Emily Wore White: Dickinson’s A Spider Sewed at Night
Mixed media, Bascove, 2017
Featured as part of Emilytober2020 with permission from the artist
Author Archive: Patrick Fecher
Past Virtual Programs Archive
Missed an online program? No fear! Rewatch a selection of archived programs below.
Register for upcoming events.
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Phosphorescence - Diane Seuss, Jane Huffman, and Molly Akin - Emily Dickinson Museum
Poetry Masterclass with Oliver de La Paz — Generative Writing Workshop
Open Mic Night 2024 - Emily Dickinson Museum
Margaret Maher and The Celtification of Emily Dickinson
Dialogues with the Non-Human - Emily Dickinson Museum
Poetry, Spirituality, and New Forms of Attention - Emily Dickinson Museum
Poets of the Public: New England Poet Laureates - Emily Dickinson Museum
Book Launch: The Letters of Emily Dickinson
Phosphorescence Poetry Reading Series: June 2023 [Ocean Vuong, Joseph Fritsch, and Yanyi]
Behind the Scenes at the Emily Dickinson Museum Collections Warehouse
Everyday Discoveries at the Emily Dickinson Museum Collections Warehouse
Duties beautifully done: Dickinson's 193rd Birthday Celebration
Late Night Garden Party with Marilyn Nelson and Abigail Chabitnoy - Emily Dickinson Museum
Writing Poetry for Children, Teens, & Adults - Emily Dickinson Museum
The Angle of a Landscape: An Indigenous Poetics Panel - Emily Dickinson Museum
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#Emilytober Prompt List – Be Inspired, October 1st – 31st!
Artists wrestled here!
Lo, a tint Cashmere!
Lo, a Rose!
Student of the Year!
For the Easel here,
Say Repose!
-F111
Since 2009, artists from all over the world have chosen to spend October participating in challenges based on lists of prompts put together by other artists and institutions. Some make a piece of work every day, some every other day, and others are happy to simply take inspiration from all the lists floating around. We’re so excited to be participating in this year’s #Artober by releasing our own list of prompts consisting of phrases from Dickinson poems! We encourage you to pick and choose from the prompts, to work from either the lines we’ve provided or from the whole poems from which they’ve been plucked, and to create in any medium you desire. We look forward to seeing what you create—make sure to tag us on social media so we catch your work! You can tag your pieces with #artober2020, #emilytober, and @emilydickinson.museum. We’ll share our favorites from our instagram account, and feature some of them here on our website!
Update! The #Emilytober Gallery is live!
Check out all the fantastic work here!
Emilytober #Artober Prompt List, 2020
Full text of each prompt, in order, with Franklin edition reference numbers
- F32 The maple wears a gayer scarf –
- F1158 Best Witchcraft is Geometry
- F1350 The Mushroom is the Elf of Plants –
- F168 Ah, Necromancy Sweet!
- F1286 There is no Frigate like a Book
- F407 One need not be a Chamber – to be Haunted
- F796 The Lightning showed a Yellow Beak And then a livid Claw –
- F111 Artists wrestled here!
- F1268 A Word dropped careless on a Page
- F1199 For Captain was the Butterfly
- F1163 A Spider sewed at Night
- F166 Dust is the only Secret.
- F260 I’m Nobody! Who are you?
- F1393 Those Cattle smaller than a Bee
- F656 the Mermaids in the Basement/Came out to look at me –
- F1426 Buccaneers of Buzz –
- F140 Bring me the sunset in a cup –
- F1394 The long sigh of the Frog
- F916 Or Porch of Gnome
- F918 We met as Sparks – Diverging Flints
- F479 The Carriage held but just Ourselves – And Immortality.
- F162 From some old Fortress on the sun
- F1311 Art thou the thing I wanted?
- F1489 A Route of Evanescence,
- F296 Where ships of purple gently toss
- F1649 Back from the Cordial Grave I drag thee
- F1402 His Heart was darker than the starless night
- F1405 The absence of the Witch does not Invalidate the spell –
- F200 The Rose did caper on her cheek –
- F89 Imps in eager caucus
- F710 Where Squirrels play – and Berries dye – And Hemlocks – bow – to God
- F43 The Satyrs fingers beckoned
- F1747 That Love is all there is/Is all we know of Love,
- F509 A curious Cloud surprised the Sky
- F510 Upholsterer of the Pines – is He –
We talked as Girls do – (392)
We talked as Girls do –
Fond, and late –
We speculated fair, on every subject, but the Grave –
Of our’s, none affair –
We handled Destinies, as cool –
As we – Disposers – be –
And God, a Quiet Party
to our authority –
But fondest, dwelt opon Ourself
As we eventual – be –
When Girls, to Women, softly raised
We – occupy – Degree –
We parted with a contract
To cherish, and to write
But Heaven made both, impossible
Before another night.
