraps) the more I saw – there was no mention of paper. Then Jona- chapters because these do happen at a certain that there was very little that was stable about than Senchyne (who was writing a dissertation time, once some of the earlier practices have the fascicles. I think that because they look at the time about paper) suggested that maybe been abandoned, but nothing about Dickin- like little books, they give off this impression, her paper came from the Berkshire Mills. It son’s process can be mapped too precisely, but once you get inside her process of making started to feel like a wild goose chase and in especially because we are probably missing poems, you realize, for instance, that her let- the end I wasn’t really sure that finding the so many of her manuscripts. So, this was the ter writing practices are intricately tied to her source of the paper had anything to do with my sense I could make of what had been left. How fascicles and that she is returning to fascicles argument about how Dickinson used paper. So are these periods are different from earlier late in life long after she has stopped making I have left the paper mystery for somebody else imaginations of them? Critics who deal with them. One summer I decided to make a kind of to solve. Dickinson’s materials and her compositional database that shows the compositional history practices tend to look closely at just one of of each poem that appears in Franklin’s vari- MW: In your work you divide the trajectory of these phases (usually the fascicles or the late orum. That was totally eye opening because I Dickinson’s writing into roughly five chrono- scraps). I benefitted greatly from the focused was able to see, say, that a poem was written logical phases. Can you tell us what those work that had been done on each of these in a fascicle and then a few years later part phases are and what your revision of earlier phases, and I took it as my challenge to say of it was put in a letter and then later it was imaginations of these style periods reveals something about how they were connected. shortened and revised and copied on a scrap about Dickinson that was not evident before? of paper. I started grouping these actions, like AS: The five phases that I discuss are: copy- MW: Your work strongly argues for a critical “Poems sent to Sue before being copied onto a ing poems onto fascicle sheets; writing let- re-imagination of the fascicles: instead of see- fascicle sheet” or the more complicated “Po-

November/December 2013 | 25 ems copied into a fascicle and later revised constructed objects? Do you think Franklin MW: Dickinson Unbound is your first book. into a fair copy and retained (sometimes as if should not have included them in The Manu- First books, like last books, are often uncanny for sending).” Sometimes the whole system felt script Books of Emily Dickinson? What pos- things. Or, perhaps, I should say, they are of- like it was going to fall apart when I started sible misconceptions has their editorial asso- ten both “homely” and “unhomely.” What to think about the copies that had been lost or ciation with the fascicles engendered? questions – in a more personal sense – drive or destroyed. Also, while I deduced a fair amount AS: Because Franklin includes the “sets” in haunt this work? What were you, Alexandra of this from my own work with manuscripts, I The Manuscript Books of Emily Dickinson I Socarides, revealing about your own relation- was also relying heavily on the work of other think he urges us to think about them as related ship to Dickinson in the pages of this work? textual scholars, like Franklin. But in the end to the fascicles when they really aren’t. They AS: That’s something I often think about when the database allowed me to see certain trends are simply loose sheets of paper. I knew this, I am reading other people’s books but that I and traits, which helped me locate these phas- but I didn’t really know this. Not until I got in don’t think I’ve answered well enough yet es, even if they aren’t, as I have said, discrete the archive and attempted to call up a “set.” about myself and my own work. Who is it that or solid or a perfect formulation of what was As I write about in the book, what I got was a said that all acts of criticism are autobiogra- probably a very messy writing process. folder with lots of different sheets in them and I phies? I’m clearly obsessed with how poetry had to reconstruct Franklin’s “set” for myself. gets made, and that’s probably because I had MW: In chapter Three, “Sewing the Fasci- Which made me wonder: Whose object is this a stint as a poet myself, albeit not a very good cles: Elegy, Consolation, and the Poetics of – Dickinson’s or Franklin’s? As far as if they one. I’m probably a bit nostalgic and mourn- Interruption,” you observe that Dickinson’s should be in The Manuscript Books of Emily ful about that, and I admire Dickinson’s abil- most intense probings of death coincide with Dickinson or not, well, that’s a trickier ques- ity to stick with it against all odds. (Writing the years in which she was constructing fas- tion. I think it is misleading to have them there, poetry is hard, hard business!) I like to ask cicles. Can you say more about the connection but it was their presence there that led me to how things come into being, how they make you draw between the poetics of death and the think about them as objects in the first place. themselves and unmake themselves and then poetics of sewing? How does this connection make themselves again. also suggest a new way of reading the elegy? MW: I’m always interested in a book’s ac- AS: If I were a different kind of critic I would knowledgements – both for what is acknowl- MW: What is on the horizon for you? What di- have written about Penelope and knitting, edged and also for what often isn’t acknowl- rection will your work on Dickinson take next? about what it means to stitch things together edged in this formal paratext. Would you be AS: I’m not actually writing about Dickinson when we are grieving. And there’s part of me comfortable addressing the importance of these days. I might do so again, but I decided that believes that, and thinks that Dickinson your mentors – both those you knew person- to take a break from her for a while. I’m cur- may have been doing exactly that – turning ally and those you knew largely through their rently writing a book about the para-textual to the act of sewing at the very moment that scholarship? What was the most important and extra-textual conventions of nineteenth- she was feeling death so acutely. But I tried gift you received from them? century American women’s poetry books, by to resist drawing biographical conclusions AS: I think the best part of writing Acknowl- which I mean prefaces and portraits and books (although I know I’m not always successful at edgements is getting to thank all of those men- covers. I’m looking mostly at books that were this) and instead look at how she was making tors. Mine were fabulous – strong, brilliant, published in out-of-the-way places and not poems. By looking at her compositional pro- feisty, challenging women who had lived with at anything coming out of the big publishing cess I came to the conclusion that by writing Dickinson in their systems for a long time and centers of New York, Boston, and Philadel- poems about death onto sheets of paper that who taught me how to think for myself about phia. It’s fun writing about material that no she then stitched together, Dickinson was in her. I think one of the reasons why they worked one has ever written about. And I love being in some ways continually writing and re-writing for me was that I admired (and I continue to the archive again. I also write a regular poetry that moment of death. What this tells us about admire) each one of them so much, personally column for the Los Angeles Review of Books Dickinson, I’m not sure. What this tells us and professionally. The most important thing called “The Poems (We Think) We Know” and about the elegy is that it’s a genre that not only I learned from one of these mentors happened I’m knee deep in a bunch of editing projects. I demands re-writing, but is about re-writing. on a Spring day, probably in 2005. I was on had never done either of these two things be- the phone with Meredith McGill, who was my fore – written about poetry for a general audi- MW: As far as I know, your reading of Dick- dissertation director at the time, and some- ence or edited other people’s scholarly work – inson’s “sets” offers the first full-scale critique thing must have happened to make me call and I’ve come to realize that I like both of these of that extremely problematic term. How did her, but I can’t remember what the context activities immensely. And since I’m not writing your work in the archives lead you to reject was. It was in that conversation that she told about Dickinson these days, I’ve rediscovered the term “sets” as appropriate for describ- me that all acts of literary criticism are two the joy of picking up one of her poems and ing certain gatherings of Dickinson’s loose things: 1) collaborative and 2) unfinished. I reading it to myself, or to a friend, without the sheets? In what sense are the sets editorially think about that almost every day. pressure of wondering what I might do with it.

26 | EDIS Bulletin Obituaries

My Friend Julie Harris By Barbara Dana

hen I was first asked by Cindy MacK- Wenzie to perform The Belle of Amherst at the EDIS meeting in Regina in 2009 I de- clined. You see, Julie Harris is my hero. I re- member her boots (tan, mid-calf, worn over tights) as she played Joan of Arc in Hallmark Hall of Fame’s television broadcast of The Lark. I was 16. Joan sat on a stool at the trial, un-compromising, brave, exhausted – they wouldn’t let her sleep – strong, yet vulner- able. It was one of those pivotal moments, a coming home, a quiet exhilaration, connect- ing past and future, forecasting the path of my life. In that moment I remembered what somewhere I had always known: I wanted to be an actress. I wanted to be Joan of Arc. I also wanted to be Julie Harris.

