Past Events

The homestead parlor with 4 windows, a fireplace, two chairs, a rug and a side table.

The Props assist the House:
Restoring the Homestead (Part 3)
Saturday, September 25, 1pm

In the final installment of this three-part series, go behind the scenes of the restoration of Emily Dickinson’s home with Museum Executive Director Jane Wald and special guest Jeff Baker, preservation architect...
Graphic for Tell It Slant Poetry Festival 2021 headliner night with headshots of Tracy K. Smith and Tiana Clark with the Tell It Slant logo.

An Evening with Tracy K. Smith and Tiana Clark
Saturday, September 25, 7:30pm

Settle in for an evening of poetry celebrating Emily Dickinson’s ongoing creative legacy with the work of two internationally acclaimed contemporary female poets, headliners Tracy K. Smith and Tiana Clark...
Headshots of March poets

Phosphorescence Poetry Reading Series
Thursday, March 25, 6-7pm

Phosphorescence March 2021 featured poets:
Teri Ellen Cross Davis, Amy Dryansky, and W. Todd Kaneko...
Headshot of Tess Taylor

Staging the Poem:
Masterclass with Tess Taylor
Friday, September 24, 12pm

What is drama in poetry? By turning the lenses of drama on the poems we read and onto our own drafts, participants in this masterclass will think about how the theatrical cues of place, voice, and address make a poem legible to us, and help a poem to feel spoken and embodied across time...
Graphic for A Stranger in My Own Home

A Stranger in My Own Home:
Black Experiences Within the American Literary Canon
Tuesday, September 21, 7pm

A panel of the brightest Black poets of our time to consider their own experiences reading the canon, and writing poems to expand it...

Emily Dickinson Poetry Marathon
September 20 – 26

An Emily Dickinson Museum tradition, the Marathon is a group reading of all 1,789 poems by Emily Dickinson over the course of all 7 days of the Tell It Slant Poetry Festival...
Headshots of April poets

Phosphorescence Poetry Reading Series
Thursday, April 22, 6-7pm

Phosphorescence April 2021 featured poets:
Jennifer Franklin, Philip F. Clark, Fred Marchant and Mervyn Taylor...
Wide shot of the Parlor at the Homestead

The Props assist the House:
Restoring the Homestead (Part 2)
Thursday, August 19, 6-7pm

In the second of this three-part series, go behind the scenes of the restoration of Emily Dickinson’s home with Museum Director Jane Wald and special guest Marylou Davis, conservator and specialist of historic decorative finishes...
Circular image of the Earth with Emily's handwriting overlaid atop

Emily Dickinson International Society
Annual Meeting
August 6 – 7

This year’s focus is Dickinson’s great love of Shakespeare with a variety of scholarly panels, lectures, and workshops...
poetry walk

2022 Tell It Slant Poetry Festival Call for Proposals

The Emily Dickinson Museum is now accepting proposals for the ninth annual Tell It Slant Poetry Festival (formerly the Amherst Poetry Festival), a virtual event held September 20-26, 2021...
Parlor of the Homestead

The Props assist the House -:
Restoring the Homestead (Part 1)
Thursday, July 15, 6-7pm

In the first of a three-part series, go behind the scenes of the restoration of Emily Dickinson's home with Museum Director Jane Wald...
Emily Dickinson's handwriting on a letter and envelope

Poetry Discussion Group:
Spring 2023 Series

A lively virtual discussion of Emily Dickinson’s poetry and letters, meeting once a month from February to May...
Headshots of Alena Smith and Martha Ackmann

A Secret told:
An Evening with Alena Smith and Martha Ackmann
Wednesday, June 30, 7pm

Donors appreciation event featuring Alena Alena Smith, creator of the award-winning Apple TV+ series Dickinson, and Martha Ackmann, author of These Fevered Days: Ten Pivotal Moments in the Making of Emily Dickinson...
Two Anenomes grow in front of the Homestead

“Bloom – is Result – to meet a Flower”: Dickinson’s Flowering Favorites with Marta McDowell
Friday, June 25, 12:30pm

Join Marta McDowell, master gardener, landscape historian, and author of Emily Dickinson’s Gardening Life for a close look at blooming cultivars from the Homestead in Amherst...
Headshots of May poets

Phosphorescence Poetry Reading Series
Thursday, May 27, 6-7pm

Phosphorescence May 2021 featured poets:
Melissa Range and Erica Charis-Molling...