A Bird, came down the Walk (359)

A Bird, came down the Walk –
He did not know I saw –
He bit an Angle Worm in halves
And ate the fellow, raw,

And then, he drank a Dew
From a convenient Grass –
And then hopped sidewise to the Wall
To let a Beetle pass –

He glanced with rapid eyes,
That hurried all abroad –
They looked like frightened Beads, I thought,
He stirred his Velvet Head. –

Like one in danger, Cautious,
I offered him a Crumb,
And he unrolled his feathers,
And rowed him softer Home –

Than Oars divide the Ocean,
Too silver for a seam,
Or Butterflies, off Banks of Noon,
Leap, plashless as they swim

‘Wild Nights with Emily’ Screening and Director’s Q&A, October 26, 2019

Join us for free screening of the SxSW dramatic comedy ‘Wild Nights with Emily,’ — starring Molly Shannon as the beloved poet Emily Dickinson. Followed by a Q&A with director Madeleine Olnek, and Emily Dickinson Museum curator Jane Wald. Don’t miss this opportunity to see the movie IndieWire called “hilarious” and “touching”!

Location: The screening will take place in Lipton Lecture Hall in the Amherst College Science Center on the east side of campus from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. The hall is room E110 and is located on the first floor by the cafe.

Parking: Parking is available along East Drive and Merrill Science Drive and no permit is required (even if indicated).

About the Film

In the mid-19th century, Emily Dickinson is writing prolifically, baking gingerbread, and enjoying a passionate, lifelong relationship with another woman, her friend and sister-in-law Susan. Beloved comic Molly Shannon leads in this humorous yet bold reappraisal of Dickinson, informed by her private letters. While seeking publication of some of the 1,789 poems written during her lifetime, Emily (Shannon) finds herself facing a troupe of male literary gatekeepers too confused by her genius to take her work seriously. Instead her work attracts the attention of an ambitious woman editor, who also sees Emily as a convenient cover for her own role in buttoned-up Amherst’s most bizarre love triangle.

About the Filmmaker

Madeleine Olnek is a New York City based playwright and filmmaker. Her third feature film, Wild Nights With Emily, was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and awards from NYSCA and Jerome Foundation funds. Her second feature, The Foxy Merkins, included screenings at Sundance 2014, BAM Cinemafest, Lincoln Center, and an NYC theatrical run at IFP. The film had its international premiere at the Moscow Film Festival. Her debut feature, Codependent Lesbian Sex Alien Seeks Same, premiered at Sundance 2011. Its screening included MoMa, The Viennale and the Festival do Rio. Nominated for a Gotham award, it had theatrical runs in LA and NYC. Her award-winning and widely screened comedy shorts, “Countertransference” (2009), and “Hold Up” (2006), were official selections of Sundance; “Make Room For Phyllis” (2007) premiered at Sarasota. Olnek was awarded best female short film director at Sundance in 2009, by LA’s Women In Film organization.

Exciting News About Our Recent Grants

THE EMILY DICKINSON MUSEUM RECEIVES OVER $350,000 IN GRANTS FOR INTERPRETIVE PLANNING, OPERATING SUPPORT, AND RESTORATION

The grants will be used to improve and increase access to Emily Dickinson’s poetic and personal legacy in the place she called home.

(AMHERST, Mass., August 28, 2019) – Today the Emily Dickinson Museum announced that it will receive over $350,000 in grants for interpretive planning, operational support, and restoration. The grants include a Public Humanities Planning grant of $63,025 from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). The NEH award will support a year of interpretive planning to unite the Museum’s historic spaces and collections to better serve its growing contemporary audience. Public Humanities Planning grants from the NEH are typically awarded for up to $40,000 per grantee, but larger sums are granted to exceptionally ambitious and complex proposals like the Museum’s.

Program Director Brooke Steinhauser says the grants will allow the Museum to “incorporate current scholarship and more inclusive methodologies of interpretation” into its already vibrant programming. As the site of the largest and most varied collection of non-manuscript objects associated with Emily Dickinson and her family, and as the site where Dickinson penned nearly all of her 1,789 poems, the grants will help the Museum to consider how to provide interpretation of and access to its resources, resulting in the best possible visitor experience.