Statement in Solidarity with Black Lives Matter
This statement was originally released on June 3rd 2020:
Today, in our distress over recent devastating events, we stand with our community and with the Black Lives Matter movement against racial injustice and inequality. We recognize that real change is necessary both in our country and in our museum.
We believe that museums are not neutral: they should be part of public conversations on contemporary issues such as racism, injustice, and oppression. Museums have long been institutions that hold and reflect cultural values and collective memory. Now, they have an even greater responsibility to be active participants in challenging age-old and contemporary systems of oppression.
Like other museums, the Emily Dickinson Museum has a duty to examine the history it teaches and to expand the stories it tells. Emily Dickinson lived through a catastrophic Civil War rooted in racial injustice and oppression. Her family was part of a society that benefited from the labor of immigrants, African Americans, and Native Americans in service to a privileged White majority. The poet’s literary work was made possible by the labor of these domestic servants. The Emily Dickinson Museum strives to tell this full story. Our new interpretive plan will place greater emphasis on the perspectives of Irish, Native American, and free Black workers in the Dickinson households, making plain issues of race and class in Dickinson family daily life.
At the Emily Dickinson Museum we recognize that this interpretive work is but one step in the greater effort to increase diversity, equity, inclusion, and access for audiences, staff, and leadership in institutions like ours. Dickinson’s revolutionary poetic voice became an agent of change, both in the literary canon and in the lives of individuals who find depths of meaning in her account of our human condition. As an institution, we are committed to the continuous work of change that museums can and should be doing to build an equitable society.
A SERVICE OF SONG
Postcard verso:
Here’s an original watercolor I made
inspired by Emily Dickinson. Lately my
favorite poem of hers is this:
~ a SERVICE OF SONG ~
Some keep the Sabbath going to church;
I keep it staying at home,
With a bobolink for a chorister,
And an orchard for a dome.
Some keep the Sabbath in surplice;
I just wear my wings,
And instead of tolling the bell for church,
Our little sexton sings.
God preaches, – a noted clergyman, –
And the sermon is never long;
So instead of getting to heaven at last
I’m going all along!
————————-
It reminds of a childhood favorite author of
mine, Ethel Cook Eliot, also from Western
Massachusetts who wrote about spirituality
in nature (in fairy-tales for kids.)
A Letter From Memphis
Postcard verso:
Dear Emily, I am the World .. writing
back to you. We are one .. I’m glad you
got to see .. the beauty in simplicity.
Nature gifted you with faith .. you are the
Majesty. Committment is a Message.
Gods hands have held you dearly …
as you hugged yourself .. you are her.
You are the Love. Judgement does
not define your heart. Countrymen see
you in the sky: you are the news that
nature told. Simply healing your spirit,
<3 Jessica Gershon
kiitos!
Postcard verso, page left:
Dear Emily —
Due to a postal strike here in
Finland, I’ve not been able to
send this, so it’s probably going
to be late … but thank you —
kiitos! for your beautiful words
and inspiration, which continue
to bring joy and comfort to
me and many others around
the world.
With admiration,
Luida Jainsén (first name? last name?)
Postcard verso, page right:
12/5/19
from Italia
Postcard verso:
Nov. 19, 2019
Thank you Emily for keeping us good
company from the eternity…
I visited the Museum in 2015 and I
loved it and Amherst, too —
Impossibility, like Wine
Exhilarates the Man
Who tastes it; Possibility
Is flavorless — Combine
A Chance’s faintest tincture
And in the former Dram
Enchantment makes ingredient
As certainly as Doom.
Ciao !!! from Italia and the land of
vineyards and wines.
Francesca Toppino (last name?)
<3 AMORE
Ashore at last!
Postcard verso, page left:
Nov. 6 2019
Dear Emily —
When I visited
the Etruscan Tombs
last year, I gazed at
the 2500+ years old
cemeteries and thought of
your words:
“Land, ho! Eternity!
Ashore at last!”
With love —
Terri Elders
Postcard verso, page right:
#Postcards To Emily