So I declined Cindy’s offer.

Much as I might want to, how could I step Photo courtesy of Anthony Arkin into a role that Julie Harris had done so bril- Julie Harris (left) with Barbara Dana after the performance of The Belle of Amherst liantly? Was I mad? “Much madness is di- at the Kirby Theater at Amherst College, March 11, 2010. vinest sense,” but there are limits! It would be like following Jack Nicholson in The was published (Young Joan, HarperCol- Julie said it had been a challenge to find a way Shining, or Laurette Taylor in The Glass Me- lins, 1991), I brought it to her backstage af- to do that and shared with me her “substitu- nagerie (which Julie did, by the way). ter a performance of The Glass Menagerie tion” (an actor’s term for using an experience, at Roundabout Theatre in New York. She situation or person from one’s own life, or the No matter that I had just spent twelve years thanked me, quickly read the book, wrote to life of the character, in exchange for a given writing a novel based on the young life of me about it and we developed a correspon- element in the play). Her answer served me Emily Dickinson. No matter that I felt the dence. well when years later I accepted Cindy’s offer poet in my blood. There was no way I would and took on the challenge. play her. When I added that it would be too Several years later when I began my novel A awesome an amount of work for one per- Voice of Her Own: Becoming Emily Dickinson What finally inspired my change of heart was formance, Cindy suggested that once I had (HarperCollins, 2009), we had lunch in Stam- a discussion with my hero/friend. I told her learned it, I could perform the play in other ford, Connecticut, where she was appearing how I had been offered the play and how, out places. Still, months later when Cindy repeat- in The Gin Game with Charles Durning. It of respect for her iconic performance, not to ed her offer (thank you, Cindy!), I repeated was Valentine’s Day. She gave me a bottle of mention the fear of disappointing those many my answer. There was no way I would step perfume. I asked her endless questions about scholars in the audience who had seen her into the “boots” of my acting hero. Emily, all of which she answered with enthu- performance, I had not accepted. siasm and humility. I remember asking her By that time Julie and I had miraculously about The Belle of Amherst and how she dealt “Oh, no,” she said. “You must do it. It will be become friends. Years in the same profes- with the aspect of talking to the audience for your Emily.” sion had brought us together many times at over two hours as 53 year-old Emily, who at performances, benefits and other theatrical that time in her life spoke to virtually no one I protested, but she would hear none of it: events. When my novel about Joan of Arc but Vinnie and possibly the cats. “You must. Remember, you are Emily.”

November/December 2013 | 27 Obituaries

When I did the play at the Kirby Theater at “Acting is always an ad- Amherst College (the same theatre in which venture and a struggle to Julie and Mary at “The Evergreens” Julie had done the play 34 years earlier), she find the truth,” she has was there. Before the show I was onstage said, a comment not unlike We knew it wasn’t a revenant because at mid-day checking my props when Jane Wald walked one that Emily might have there was much too much sunlight for such capers. down to the edge of the stage carrying a made in relation to the writ- Yet the figure coming across the way between the small box. It was a gift from Julie, an antique ing of poetry. houses could have passed for an apparition, moving brooch that had belonged to her grandmoth- smartly, reddish hair (the color a tad darker than er. Overwhelmed, I wore it in the show that Julie worked diligently the sherry the guest leaves at the bottom of the glass), night. and passionately in a re- and smallish. She burst into the house, made herself markable variety of roles known and hugged Mary. Old friends who had never I had been concerned about performing the for over 50 years, on stage, met, meeting at long last, though there was no doubt play in front of my acting idol. How would in film, and on television. that in some way they had met before. After some chat, I handle the stress? But as the show started, She was a true chameleon, Mary fetched out a scrap of manuscript and handed it I felt Julie’s support flowing over the foot- with a fierce commitment to her. Unfazed, as if she had expected it all along, lights from her place in the first row. She was to each and every character she struck a dramatic pose, and gave the words of the with me throughout the performance. I felt she played. From Frankie, note an impromptu reading. No more than two lines, completely safe. It was extraordinary. After the 12 year old restless, it was a note to Sue, support in a time of illness. The the show we stood at the edge of the stage, motherless, desperately remaining minutes were pleasant enough but rather sharing an embrace, long, quiet, deep, and her lonely tomboy she played anti-climactic. The visit over, the two women kissed single word, “Magic.” at 24 in Carson McCullers’ and the younger one, burnished hair a cloche to her The Member of the Wed- red fox cape, dashed off the same way she had come. To say it was a night to remember would be ding, to Sally Bowles, the a serious understatement. I of course wear the bohemian nightclub singer George Monteiro, August 24, 2013 brooch whenever I play Emily. in I Am a Camera, John Van Druten’s adaptation of Over the years I have learned much about my Christopher Isherwood’s friend. Often referred to as the first lady of novel Goodbye to Berlin, for which she won Heavyweight, The Haunting, Harper, Reflec- American theater, Julie Ann Harris was born her first Tony in 1952, to Emily Dickinson tions in a Golden Eye, The Bell Jar, and Goril- on Dec. 2, 1925 in Grosse Point, Michigan, in William Luce’s The Belle of Amherst, for las in the Mist. an affluent suburb just east of Detroit. Her fa- which she also won a Tony, it was always ther William was an investment banker and the same. It hardly seemed as if one actress Her countless television appearances include an expert on squirrels (a fact I find charm- could embody so many totally different classic dramas like The Lark, A Doll’s House, ing), who served as a curator of mammals at people. Ethan Frome and The Belle of Amherst, along the museum of zoology at the University of with a variety of popular dramas and a long Michigan. Her mother was a socialite. Hav- Julie appeared in over 30 Broadway running stint on the series Knots Landing, ing trained as a nurse, her chief aspiration for shows and in countless stage performances which she shot while recuperating from a her daughter was that she should become a throughout the world. In addition to The mastectomy after a bout with breast cancer. debutante. In this, young Julie failed miser- Belle of Amherst, the list includes The ably. She was born to act. Member of the Wedding, I Am a Camera, In 2001, while performing in Chicago, she The Lark, Lucifer’s Child, And Miss Rear- suffered a stroke, which impeded her speech “Acting is my life,” she is quoted as having don Drinks a Little, The Gin Game, The and limited her ability to perform. She did said to her high school drama teacher. Country Wife, Mademoiselle Colombe, The however “keep going” by appearing in a Warm Peninsula, Skyscraper (her first mu- handful of films and small stage roles. She made her first Broadway appearance dur- sical), Forty Carats, The Glass Menagerie, ing her year at Yale School of Drama in the Little Moon of Alban, Romeo and Juliet, and Married three times, she has one son, Peter comedy “It’s a Gift” and went on to earn 10 Hamlet, to name a few. Alston Gurian. Tony nominations, more than any other per- former. She was honored with 5 Tony awards, Though she is best known for her work on In 2003 she was invited to become the Hon- then won for a 6th time, a special Tony for the stage, her list of film and television - per orary Chair of the the newly formed Emily lifetime achievement, putting her in a class by formances spans over five decades. Her film Dickinson Museum. The family estate was herself. credits include East of Eden, Requiem for a re-united that year at the formal opening cel-