The Emily Dickinson Museum is one of 16 humanities projects this cycle to receive a grant from the NEH for planning or implementation, all of which will support vital research, education, preservation, and public programs in the humanities. The National Endowment for the Humanities preserves America’s rich history and cultural heritage, by encouraging and supporting scholarship and innovation in history, archaeology, philosophy, literature, and other humanities disciplines. In addition to the work at the Emily Dickinson Museum, this round of grants will enable continued work on the papers of presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln, as well as publication of the complete speeches, correspondence, and writings of Martin Luther King Jr. and Eleanor Roosevelt, and a new scholarly edition and translation of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

In addition to the NEH grant, the Museum will receive $245,673 from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, $30,000 from the Massachusetts Cultural Facilities Fund, and $12,200 from the Massachusetts Culture Council’s Cultural Investment Portfolio. The IMLS grant will be used to catalog, manage, and maintain its 8,000+ piece collection. The planning grant from the Facilities Fund will be used to plan the restoration of the hallways, parlors, and bedrooms in the Museum, tripling the amount of restored interpretive space in the Homestead. The grant from the Cultural Investment Portfolio will support operations at the Museum. Executive Director Jane Wald says the grants will help to transform the Museum’s interpretation by “preparing to restore this private poet’s public spaces to their appearance during her most important writing years.”

Since its inception, the Emily Dickinson Museum has welcomed more than 150,000 visitors from 50 countries and serves as the premier center for study, interpretation, and celebration of Emily Dickinson’s place in literature, history, and culture. These awards will support the Museum’s mission to spark the imagination by amplifying Dickinson’s revolutionary poetic voice from the place she called home. The Museum is open Wednesday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Learn more at www.EmilyDickinsonMuseum.org.

Created in 1965 as an independent federal agency, the National Endowment for the Humanities supports research and learning in history, literature, philosophy, and other areas of the humanities by funding selected, peer-reviewed proposals from around the nation.

The Institute of Museum and Library Services is the primary source of federal support for the nation’s libraries and museums. They advance, support, and empower America’s museums, libraries, and related organizations through grant making, research, and policy development. Their vision is a nation where museums and libraries work together to transform the lives of individuals and communities. To learn more, visit www.imls.gov.

Managed in collaboration with MassDevelopment, the Cultural Facilities Fund provides major improvement grants to nonprofit cultural organizations, in recognition of their profound economic impact on communities across Massachusetts. Since 2006, the Fund has encouraged sound growth, supported important development projects, played a crucial role in the growth of local tourism, created thousands of jobs, and driven millions of dollars in private investment.

The Cultural Investment Portfolio provides both general operation and project-based grants to nonprofit organizations that enrich Massachusetts’ cultural life. The Portfolio works to strengthen a cultural sector that generates $1.2 billion in economic activity, creates thousands of jobs, and delivers programs to more than 20 million people a year. Not just a funder, the Portfolio is a source of invaluable expertise, advocacy, and peer dialogue.

Hours & Admission

Closed for Winter Break
Each year the Emily Dickinson Museum closes during January and February to work with the collection and other preservation activities. Please plan to visit us when we reopen in March 2025.

RESERVE YOUR TICKETS

Admission

The Emily Dickinson Museum is open to visitors March through December. Begin your visit at the Museum’s Tour Center, located in the Homestead, to check-in for an existing reservation or to purchase tour tickets. From there, visit our Museum shop, grounds, and gardens, all of which are open to the public. Last entry to the Museum is at 4PM.

Purchasing tickets online ahead of your visit is recommended.

Tickets: Prices include visits to both houses — visitors reserve consecutive timed entry to the Homestead.

Adult	$20
Students (18+)	$15
Youth (17 and Under)	Free
Five College Students	Free
EBT / WIC / ConnectorCare Card	Free (up to 2 tickets)

Further discounts available by calling the Tour Center:

Teachers	$15
Amherst College Faculty & Staff	Free
Museum Professionals (AAM, NEMA)	Free

We are proud to participate in Mass Cultural Council’s Card to Culture program in collaboration with the Department of Transitional Assistance, the Department of Public Health’s WIC Nutrition Program, the Massachusetts Health Connector, and hundreds of organizations by making cultural programming accessible to Massachusetts residents for whom cost is a participation barrier.

Massachusetts residents who are EBT, WIC, and ConnectorCare cardholders receive free museum admission to our daily tour program (valid two per cardholder). See the complete list of participating organizations offering EBT, WIC,and ConnectorCare discounts.

Hours

Closed
December 23 – February 28

PLAN YOUR VISIT

Emily Dickinson and her British Contemporaries, November 9, 2019

4:30-6PM at the Emily Dickinson Museum Homestead

Scholar Páraic Finnerty presents this lecture on Emily Dickinson and her British contemporaries. He will discuss Dickinson’s reading of and response to three of her favorite British poets—Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Robert Browning, and Alfred Tennyson—in relation to their nineteenth-century U.S. reception. The lecture will focus on the impact of Tennyson’s and Browning’s development and popularization of the dramatic lyric (later termed the dramatic monologue) on Dickinson’s poetics. In the process, Finnerty will explore how this context provides a new way of interpreting Dickinson’s poetry. Time for questions and answers will follow the talk.

