Welcome to the official page for The Emily Dickinson Museum: The Homestead and The Evergreens! The Museum is open Wednesday through Sunday, 11 am to 4 pm.
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The Emily Dickinson Museum comprises two historic houses in the center of Amherst, Massachusetts associated with the poet Emily Dickinson and members of her family during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Homestead was the birthplace and home of the poet Emily Dickinson. The Evergreens, next door, was home to her brother Austin, his wife Susan, and their three children. The Museum was created in 2003 when the two houses merged under the ownership of Amherst College. Its mission is to educate diverse audiences about Emily Dickinson’s life, family, creative work, times, and enduring relevance, and to preserve and interpret the Homestead and The Evergreens as historical resources for the benefit of scholars and the general public.
Operating as usual
Today we bring you this lovely poem, which is providing us some inspiration this New Year's Eve - F172 (variant). The handwritten version here was transcribed by Mabel Loomis Todd!
Many wishes for fresh starts and joyful beginnings, from us to you!
See more manuscripts and transcriptions in the Amherst College Archives: https://bit.ly/38P9jwj
Looking for a meditative way to ring in the New Year?
Color your own Emily Dickinson portrait! Grab some paint, crayons, markers (any media you can get your hands on) and share your creation by tagging us (@emily.dickinson.museum)
.
Download the template: bit.ly/Color-By-Numbers-ED
Poem of the week! F93
Merry Christmas! Seems even in Emily's time, Christmas presents would arrive a little late from time to time, when people were overwhelmed!
As she wrote to her brother Austin on the 27th December 1853,
"I will write to you Austin, tho' everything is so busy, and we are all flying round as if we were distracted. We send you a little box, containing some good things to help you on your way, and I hope they will please you."
Want to see the full manuscript for this letter? Check out the Amherst College archives, here: https://acdc.amherst.edu/view/asc:5120/asc:5123
#tbt last year’s Museum holiday party and open house - we miss seeing the Evergreens decked out like this! A very merry Christmas Eve to you and yours from us here in Amherst!
(P.S. yes, that piano is part of our collection! It belonged to Mattie Dickinson, Emily’s niece, and once a year we get to hear it played!)
Have you been a fan of our Amherst Arts Night readings throughout the year? Well, The Emily Dickinson Museum is now accepting proposals for our “Phosphorescence” Poetry Reading Series, A VIRTUAL EVENT held monthly throughout 2021!
“PHOSPHORESCENCE. Now there’s a word to lift your hat to… to find that phosphorescence, that light within, that’s the genius behind poetry.” – ED
The aim of “Phosphorescence” is to celebrate contemporary creativity that echoes Dickinson’s revolutionary poetic voices. The Series is committed to featuring and serving established and emerging poets who represent the diversity of the flourishing contemporary American poetry scene, and to fostering community by placing poetry in the public sphere. Featured poets are promoted on the Museum’s event web page, through an event mailing list of roughly 15,000 addresses, and through the Museum’s social media. Each participating poet receives a $200 honorarium.
Come phosphoresce with us!! Click the link for more details and submission guidelines: https://bit.ly/3pjVYT5
Poem of the week! F320
Happy Solstice - on this, the longest night of the year - and if we take Emily's view in this poem, perhaps the longest night of a year mostly composed of night-times for many of us - we are wishing you all a little Dawn.🌅
“Glück recalled reading Dickinson as a teenager. ‘Dickinson had chosen me, or recognized me, as I sat there on the sofa. We were an elite, companions in invisibility, a fact known only to us, which each corroborated for the other. In the world, we were nobody.’”
We so enjoyed this article in the Washington Post on poets & gardening, we thought we’d bring it to you! 🌱🌷
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/home/poets-and-gardening-louise-gluck/2020/12/15/0737ef0a-3a50-11eb-98c4-25dc9f4987e8_story.html
Just as they nurture the garden, it feeds their creative spirit, serving as a muse of sorts.