28 | EDIS Bulletin Obituaries ebration at which she and Richard Wilbur did and letters at the New York Public Library call for The Member of the Wedding, a young the honors. after a matinee. She had Emily’s white dress girl in her first major Broadway play, how she with her. “When she invited Charles and the was alarmed, mystified and how she sat on the In 2005 she was made a Kennedy honoree. rest of the company to attend, Charles felt edge of the tub in her tiny New York apart- that he had to go, although he also felt that an ment that night trying to assimilate what had She was funny. She was one of the most afternoon of poetry was not his cup of tea. He happened; the framed snapshot in my living generous people I have ever known. In in- went, thinking it was only the courteous thing room of the two of us after my performance terviews, as in life, she was extraordinarily to do and was overwhelmed. After the perfor- in The Belle of Amherst; her grandmother’s humble, speaking of acting as “an imperfect- mance he ran backstage. ‘This is drama!’ he brooch in my jewelry box and her Thanksgiv- ible craft for which the effort at rendering a exclaimed. ‘These words are theatrical! They ing card that says simply, “ I love you.” character, not the finished result or the ap- belong on the stage!’ Suddenly he had some- plause, was not only the challenge, but the thing wonderful to direct.” The last time I saw her in The Belle of Am- reward.” The work of an actor had the capac- herst was in 2001 at the Helen Hayes The- ity to frighten her. “It’s wanting to do it right, Then a hopeful playwright came into the ater in Nyack, NY. I had seen the show many that’s where the fear comes in,” she is quoted picture. It was William Luce, recommended times. Julie was always radiant, magnificent, as having said in an interview after 30 years to Charles by Bill’s friend Timothy Helge- but this time as she entered with her teapot, on the stage, “but who can say what’s right? son. Charles set up a luncheon at Universal Emily was there. It was chilling. I had never We’re very delicate creatures, aren’t we?” where Julie was filming a pilot with Glenn seen anything like it and haven’t to this day. Ford. “I arrived with two shopping books full It lasted throughout the entire evening. It was Julie loved to read. She loved biographies of books about Dickinson,” Bill said, “and not merely a great performance. It was not a and was drawn to playing historical figures, Julie had read them all.” Bill was already in performance at all. I can only describe it by among them Charlotte Bronte, Isak Dineson, ASCAP at that time, writing lyrics for Doris saying Emily was there. I wondered if Julie Joan of Arc, Mary Todd Lincoln, Florence Day with his music collaborator. His move felt it. Nightingale, Queen Victoria, Nora Joyce into theater was a natural step. (wife of James Joyce) and – of course – Em- When I went backstage after the performance, ily Dickinson. The following widely known Julie’s input along with Charles’ was enor- mute, in a state of shock, there was Julie, this quote says it all: “I first fell in love with Em- mous and a play was born. The Belle of Am- small seventy-five-year-old woman, standing ily Dickinson when I read her letters. It was herst opened on Broadway on April 28, 1976 in her dressing room in her slip, eyes wide, like listening to someone’s heart.” and ran for 116 performances. stunned, looking into another world. It was as if she had seen a ghost. “Did you see?” she The Belle of Amherst by William Luce Known throughout her career for taking plays asked. I nodded, unable to speak. opened on Broadway in 1976 and was wide- on the road, in 2000, at the age of 74, Julie ly admired as a tour de force performance by took The Belle of Amherst on its Silver An- “She was there.” Julie. It struck Walter Kerr of The New York niversary tour, crisscrossing the country for “Yes.” Times as the pinnacle of her career. months, doing 8 performances a week. She confided in me that she had never been so “You saw!” “As I look back, I find The Belle of Amherst tired in her life. But her enthusiasm remained the most stimulating event of the season, and strong. She was doing what she loved. I can Later, standing outside the theatre that cold not only because I’ve long since been per- still see her trundling down a darkened Se- January night, alone in the light of a single suaded that Emily Dickinson is our finest attle street, carrying several shopping bags, street lamp, we embraced. “I’m so glad you poet,” Mr. Kerr wrote. “It may seem a form heading back to her hotel room after a per- were here tonight,” she said and for the lon- of magic to make her most casual lines live so formance. gest time she didn’t let me go. intensely on stage. But for magic read craft. And for craft – painfully, stubbornly, at last Memories of our friendship fill my mind Julie Harris, the most decorated performer in stunningly acquired – read Julie Harris.” and heart: sitting at her kitchen table in Cape the history of Broadway, passed away at her Cod, sharing coffee (she liked it lukewarm) home in West Chatham, Massachusetts. on William Luce described the genesis of The along with the pastry she had gone out to get August 24, 2013. She was 87. Belle of Amherst in a recent phone conversa- that morning while I was still asleep; quiet tion by explaining that Julie was co-starring conversations about life, love, marriage and Author and actor Barbara Dana is current- with Charles Nelson Reilly in the Broadway children, regrets and triumphs; talks about the ly appearing as Emily Dickinson in William musical Skyscraper. She had accepted an in- theatre, her description of hearing the thun- Luce’s The Belle of Amherst, in Canada vitation to do a reading of Dickinson poems derous applause at the opening night curtain and throughout the US.

November/December 2013 | 29 Obituaries Dorothy Oberhaus

By Polly Longsworth

ickinson scholar Dorothy Huff Ober- upon her dissertation’s content in a series of Dhaus, a member of EDIS from its articles, among them “‘Engine against th’ founding, died on September 5, 2013 after Almightie’: Emily Dickinson and Prayer” an illness of several months at her home in (ESQ 32:3, 1986) and “‘Tender Pioneer’: Bronxville, NY. A member of the faculty at Emily Dickinson’s Poems on the Life of Mercy College in Dobbs Ferry, Oberhaus Christ” (American Literature, Oct. 1987). taught courses in Dickinson from 1972 until shortly before her death, and this past spring The appearance in 1981 of Ralph Franklin’s of 2013 was honored by Mercy College Manuscript Books of Emily Dickinson, and with its Lifetime Achievement Award. As the subsequent theories it spawned concern- a teacher and writer, Dorothy’s work on the ing how and why Dickinson ordered her poet focused primarily on the fascicles and work, stimulated Oberhaus’s intense inter- on Dickinson’s religious experience. est in the fascicles, which became the focus of her book, Emily Dickinson’s Fascicles: through its (to date) ten year history. Doro- A graduate of Ohio Wesleyan University, Method and Meaning (Penn State Press, thy impressed those who knew her both by from which she emerged both a member of 1995). Recognizing the poet’s affinity for the her sharp intelligence and her elegance. Her Phi Beta Kappa and Homecoming Queen, work of George Herbert in particular, Ober- commentary was swift, inspiring, and often Dorothy began a career in journalism, turn- haus argued that the fascicles represent a feisty. She knew the King James Bible cold, ing only later to an academic path. Her grad- skillfully woven, intricately riddled, story of as Emily did, so that having Dorothy walk uate work in literature at Sarah Lawrence a spiritual pilgrimage, a narrative that begins one through a Dickinson poem, opening up (M.A.) and at the City University of New with the first poem of the first fascicle and its dense, elliptical syntax and pointing out York Graduate Center (Ph.D.) came to focus continues in a unified telling to the fortieth, the subtle biblical allusions one had breezed on the 19th century poet. Her 1980 disser- which concludes the mystical conversion right by, was always a delight. tation, titled “The Religious Voice of Emily and on which her book concentrates. The Dickinson,” probed the poet’s complex spir- book has been influential for other students Dorothy continued her analysis of all of itual struggle, in which faith was constantly of Dickinson and was acclaimed “a major Dickinson’s fascicles during the fifteen destabilized by death and doubt and uncer- contribution to Dickinson scholarship” by years preceding her last illness, and leaves a tainties concerning immortality. Marta Werner, author of Emily Dickinson’s nearly finished manuscript representing her Open Folios, in the New England Quarterly culminating work on the poet. She leaves, Dorothy was influenced by the work of (1996:4). too, a loving family in her husband, her Charles Anderson, Louis Martz, and Jack daughter Ann Oberhaus Mackin, her son-in- Capps in believing that Dickinson belonged My own relationship with Dorothy began as law and two grandchildren, Tim, Kate and within the tradition of Christian devotion, a correspondence, and continued through the Sean, all of Chagrin Falls, OH. Dorothy’s and more specifically within the meditative great interest she and her husband Ed took in keen appraisals, her advocacy for reading tradition of 17th century metaphysical po- the Emily Dickinson Museum in Amherst. and working with Dickinson’s poems in ets. She argued that the poet’s canon be read They were among the founding members of their pre-edited state, and her monition to as a spiritual pilgrimage toward God’s infi- the Cupola Society, the Museum’s top donor consider like poems in clusters, that “one nite Circumference. In time, Oberhaus built group, and they encouraged the enterprise alone proves nothing,” will remain.