This program is free and open to the public.

About the speaker: Páraic Finnerty is Reader in English and American Literature at the University of Portsmouth. He is the author of Emily Dickinson’s Shakespeare and co-author of Victorian Celebrity Culture and Tennyson’s Circle (2013). He is currently working on a monograph entitled Dickinson and her British Contemporaries, forthcoming from Edinburgh University Press. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Emily Dickinson International Society and serves on the Editorial Board of the Emily Dickinson Journal.

Call for Proposals for the Amherst Poetry Festival, July 3-25, 2019

The Emily Dickinson Museum is now accepting proposals for our seventh annual Amherst Poetry Festival, September 19-22, 2019!

Produced by the Emily Dickinson Museum, with support from the Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts, the Beveridge Family Foundation, Amherst Business Improvement District, Massachusetts Cultural Council, and Jones Library, the Amherst Poetry Festival celebrates the poetic legacy of Emily Dickinson and the contemporary creativity of the Pioneer Valley and beyond.

Proposals for audience-centered workshops, panel discussions, and participatory programs are welcome. The Steering Committee especially welcomes the following:

- Submissions from groups of 2 – 5 poets
- Submissions that engage young attendees and those new to poetry
- Submissions that involve hands-on components

A $200 honorarium will be provided per event. Event facilitators are asked to pay their own travel and lodging expenses.

Proposals should be designed for one of the following program slots: (Individuals may submit for more than one program slot)

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2019

Poetry workshops for students of high school (grades 9-12). 45-minute classroom session, to be offered up to four times between 7:50am to 3pm. Partner schools will be shared with selected poets and will include schools in Hampshire and Hampden counties.

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 2019

Daytime poetry workshops, panels, or participatory programs open to the public to occur at a variety of Festival venues, including on site at the Emily Dickinson Museum, at the Jones Library, Hope and Feathers Art Gallery, etc. (Examples of participatory programs might include mobile activities, resource booths, etc.). Event sessions are typically an hour and a half long.

Submission Guidelines:

Only submissions made in the online form will be considered. There is no fee to submit proposals.
Following your submission, please e-mail your resume/cv to edmprograms@emilydickinsonmuseum.org.
- Include “POETRY FESTIVAL SUBMISSION” in the title of the e-mail. We can accept .pdf, .doc, .docx files.
  If applicable, you may also submit an image in .jpg, .jpeg, .gif, and .png format.
Selected facilitators will be notified by August 9, and will be asked to sign a letter of agreement confirming their participation in the Festival.
Submissions Due: Thursday, July 25, 2019, 11:59 pm EST.

Submissions will be judged on the following:

Originality – Is your idea bold and intriguing? Will it offer something new to our Festival?
Quality – Does the submission reflect thoughtful preparation? How are you uniquely qualified to facilitate this program?
Audience – Have you clearly outlined participatory elements? How does your proposal contribute to community-building for the Amherst Poetry Festival?
Special consideration will be given to Pioneer Valley and Massachusetts-based facilitators.

SUBMIT YOUR PROPOSAL

Questions? Email us at edmprograms@emilydickinsonmuseum.org

Image of "In Suspension" in the Homestead Conservatory

In Suspension: A site-specific art installation, June 21 – September 9, 2019

Wonder – is not

precisely knowing
And not precisely
knowing not –
A beautiful but

bleak condition
He has not lived
who has not felt –

Suspense – is his
maturer Sister –
Whether Adult Delight is Pain
Or of itself a
new misgiving –
This is the
Gnat that
mangles men –

-F1347

In Suspension

A site-specific art installation at the Emily Dickinson Museum featuring work by Tereza Swanda, Ingrid Pichler, and Fletcher Boote

The Emily Dickinson Museum is pleased to present this first site-specific art installation in the restored Homestead conservatory. In this small greenhouse Dickinson tended flowers “near and foreign,” forging a deep connection that permeated her poetry and daily life. Imagine dirt under the poet’s fingernails as she wrote the poems that immortalized flowers blooming in her garden, home, and Amherst’s fields and woodlands.

This mixed-media installation aims to forge the colors Dickinson saw from the conservatory out into her landscape. In this meditation on suspension, colors change based on the atmosphere, and the space between subjects. Light from color gels is cast throughout the room by projection and refraction. Sound is a complimentary element to color.