Something about the museum in winter is always so enchanting ❄️❤️
“Hope” is the thing with feathers
The Emily Dickinson Museum is committed to building a global community of those who believe in the power of poetry to spark imagination, inspire creativity, and change lives. We were delighted to see MacKenzie Scott cited Emily Dickinson as a major influence for her recent pledge of over 4 billion dollars to 384 non-profit organizations. In her 190th year, Emily's legacy continues to inspire hope and compassion.
Mackenzie Scott's full statement (Medium): https://mackenzie-scott.medium.com/384-ways-to-help-45d0b9ac6ad8
Our first big snowstorm of the season blew in in the wee hours of this morning -- we thought that was a perfect occasion to bring you this really exciting tidbit!
You may know already that Mary Landis Hampson was the friend of the Dickinson family who lived in and cared for the Evergreens into the 1980s, but did you know that she was also an artist? This is a piece of hers that our incredible collections manager, Megan Ramsey, recently rediscovered as she worked on our ongoing cataloguing project!
This is just the first of what will surely be many wonderful new little finds that we'll be able to bring you as Megan continues!
Today we're excited to show you a postcard from the fantastic exhibit The World Writes Back: Postcards to Emily Dickinson
you can view the virtual gallery here: https://www.emilydickinsonmuseum.org/postcards-to-emily/
if you make art about Emily, don't forget to tag us on social media! We love to see things like this in the wild!
Poem of the week!
The fascinating chill that Music leaves
Is Earth's corroboration
Of Ecstasy's impediment -
'Tis Rapture's germination
In timid and tumultuous soil
A fine - estranging creature -
To something upper wooing us
But not to our Creator -
F1511
A wonderful piece on literary tourism and historic homes that is warming our hearts this week -
"In walking through dead writers’ houses, we understand that time and space do not coalesce."
https://lithub.com/on-the-particular-thrill-of-visiting-a-dead-writers-house/
It is always curious to see how other people live, their very particular paraphernalia. Who hasn’t, upstairs in someone else’s house, looking for the bathroom, nudged open a second door? So imagine…
Dickinson on the new Taylor Swift album? Starting a campaign to get Emily on the cover of next month's Rolling Stone!
"...not only was Evermore announced on Dickinson’s birthday, it also recalls the final line of one of her poems, One Sister Have I in Our House: 'From out the wide night’s numbers — Sue — forevermore!'"
Swift pays tribute to everything from Eighties pop and country murder ballads to The Great Gatsby
Did you enjoy learning about Dickinson's Black Cake at the Museum's birthday party? Learn how chef Padua makes his verion!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysjkmU_XaBg&feature=youtu.be
A special virtual demonstration by Chef Padua Player of SugaChef Desserts. You can find the full recipe here: https://bit.ly/3grW2NrOn December 10, 2020, the...
Happy birthday Emily from Anna Baryshnikov, who plays Lavinia Dickinson on Apple TV+'s @dickinson. We can't wait for Season 2, premiering on January 8!
Happy birthday Emily from Ella Hunt, who plays Sue Gilbert on Apple TV+'s series Dickinson. We can't wait for Season 2, premiering on January 8!
Happy 190th Birthday, Emily!
The Museum’s online programs are free of charge in order to ‘spread wide our hands’ in welcome. If you're looking to honor that commitment to access while also giving a tribute birthday gift to Emily, please consider a donation to our Annual Fund. The Museum's mission is not possible without your support. Your donation will go directly towards the study, preservation, and celebration of Emily Dickinson's life and work.
Donate: bit.ly/SupportEmilyDickinsonMuseum
Happy Birthday Emily!