Edith Perry Wylder passed away on July 4, 2013, at 88 years old. She was perhaps best known for her 1964 study of Emily Dickinson’s manuscripts, particularly her argument that the dashes were borrowed from elocutionists’ notations: she argued in the Saturday Review in 1963 that “Dickinson had borrowed these symbols (the rising and falling slides, ‘monotone’ dashes and circumflexes) to create her own system of punctuation.” Wylder last taught at Murray State University, in Murray, Kentucky, retiring in 1989.

30 | EDIS Bulletin New Publications

By Barbara Kelly, Book Review Editor

Brantley, Richard in the Nineteenth Century Major Lives and ferent voice in the poetry of modern death: Emily Dickinson's Rich Conversation: Po- Letters series. His fifth volume, Experience the dying voice of last-word poems, includ- etry, Philosophy, Science. New York: Pal- and Faith: The Late-Romantic Imagination ing Dickinson's Fr591, 648, 838, 860, 946, grave Macmillan, 2013. 272 pp. Cloth, ISBN of Emily Dickinson (reviewed in the fall 2005 and 1100; the reviving voice of the speaking 0-230-34063-3, $85.00. Bulletin) favored her faith-based evangelical corpse poems: Fr140, 239, 278, 344, 390, heritage. Engaging other Dickinson scholars, 437, 448, 479, 528, 605, 743, 817, 900, 1027, Brantley's erudite, spirited study envisions Brantley's well researched study includes 97 1068, and 1784; and the surviving voice of Dickinson as the moderator of a seminar, in pages of three appendices, informative notes, the mourning lover's aubade poems. She con- dialogue with both dead and living precur- works cited, and two indexes. cludes that elegies represent human concern sors and contemporaries – a select society for both the departed and the survivor. Her including Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, concise, insightful, meditative book includes Shelley, Keats, Carlyle, Tennyson, Emerson, Fuss, Diana an introduction, conclusion, notes, bibliogra- as well as John Locke, John Wesley, Charles Dying Modern: A Meditation on Elegy. phy, and index. Wadsworth, and Darwin. Brantley tracks Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2013. Dickinson's progressive thinking along an 150 pp. Paper, ISBN 0-8223-5389-8, $21.95. arc of intellectual, literary, and cultural his- Graham, Gordon tory from Anglo-American Romanticism, The consolatory elegy served mourners when The Kuyper Center Review: Vol. Three: Cal- evangelical idealism, and experiential faith; mainstream culture believed in a “good” vinism and Culture. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerd- through sense-grounded reason, evolutionary death, religious ritual, salvation, and faith in mans Publishing Co., 2013. 184 pp. Paper, biology, knowledge-based skepticism, tough eternal life, but modern mourners are often ISBN 0-8028-6876-3, $26.00. realism, and empiricism; leading to pre- and beset by a culture of skepticism, even fatal- post-Modern pessimism that foreshadows ism, where modern drugs, technology, and Graham explains, “Some religious tradi- and influences current writers and their work. hospitals participate in a kind of cultural si- tions . . . have aesthetically rich resources on Dickinson's often oscillating stance may be lencing. Fuss explores “the literary desire to which to draw for the renewal of arts in ev- compared to Keats's “Negative Capability: make death speak in the face of its cultural eryday life, [but] Calvinism has generally been the condition of being in uncertainties, Mys- silencing,” concentrating on the past 200 suspicious of the arts.” Twelve scholars with teries, doubts, without any irritable reaching years of American and British poetry and backgrounds in theology, philosophy, psychol- after fact and reason”; that is, remaining open drawing from the work of Elizabeth Bishop, ogy, history, and the fine arts consider new to imagination and new thought. Although Emily Dickinson, Langston Hughes, Randall ways to think about Calvinism's relation to Dickinson's empirical voice co-existed with Jarrell, Philip Larkin, Edna St. Vincent Mil- the arts. Many of these essays were presented her “stubbornly persistent evangelical ver- lay, Sylvia Plath, Ezra Pound, Anne Sexton, at the 2011 conference of the the Abraham nacular,” Brantley argues that her empiri- Lydia Sigourney, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Kuyper Center for Theology and Public Life cism, “her faith in experience, trumps her Richard Wilbur, William Carlos Williams, at Princeton Theological Seminary. Abraham evangelical yearning.” He concludes that Richard Wright, and less familiar poets. She Kuyper (1837-1920), a Dutch prime minister in her aftermath poetry she balances pes- argues persuasively for the continued value and theologian, initiated the neo-Calvinism simism with optimism, turns loss into gain, of the consolatory elegy and examines “the movement to awaken the church from its “pi- acquires wisdom, and entertains hope. He ethical dimensions of the modern elegy.” She etistic slumber.” Noting Calvinism's “aesthetic references 123 Dickinson poems from the names, organizes, and interprets “groups of austerity,” Graham says, Kuyper wanted “to Franklin edition and provides selected close poems that undertake the reclamation of loss uncover and give articulation to Calvinism's readings. This volume emphasizing Dick- in the modern period.” Her book is divided enduring relationship with the arts.” These inson's empirical voice is Brantley's sixth into three sections, each representing a dif- essays suggest that “neo-Calvinism espoused

The Bulletin welcomes notices of all Dickinson-related books, including those published outside the U.S. Send information to Barbara Kelly, 444 Washington Ave., Palo Alto, CA 94301, U.S.A. Email: [email protected]