The installation is best viewed from inside the conservatory, which is open from 11AM-4:30PM each day the Museum is open (Wednesday through Monday). All are welcome inside to view the installation, but the space is restricted to four people at a time. Photography inside the installation is most welcome.

About the artists:

Tereza Swanda teaches at Dean College and has 20 years of color theory through painting. She graduated from Mass Art in Boston with a degree in Sculpture and Painting and holds an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She has exhibited her own work extensively both locally, nationally and internationally over the last ten years. Learn more: https://www.mamatereza.net/

Ingrid Pichler specializes in site-specific glass installation for the private and public sector and is a visiting lecturer at Salem State University. Pichler has been working in architectural glass for almost thirty years. Throughout her career, her hands-on approach has enabled her to develop a keen understanding of the transformative potential of light in the context of architectural glass. Most of her works have been commissioned, location-specific installations, utilizing a wide range of techniques from traditional painting and staining, to new innovation for fusing and casting in contemporary glass technology. Learn more: http://www.pichlerart.com/

Fletcher Boote is a composer and performer investigating nuances of human relationships as they are expressed in arrangements of sounds. She has recently taught sound healing and vocal workshops at Princeton University and lead courses at Johnson State College. Boote has been working in sound for over a decade and has worked with students of Meredith Monk. Learn more: http://fletcherboote.com/

Of Bronze and Blaze (319)

Of Bronze — and Blaze —
The North — tonight —
So adequate — it forms —
So preconcerted with itself —
So distant — to alarms —
An Unconcern so sovreign
To Universe, or me —
Infects my simple spirit
With Taints of Majesty —
Till I take vaster attitudes —
And strut opon my stem —
Disdaining Men, and Oxygen,
For Arrogance of them —

My Splendors, are Menagerie —
But their Competeless Show
Will entertain the Centuries
When I, am long ago,
An Island in dishonored Grass —
Whom none but Daisies — know.

I’ll tell you how the Sun rose (204)

I’ll tell you how the Sun rose –
A Ribbon at a time –
The Steeples swam in Amethyst –
The news, like Squirrels, ran –
The Hills untied their Bonnets –
The Bobolinks – begun –
Then I said softly to myself –
“That must have been the Sun”!
But how he set – I know not –
There seemed a purple stile
That little Yellow boys and girls
Were climbing all the while –
Till when they reached the other side –
A Dominie in Gray –
Put gently up the evening Bars –
And led the flock away –

“Emily Dickinson’s Gardening Life”, with Marta McDowell, December 15, 2019

4:30-6PM at the Amherst Woman’s Club at 35 Triangle Street, Amherst, MA

The cultivated world of plants, wildflowers, trees, and shrubs provided Emily Dickinson with a constant source of inspiration and companionship. On December 15, take a seated “tour” of Dickinson’s gardens with the author of Emily Dickinson’s Gardening Life: The Plants and Places that Inspired the Poet. Led by celebrated garden historian and 2018 Gardener-in-Residence Marta McDowell, this talk will treat visitors to a seasonal exploration of the poet’s passion for the natural world.

A book signing follows the talk. Books will be available for purchase at the program. Light refreshments will be served. This event is free and open to the public. Parking for this program is available at the Amherst Woman’s Club.

About Emily Dickinson’s Gardening Life (Timber Press, 2019):

Emily Dickinson was a gardener as well as a poet. She tended flowers in her Amherst, Massachusetts garden and in the small conservatory that her father added on to their brick house on Main Street. Flowers have their own poetry. As she said, “flowers…, without lips, have language.” Emily Dickinson’s Gardening Life explores the plants and places of Dickinson’s life alongside her poetry.

Richly illustrated with selections from Dickinson’s herbarium, period botanical art by three of Dickinson’s contemporaries, historical images, and new photographs, Emily Dickinson’s Gardening Life traces this little-know part of Dickinson’s life. It beautifully reveals the many ways her passion for plants sparked her creativity and inspired much of her beloved poetry.

About Marta McDowell:

Marta McDowell teaches landscape history and horticulture at the New York Botanical Garden and consults for private clients and public gardens. Her latest book is Emily Dickinson’s Gardening Life, 2019. Timber Press also published The World of Laura Ingalls Wilder, New York Times-bestselling All the Presidents’ Gardens, and Beatrix Potter’s Gardening Life, now in its seventh printing. Marta is working on a new book about The Secret Garden and its author, Frances Hodgson Burnett, due out from Timber Press in 2022. She is the 2019 recipient of the Garden Club of America’s Sarah Chapman Francis Medal for outstanding literary achievement.