November/December 2013 | 31 New Publications

by Kuyper can and should make more of the literature, finding her mixture of wit, spunk, who has read the poem will have a new way arts than the traditional view of Reformed self-confidence, and insecurity irresistible. to think about it after reading MacColl's well- Christianity might be thought to allow.” In Their brief but passionate romance during plotted book, the first in her anticipated series “The Calvinian Eucharistic Poetics of Emily the journey is followed by a series of 15 let- that “imagines great literary figures as teenage Dickinson” (94-101), Jennifer Wang presents ters and a secret rendezvous at a remote cabin crime solvers.” Dickinson's J528, 579, 342, and 130, discuss- near Amherst. In the novel's 1965 prologue, ing “the tension between the frequent use of Healey's grandfather, referring to Dickinson's Calvinist language . . . and the recurring theme Master Letters, writes, “the conceit of this nov- McTier, Rosemary Scanlon of exclusion from Communion in Dickinson's el, entirely fictitious, is that the ‘master’ was "An Insect View of Its Plain": Insects, Na- poetry,” asserting that she “attempted to find a Herman Melville.” Well researched, sensitive, ture and God in Thoreau, Dickinson and surrogate for the Lord's Table in and through and salacious, this novel will both inform and Muir. Jefferson, NC: McFarland Publishers, her poetry.” Wang suggests, “Considering her entertain adults willing to enter this decidedly 2013. 202 pp. Paper, ISBN 0-7864-6493-7, doubts about the fulfillment of the sacramental frank Victorian world of romantic fantasy. $55.00. promise in her contemporaries’ actual practice of Communion, and her displacement of true McTier discusses nineteenth-century attitudes eucharistic participation for herself onto nature MacColl, Michala about insects and nature, then devotes one . . . Dickinson adopted a kind of inverted Cal- Nobody's Secret. San Francisco: Chronicle chapter each to Henry David Thoreau, Emily vinism.” Books, 2013. 241 pp. Cloth, ISBN 1-4521- Dickinson, and John Muir, showing how they 0860-5, $16.99. viewed and represented insects in their work and how insects played a significant role in Healey, John J. Inspired by Emily Dickinson, MacColl's their thinking about nature and God. In Thore- Emily & Herman: A Literary Romance. young adult novel immediately engages read- au's essay, “The Natural History of Massachu- New York: Arcade / Skyhorse Publishing, ers with the image of 15-year-old Dickinson setts,” he says, “Nature will bear the closest 2013. 238 pp. Cloth, ISBN 1-61145-830-5, lying in a meadow of wildflowers, hoping that inspection; she inspires us to lay our eye level $21.95. a bee will land on her nose. She is jolted from with the smallest leaf, and take an insect view her musing when a handsome young man ap- of its plain.” These three writers share that mi- When Healey's grandfather, an Amherst Col- proaches and lightheartedly says, “A young croscopic awareness of life and give voice to lege professor emeritus of English literature, lady lying hidden among the wildflowers . . . . the nonhuman voices in nature. McTier says died in 2011, he bequeathed his Lenox, Massa- How unexpected.” Although he will not iden- that “taking ‘an insect view’ encouraged each chusetts, home to Healey, who found stored in tify himself, saying that he's nobody impor- of these writers to appreciate the evidence of the garage the manuscript of this novel, set in tant, their conversation becomes merrily flir- divine order and love written in the book of 1851, author unknown. The author imagines a tatious. He pulls a fresh honeycomb from his nature and to understand that even the small- fictional journey that starts in Amherst, bring- pocket and dabs a bit of honey on Dickinson's est ‘particles’ of creation are significant and ing together Austin and Emily Dickinson, Na- nose, to help her attract bees. Two days later a important in the eyes of God.” In “‘A Minor thaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville, all shabbily dressed “Mr. Nobody” is found dead, Nation’: Emily Dickinson and the Insects’ traveling to Boston and New York, where they floating in the Dickinson pond. This shocking Society” (104-144), McTier focuses on insect meet Walt Whitman and a runaway slave. We discovery is the catalyst for Dickinson to take imagery in Dickinson's poems and letters. She witness a spirited 20-year old Dickinson drink- on a Nancy Drew-like role, interacting with says, “Dickinson's understanding of the eco- ing champagne and visiting an oyster bar in various Amherst residents, collecting clues, logical significance of insects enhances her Manhattan. Candid philosophical discussions enlisting sister Lavinia's help in an unwaver- belief in a divinely ordered creation in which throughout the journey focus on the nature of ing effort to identify Mr. Nobody and find out every organism matters, no matter how small God, love, romance, memory, sanity, slavery, why he died. Each chapter begins with an ap- or insignificant it may appear to be”; she then and social, sexual, and cultural mores. Read- propriate Dickinson quotation, and through- discusses Dickinson's interest in metamorpho- ers learn of the intimate domestic lives of the out the book MacColl gracefully integrates sis, in which the poet sees “the possibility of protagonists, but this is primarily the story of references to Dickinson's family life on North change and transformation, of renewal and Melville's fascination with Emily Dickinson, Pleasant Street and the nineteenth-century life resurrection . . . a reaffirmation of her faith in “the rarest creature he had ever encountered,” of Amherst. Included is an author's note ex- God.” Ecocriticism and cultural entomology and her response. Although Melville loves plaining the fiction and non-fiction elements inform McTier's interesting, well researched his wife, pregnant with their second child, he of her story, a page of “further reading,” and a book, including chapter notes, works cited and admires Dickinson's mind and her passion for copy of “I'm Nobody! Who are you?” Anyone an index.

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Book Reviews of stationery, folded by the manufacturer to and broken from each other” where Dickin- form four sides, four writing surfaces, which son “multiplies and magnifies the problem of Socarides, Alexandra became the “primary unit of construction” consolation for poetic renderings of loss and Dickinson Unbound: Paper, Process, Poet- Dickinson used to make the fascicles. The ar- mourning” (99). ics. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012. gument here is that “stacking sheets allowed 211 pp. Cloth, ISBN 0-19-985808-8, $49.95. one to do and undo, organize and reorganize,” Chapter 4, “Dickinson’s ‘Sets’ and the Rejec- and ”because Dickinson stacked her sheets tion of Sequence,” points out that the “Sets” Reviewed by Ellen Louise Hart instead of inserting them into each other, she are editorially constructed: Ralph Franklin did not necessarily have the unit of the book in “grouped” them, in his words, “by similarity poetics guided by paper” – this is the fo- mind” (34). In this way a poem in the fascicles of paper and date” (The Manuscript Books of Acus of Dickinson Unbound: Paper, Pro- resists “the static lyric moment” and narrative Emily Dickinson, xi). Socarides’s interest is in cess, Poetics, Alexandra Socarides’s important reading (36). Reading against the theory of the the integrity of the “loose” – that is, unbound contribution to manuscript scholarship – and fascicle as a sequence, Socarides claims that – sheet, and whereas Franklin describes the to the study of the lyric, particularly in the con- Dickinson did not conceive of the fascicles as sheets as “copied as if for inclusion” in fas- text of the material culture of poetry by wom- books with one poem connecting to the next cicles, Socarides believes they were meant to en in the nineteenth century. Through close from start to finish. Instead, the central rela- stand alone: “The move from copying poems examination of the writing papers – stationery, tionship among the fascicle poems is among onto sheets that are sewn to copying poems scraps, household detritus – Socarides returns the three or four poems – the number varies onto those that are not can be read as a reflec- readers to “scenes of composition.” – on a single sheet. tion on the limitations of the relations that the fascicles had set in motion” (118). The scope of this book, based on extensive Chapter 2, “Epistolary Practices and the Prob- archival work, is far-reaching, and includes lem of Genre,” investigates the relationship Chapter 5, “Methods of Unmaking: Dickin- Dickinson’s fascicles and sets; letters in her between verse and epistolary prose, with the son’s Late Drafts, Scraps, and Fragments,” correspondences; late drafts and manuscript central text, “As if I asked a common alms,” tells “a story about how an evolving compo- fragments. The book’s central premise is that sent to Thomas Higginson, with a version in sitional process, her developing struggle with “Dickinson was developing both poems and a a fascicle. Here Socarides stresses that Dick- her poems’ endings, and some very real pieces theory of poetry to which the methods of com- inson was not concerned with the generic is- of domestic material culture come together” position and the materials taken up in the act sue that concerned later readers, but wanted (159). This discussion suggests that utilizing of composition are integral” (4). “This book to “think through an instability that is built into household materials for writing, such as an ad- reveals how Dickinson was actively appro- both modes” (51). Socarides discusses “the vertising flyer or the verso of a coconut cake priating and questioning the conventions of a private and public ways” her lines circulated recipe, “supports and intensifies struggles with wide array of poetic genres that were available in the correspondences and fascicles, conclud- endings by creating more opportunity for in- to her – sequences, elegies, narratives, lyr- ing that “Dickinson’s act of literal, material terruption, digression, and rethinking” (159). ics, and fragments, in particular – as well as recontextualization magnifies the possibilities The chapter concludes that during this period, pressing on the boundary between poetry and inherent in both letters and poems” (54). “more so than at any other stage,” Dickinson prose” (13). “rejected the book as a source of containment, Chapter 3 returns to “Sewing the Fascicles.” comprehensibility, and authority, navigating Socarides’s discussion of “the bind of reading Subtitled “Elegy, Consolation, and the Poet- new relationships to issues of order, whole- manuscripts as if they are lyrics” builds on ics of Interruption,” it addresses poems on ness, [and] finality” (166). Dickinson’s Misery: A Theory of Lyric Read- death, and explores Dickinson’s contribution ing, in which Virginia Jackson maintains that to the development of the elegy. Dickinson Overall, this study enriches the debates in “the reading of the lyric produces a theory of “challenges the promise of consolation that Dickinson scholarship, and continues them. the lyric that then produces a reading of the the elegy aims to conjure, a consolation that Here are some questions to consider: lyric” (Jackson 10). In Dickinson’s Misery, depends precisely on the formal conventions Jackson concludes that the result for read- of closure that the stop-again, start-again na- How much can we actually know about the ers is lost opportunity for encountering work ture of the fascicles makes impossible” (80). process of each poem’s composition? The that, in Socarides’s terms, “emphasizes the That Dickinson’s “relationship to the genre of Johnson and Franklin dates for manuscripts material object itself” (132). Dickinson Un- the elegy has been obscured by treatments of that the poet left undated are based on hand- bound works to restore that opportunity. her individual poems that do not take their fas- writing and stationery. This uncertainty makes cicle context into account” (80) leads Socari- the order of versions indeterminable. Socari- Chapter 1, “Dickinson’s Sheets,” focuses on des to advocate for “reading across the fascicle des qualifies her timeline when she notes that the “individual folded fascicle sheet,” a piece sheets.” These are sheets “both connected to she is “reading” the order of the copying of

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lines sent to Susan which later became parts of Bakker, Gerbrand. Ten White Geese: A and sparely written story. As she settles into longer poems (114), while elsewhere her rep- Novel. her new life and develops a complex relation- resentation of a “scene of composition” seems 2010; Reprint, Penguin Books, 2013. 240 pp. ship with the young son of her landlord, we less interpretive than definitive, as in the state- Paper, ISBN 978-0-14-312267-8, $15.00 discover that Emilie is terminally ill and get- ment, “Poems before [the late] period did not ting weaker. Her husband has no idea where get copied on recipes, advertising flyers, and Messud, Claire. The Woman Upstairs. she has gone. The only book on her bedside abandoned wrappers” (160). We cannot know Knopf, 2013. 272pp. Cloth 978-0-307- table is Dickinson’s Collected Poems. She re- what kinds of drafts might have been discard- 59690-1, $25.95. calls that “she’d had this book for more than ed. Describing and ordering the stages of draft- a decade…and now noticed for the first time ing, revising, and copying ultimately involves Reviewed by Stephanie Tingley how short the section titled LOVE was and speculation. how long the last, TIME AND ETERNITY. n a recent “Best Books” feature for The She started to cry.” She often connects her Finally, is the method of fascicle reading pre- IWeek magazine, historian and biographer own emotional weather with both the desolate sented here – reading within sheets and across Brenda Wineapple says of Emily Dickinson, Welsh landscape and Dickinson’s nature poet- sheets – best understood as an innovative read- “She’s a poet of small spaces and inner drama; ry. Emilie sees in one scene fraught with sym- ing strategy, one choice among many choices you can follow her anywhere and learn of feel- bolic significance that “[t]he sun was already that have been presented by Dickinson critics ings you never before could articulate, or knew low” and recalls the poem “Presentiment is over the years? “What we can say is that Dick- you knew.” The powerful connection between that long shadow on the lawn.” She notes that inson intended to make clusters of poems and Dickinson’s poetry and readers’ emotional “Dickinson had seen what she saw now. . . . she intended to place these clusters in relation lives fuels and inspires the female protago- She had left everything behind, everything ex- to each other,” Socarides asserts (104). Are the nists of two recent novels: Gerbrand Bakker’s cept the poems. They would have to see her themes, patterns, and associations that emerge 2010 international bestseller Ten White Geese through.” from perceived relations among fascicle po- (translated from the Dutch by David Colmer) ems the result of a reader’s desire for series, and Claire Messud’s 2013 bestseller The Wom- In contrast, the dominant tone of Messud’s The sequence, narrative? Socarides points out that an Upstairs. Woman Upstairs is one of defiance, suppressed “reading with an awareness of the individual anger, and thwarted artistic hopes and dreams. sheets” is “an experience that is almost impos- Bakker’s heroine, who remains unnamed un- The novel’s title echoes that of Gilbert and sible to recreate, as even Franklin’s facsimile til near the end of the story but has taken on Gubar’s landmark feminist study The Mad- edition blurs these lines” (80). Yet determining the name Emilie during her self-imposed woman in the Attic. Nora, a forty-two-year-old which poems appear on each sheet is possible Welsh exile, meditates on Dickinson’s po- single elementary school teacher and aspiring using the manuscript number assigned by the ems about nature and death, while Messud’s artist, describes herself as a “good girl,” devot- library archive, which Franklin provides. So Nora (named, perhaps, after Ibsen’s frustrated ed daughter, and exemplary teacher, and asks readers can test the approach to fascicle read- housewife in A Doll’s House) connects with in the novel’s startling opening line, “How an- ing presented here and have the pleasure of the fiery artistry, outsider status, and volcanic gry am I? You don’t want to know. Nobody seeing for themselves. talent (Vesuvius at Home) of her favorite poet. wants to know about that.” Later in the open- ing chapter she complains that women like her When Socarides writes that she “aims to The novels are starkly different in tone. Bak- are invisible. She explains: “We’re the quiet broaden how we think about the relationship ker’s brief, bleak mystery is about a middle- woman at the end of the third-floor hallway, between manuscripts, print, and interpretive aged Dickinson scholar who loses her job, whose trash is always tidy, who smiles brightly practices,” this engaging and provocative abandons her thesis work, “which was sup- in the stairwell with a cheerful greeting, and study certainly meets that aim. posed to be about the plethora of lesser poems who, from behind closed doors, never makes and Dickinson’s all-too-eager canonization,” a sound.” She describes her life of “quiet des- Ellen Louise Hart, retired from the University leaves her spouse, disappears from her home peration.” She shows readers how she dwells of California, Santa Cruz, teaches at Portland in Amsterdam, and lives in stark isolation on a on the edges of other people’s richer lives and State University and Portland Community sheep farm in Wales during the damp and dark experiences, and complains bitterly about the College in Oregon. She writes on prosody and autumn and winter months. The epigraph for fact that she has given up her dreams of be- the visual line in Dickinson's manuscript po- the novel is Dickinson’s meditation on death coming a “Great Artist.” She identifies both ems and letters, and is a contributing editor to that begins “Ample make this bed,” a poem with Dickinson’s solitude and her fiery cre- the Dickinson Electronic Archives. that sets the meditative tone for this enigmatic ative ambition.

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As the story unfolds, Nora develops a complex That fall I was making a tiny replica of Em- She taps into the fury and announces: “I’m friendship and rivalry – even falls in love with ily Dickinson’s Amherst bedroom, about done staying quietly upstairs.” She vows to – the entire Shahid family: her student Reza the size of a boot box, each floorboard in let her anger fuel her art. and both of his parents – his mother, the ex- place, the recreation of her furnishing ex- otic and successful Italian artist Sirena and his act and to scale. Once I’d made the room, Although very different in tone and style, father Skandar. Her passionate and mercurial and made her, as perfectly as I could, . . . both novels draw on Emily Dickinson’s emotional attachment to the family rekindles my aim was to set up circuitry so that my life and poetry for much of their power and her artistic ambitions. For a short time she Emily Dickinson might be visited . . . by symbolic resonance. Those who read and shares a studio with Sirena, who creates room- floating illuminations – the angelic Muse, study Dickinson will appreciate how both filling avant-garde art installations (her- cur her beloved Death, and of course my tiny Bakker and Messud tap into the poet’s range rent work has an Alice in Wonderland theme), gilded mascot, Joy herself. of themes and emotions – fiery ambition, while Nora toils over a series of miniature passion, solitude, loss, despair joy – as they boxes (like doll houses?) designed to recreate, As the novel ends Nora again finds herself explore two female characters “at the White down to the last detail, the artistic/living spaces alone, betrayed by the Shahid family in the Heat.” of some of her female hero writers: Virginia most intimate ways. What has changed, Woolf, Alice Neel, Edie Sedgwick, and Em- though, is her attitude and perspective on her ily Dickinson. She describes her Dickinson own life and experience. She has come to see Stephanie Tingley is Professor of English diorama, the first in the series, this way: her anger as an asset rather than a liability. at Youngstown State University.

The Muse, in Action By Chelsea Apple

ossibility is flavorless,” croons Noortje Then there is Korst’s smoky soprano, wan- ranged the music and played piano, and Korst PKorst, quoting Emily Dickinson’s poem dering through the music with purpose but designed the album’s clean and tactile artwork. “Impossibility, like Wine,” but there is noth- seemingly without plan, spontaneous yet har- ing flavorless about Korst and the group muse monic. If the group repeats the poem within The duo has previously released several CD’s conNAction’s newest album, “By the Oceans the song, they change the melody line-by- of musical homages to famed Dutch poets like Passed.” line, allowing the piece to grow and build Gerritt Kouwenar and Ida Gerhardt. Korst, free from the predictable repetitions of con- who studied Dutch literature and drama, and The album takes seventeen of Dickinson’s ventional music. van de Geijnand, who studied music and ex- poems, including “Water is Taught by Thirst,” presses strong interest in its connections with “Pain – has an Element of Blank,” and “The Korst’s voice invites us to wander with her, and poetry, have been musically experimenting Soul Selects her Own Society,” and sets them because she avoids almost all conventional with Dutch poetry for about fifteen years. to an unusual and plaintive coalescence of soft melodic repetition, the experience is surprising Their newest album, and its muse, provides jazz and haunting instrumentals. and enjoyable to listen to as we move through rich new artistic ground. each piece – though very difficult to sing along Piano and viola take us where we might expect with, even after repeated plays. If the Dickinson songs sound improvisational, to go in an arrangement of Dickinson poems it’s because they are. While taking a break set to music, creating a pastoral atmosphere Muse conNAction is a musical duo comprised from a larger project (a triple-CD featuring the that is both soothing and melancholy. Yet the of vocalist Korst, and pianist and composer work of Ida Gerhardt), the group began “play- melodies are underwritten by percussive base, Annemiek van de Geijnan. For By the Oceans ing” with Dickinson’s poetry as a means of and split by clarion blasts of jazz trumpet that Passed, they were joined by celebrated jazz creative rejuvenation. “When we work with sweep us from bucolic brooding straight to musician Hein VandeGeyn, in dual roles as new material, we start on a base of improvi- the silver-hued streets of film noir. The effect bassist and producer. They were also joined sation. From the results of these first impres- is lonely, wistfully nostalgic, and altogether by Marieke de Bruijn on viola, and Angelo sions, slowly a new song ‘grows,’” writes van persuasive. Verploegen on trumpet. Van de Geijnand ar- de Geijnand.

November/December 2013 | 35 New Publications

ments that speaks of deliber- “pain” set against piano and mournful trumpet, ate rehearsal. capturing Dickinson’s sense of isolation and even her despair. The songs – all of them short, the shortest a minute long – Some of the interpretations are a little more function almost as musical counterintuitive. For instance, the song “We vignettes (a nod to their ex- Must an Anguish Pay” (“For each ecstatic perimental birth), meander- instant” Fr109) has a warm, pleasant melody, ing through an interplay of not quite what you would anticipate for a piece styling, often trailing off like characterized by lines like “Sharp pittances half-remembered thoughts. of Years - / Bitter contested farthings - / And Coffers heaped with Tears!” The song “Soar Yet Korst pays careful rever- Away and Never Sigh” (“The Butterfly upon ence to Dickinson’s lines, the the Sky” Fr1559) is downright cheerful by its The group selected poems solely on the cri- vocalist making the poet’s thoughts her own third refrain on grief. teria of instinctive enjoyment, began “to dig as she ranges from high sustained notes to for musical layers,” and slowly created the ar- dreamy half-whispers. The result captures the But therein lies the beauty of reinterpretation, rangements. intimacy of Emily Dickinson’s internal mono- and if “enchantment makes ingredient,” then logue while interpreting it in a new medium. there is much beauty and enchantment to be The result is at once playful and cohesive; it found here. seems entirely possible that muse conNAc- For the most part, it works: the group’s version tion may be improvising throughout, save of the poem “Pain – has an Element of Blank” Chelsea Apple is an essayist and freelance for the harmonic unity among the five instru- arrests the listener with Korst’s shivery note on journalist living in Nashville, Tennessee.

Save the Dates Call for Papers: Dickinson Institute

The Emily Dickinson International Society will hold its On Friday, August 8th, 2014, the EDIS “Dickinson Institute” annual meeting on August 8 to 10, 2014, in Amherst, will be held in Amherst, Massachusetts. The topic is “Em- MA. The program on the theme of “Emily Dickinson ily Dickinson and New England Writers.” Individuals doing and New England Writers” will be co-sponsored by the work on Dickinson’s relationship to other writers of her re- Emily Dickinson Museum. On behalf of EDIS, Elizabeth gion should send 250-word abstracts of a paper to Elizabeth Petrino and Alexandra Socarides will host an Institute Petrino ([email protected]) and Alexandra Socarides on the theme. (See CFP at right.) For attendees who are ([email protected]) by January 15, 2014. Accepted not participants in the Institute, there will be discussion participants will be notified by Feb. 15th and will be asked to workshops on Dickinson poems and short writings by circulate completed, conference-length (8-10 page) papers to other New England writers as well as exhibitions at the a small group by June 15th. Members will meet at the Insti- Frost and Jones libraries. Karen Kilcup, Jane Wald, tute with this group to discuss their work in detail. The Insti- and Paul Crumbley will be featured speakers during the tute will also involve a plenary speaker and a gathering of all weekend. EDIS’s annual Members’ Meeting will take Institute members at its close to reflect on their work and the place on August 9. More information about the program larger themes of the conference. The Institute is scheduled for and registration will be available on the website by the first day of the Emily Dickinson Annual Meeting, which March 1, 2014. all participants are welcome to attend.

Help support our graduate fellowship and scholar awards programs. Use the big blue ‘DONATE’ button on our web page at www.emilydickinsoninternationalsociety.org.

36 | EDIS Bulletin Members’ News

Update of EDIS Chapter Groups and Local Emily Dickinson Activities By Nancy List Pridgen

ancy List Pridgen and Lois Kackley, co- mura, a presentation of a paper by the current Nelly Lambert, with the support of Eleanor Nchairs of the EDIS Chapter Group Com- president Naoki Onishi, and a workshop on Heginbotham and Judith Farr, has been active mittee, have asked Eleanor Heginbotham to poem Fr181 with the panelists Takaomi Eda, in establishing a new EDIS Chapter Group join the Chapter Group Committee and look Junko Kanazawa, and Mari Kurata. in the Washington, DC area. This is actually forward to receiving the benefit of her vast a rebirth of an earlier group from the 1980s. expertise on establishment and maintenance Ellen Beinhorn’s health has caused her to move The new group has met in some of Washing- of local Emily Dickinson groups over the away from the groups she had started in North ton’s most beautiful public buildings. In Sep- years. Carolina and South Carolina. She has relocat- tember, for example, the group (representing ed to Falcon’s Landing in Great Falls, Virginia, professions ranging from acting and curating Massachusetts still has the greatest number of where she is receiving the care she needs after museums to clinical psychology and govern- Emily Dickinson groups. The EDIS Amherst a heart attack. She has assured me that she is ment service) gathered in The Textile Museum Chapter Group, established by Kackley, meets on a healthy path at this moment and that she to share Dickinson’s many sewing and fabric twice a month, year around. The Dickinson will be happily teaching a course on Lady Em- motifs, along with their own journeys in read- discussion group of the Emily Dickinson Mu- ily for the Osher program out of George Ma- ing the spider who sewed at night. seum meets each month September to May. son College in Fairfax Virginia. Beinhorn has Margaret Freeman’s Dickinson discussion contributed a great deal to local chapters in the Past meetings, too, have been set in buildings group meets monthly September to May in past few years and deserves high commenda- that would have delighted the poet: its initial Heath. This year they met in June to make up tion for her work. She also produced a book meeting, with an emphasis on “Dickinson meetings missed due to inclement weather. of her portraits inspired by Dickinson’s poems, and the East,” was in the Freer Gallery, home Emily & Me: Poems by Emily Dickinson with of Eastern art and Singer Sargent paintings. In Texas, Pridgen’s EDIS San Antonio Chap- Faces by Ellen Beinhorn (published by Danc- Another took place in the library of the East ter Group has been meeting once a month ingfish Press, Valle Crucis, North Carolina, Wing of the National Gallery with its view of for an hour and a half. Although a relatively USA in 2008). She presented these portraits at kite-runners on the mall. Next they will use small group, this chapter group now has five the 20th anniversary EDIS annual meeting in the ornate rooms of the National Museum of members that belong to the Emily Dickinson Amherst in 2008. If you would like to send an Women in the Arts. With its major universi- International Society. Because members come email wishing Ellen good wishes, her address ties, colleges, libraries, museums, and read- from a wide geographic area and often are in- is [email protected]. ers (200,000 for the National Book Festival), volved in grandchildren’s activities on Satur- Washington promises to be an optimal spot for days, most members’ attendance is sporadic. At EDIS in Cleveland in 2012, Pridgen met the new EDIS chapter. The group discusses a set of poems that have Dr. David Jamieson of Claremont, California, a connection. The connection may be struc- who has been sponsoring an Emily Dickinson Several other special events were held tural, such as definition poems or poems us- Group for quite some time. Dr. Jamieson’s throughout the past year. Three members par- ing scientific or legal or religious language; or group meets once a month for an hour and a ticipated in local Big Read activities. Both Jed thematic, like “paradise” or “love”; or topical, half and has six to twelve participants. They Deppman and Jonnie Guerra presented lec- like birds or sunsets. Discussion is lively and discuss anywhere from three to a dozen poems tures at the Frankfort, Indiana, Big Read Cel- often concludes with members holding differ- relating to the same theme. They veer away ebration of Emily Dickinson, held in March ent opinions about all or part of a poem. from discussion of Dickinson’s biography as 2013. Barbara Dana participated for a week it might relate to the poems, concentrating on in Sonoma County California’s Big Read Cel- The Emily Dickinson Society of Japan was how the poem affects them emotionally and ebration of Emily Dickinson in March 2013. founded in 1980 with Toshigazu Niikura as intellectually, before moving on to what the its first president, and began issuing an annual poem might mean. They avoid settling on one Dana also appeared for two weeks in The Belle newsletter. Soon after that the society also be- right meaning. They are moving toward un- of Amherst in Cape May, New Jersey. Dana gan having annual meetings. This year it had derstanding specific poetic principles as well visited ten schools doing programs as Emily the 28th Annual Meeting (one was missed in as specific techniques often used by Dickin- Dickinson. She appeared as Dickinson on sev- 2007 because of the EDIS International Con- son. Jamieson allows that sometimes looking eral radio interviews and in two bookstores; ference in Kyoto). It was held in Tokyo with at letters and poems written at a particular time gave talks and readings from her novel A Voice a special lecture by Japanese poet Kiwao No- can lead them toward biography. of Her Own: Becoming Emily Dickinson,

November/December 2013 | 37 Members’ News and shared Dickinson poems at a benefit for 18 Reason’s Food-Lit Book Club in San Fran- Library, one for Dickinson’s birthday, and one Ridgefield Library, in Ridgefield, Connecticut. cisco, California, on November 11, 2012; in for spring, featuring “Dear March Come In!” Gloria Frym’s graduate class at California Col- Cristanne Miller helped sponsor a Community lege of Arts February 22, 2013; and in Dodie Two chapter groups will have the honor of Marathon Reading in Buffalo in April. At this Bellamy’s MFA class at San Francisco State leading workshops at the 2014 meeting in reading, Kate Allen provided a table of chil- on September 30, 2013. Amherst. The annual meeting’s theme will be dren’s books on Dickinson and art supplies “Emily Dickinson and New England Writers.” for illustrating poems. Around 200 people at- Barbara Mossberg presented lectures and Nancy and Bill Pridgen from EDIS San Anto- tended the marathon. readings on Dickinson in her capacity as Poet nio will lead a workshop on “Dickinson and in Residence for the City of Pacific Grove, Thoreau,” and Lois Kackley and Greg Mat- On September 15, 2012, in New York City, California. In December 2012, she led a group tingly of the Amherst group will lead a work- Aífe Murray presented “An Emily Dickinson of fifty high school students in celebration of shop on Dickinson and another New England Sense-Surround,” exploring what Dickinson Emily Dickinson’s birthday, in a Flash Mob, writer, to be announced. Additionally, the saw, smelled, tasted, touched and heard while doing “I’m Nobody on Cannery Row and at Amherst group will be filling the seats at the creating poetry. This event was presented to an Pacific Grove High School.” Mossberg made registration table for the 2014 annual meeting. audience of about 50 and was co-sponsored by gingerbread cake for 100, and the students dis- EDIS. Other Dickinson-related events given tributed candles to passersby and sang. For information about how to start a chapter in 2012-13 by Murray include a Tenement group, contact Nancy List Pridgen at nprid- Talk at the Lower Eastside Tenement Museum Mossberg also gave a performance of Emily [email protected] or Lois Kackley at lobobo- in New York City on September 18, 2012; as Dickinson’s life from her play on Dickinson at [email protected]. See “Steps for Starting a well as presentations in Martha Ackmann’s the Cherry Theater in Carmel. For this occa- Chapter Group,” under “Chapter Groups” on class Emily Dickinson in Her Times, which sion, she served gingerbread and sherry. In ad- the EDIS website at http://www.emilydickin- met at the Homestead in September 2012; at dition, she gave two lectures at Pacific Grove soninternationalsociety.org/.

EDIS Membership Form Membership in the Emily Dickinson International Society (EDIS) enables you to participate in the Society’s meetings and conferences, to receive both of the Society’s publications (the Bulletin and the Emily Dickinson Journal), and to help foster the goals of the Society. Name, title & affiliation ______Mailing address ______Telephone (home)______(office) ______(fax) ______Email ______Please check if this is: new address___ membership renewal ___

Annual Membership Categories: Sustaining Member (added to joint or regular membership) _____$150 or more Institutional Member _____$115 Contributing Member (added to joint or regular membership) _____$100 NEW: Joint EDIS/Dickinson Museum _____$100 Regular Member _____$50.00 Student Member _____$30.00 (All of the above Members receive both the Emily Dickinson Journal and the Bulletin) Associate Member __ $20.00 (Bulletin only) I have included an additional tax-deductible contribution of $______to support the Society’s programs.

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38 | EDIS Bulletin Another Edward Dickinson Letter Found By Krans Bloeimaand

mong Emily Dickinson collectors, ac- Aquiring a letter written by a Dickinson family member is comparable to opening a celebratory bottle of fine Champagne.1 In this instance, a letter written by Edward Dickinson in 1850 to the Mayor of New London, CT, Andrew C. Lippitt, appeared on eBay from a trusted seller with whom I had dealt previ- ously. The opportunity to own this letter was enhanced by the seller’s inability to accurately determine exactly who wrote the letter. In this case, it was described as having been written by a Mr. “Dickerman.” A careful examina- tion of an Edward Dickinson letter to Austin Dickinson in facsimile that appeared in Milli- cent Todd Bingham’s book Emily Dickinson’s Home, confirmed that the handwriting in the Lippitt letter was indeed Edward’s. I knew then that I had to have it. Andrew C. Lippitt was an Amherst College graduate, lawyer and an active promoter of railroads.

1See Dan Lombardo’s “Edward Dickinson and the Amherst and Belchertown Railroad: A Lost Let- ter,” in Historical Journal of Massachusetts, Vol. XII, No. 1, January 1984, pp 36-43. The letter re- sides in the Jones Library’s Dickinson collection.

Krans Bloeimaand’s article about his col- lection of Dickinsonia appeared in the Fall 2012 edition of the Bulletin.

Top left and right, the text of the letter. Above, envelope, address side. Left, transcription courte- ously provided by Vivian Pollak.

November/December 2013 | 39 Follow us on

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