December 10th 1830 - May 15th 1886
55 years, 1789 poems, roughly 1,000 letters - an enormous body of work that has stood the test of over a century, continuing to inspire, to console, to bring joy and to incite curiosity. What a privilege it is for us at your museum to help share you with the world 🌿
To join us in celebrations today - starting in one short hour! - head on over to the facebook event for the Emily Dickinson Birthday Celebration or to our website, here: https://bit.ly/3qGP7Vp
Emily's 190th birthday is tomorrow!! Almost 800 people from 34 countries have already registered to participate in the festivities so far! We're so excited to celebrate with all of you!
If you haven't registered yet, get on it! Check out the Emily Dickinson Birthday Celebration event page, or our website, here: https://bit.ly/3qGP7Vp
Poem of the week!
A curious Cloud surprised the Sky,
'Twas like a sheet with Horns;
The sheet was Blue -
The Antlers Gray -
It almost touched the Lawns.
So low it leaned - then statelier drew -
And trailed like robes away;
A Queen adown a satin aisle,
Had not the majesty.
(F509)
What a cool project!
"You can select up to three poets for inspiration, including the likes of Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman and Edgar Allen Poe. Once you've made your choices and picked a structure for your poem, the tool will ask you to compose your first line of verse. The AI will then suggest some more options."
We'd be curious to see some of the creations people make with the Emily selection!
https://www.engadget.com/googles-ai-poetry-verse-by-verse-202105834.html?guccounter=1
Quoth the Bugdroid, "Nevermore."
"...I've seen science teachers and five year old kids get just as excited about her as English students." - Jo Carroll, former museum guide
In honor of Emily Dickinson’s 190th birthday, the Museum is collecting your stories! Though videos submitted now won't be featured during Emily's birthday celebration, they will still be added to the gallery up until December 31st!
Submit your story here: https://bit.ly/33NgN0U
December Arts Night with the Literacy Project
Poem of the week!
"The Veins of other Flowers"
(F798)
Did you know Emily's 190th birthday is next Thursday, December 10?
If you're looking to honor Emily with a birthday gift, while also participating in Giving Tuesday, please consider a donation to our Annual Fund: bit.ly/SupportEmilyDickinsonMuseum
The museum's mission is not possible without your support. Your donation will go directly towards the study, preservation, and celebration of Emily Dickinson's life and work.
And don't forget to join us next week for our virtual (and free) Emily Dickinson Birthday Celebration!
There is only one confirmed photo of Emily Dickinson - a striking daguerreotype of the poet at 16 - but numerous other images are associated with her. One that we see come up over and over is here attached - a portrait resembling the daguerreotype, but softened, with the poet wearing a large, lacy ruff and her hair rendered in gentle waves. Where did this image come from? Well! Here's your bit of Emily Dickinson trivia for the day!
As ED's work started to be posthumously published, the public wanted increasingly to know what she looked like. The problem was, Emily's family and friends did not like her daguerreotype, having the opinion that it was a poor likeness of her. So, they sought out other ways of giving access to the Poet's face. For a while, the painted portrait of her as a child was popularized, but when her niece, Martha Dickinson, was writing and editing the poet, this ruffly image of Emily entered the picture. It had been commissioned by the poet's sister, Vinnie, and then eventually inherited by Martha, whose somewhat flowery interpretation of Emily it nicely suited.
To read the whole story, and learn how the Daguerreotype made it to center stage, check out this fantastic publicly available 1997 essay by Polly Longsworth!
https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~cavitch/pdf-library/Longworth_PoetsVisage.pdf
Happy Thanksgiving, however you're spending it! We thought you might enjoy this excerpt letter from Emily to her friend Abiah Root, describing how excited she was to come home from college for Thanksgiving in 1848 - even Emily Dickinson found separation difficult sometimes.
"At last almost tired out I spied a carriage in the distance and surely Austin was in it. You who have been away so much, can easily imagine my delight & will not laugh, when I tell you how I dashed down stairs & almost frightened my dignified –brother out of his senses."
(J20)
This year, we're extra thankful for all our friends and supporters. Emily Dickinson considered her Friends to be her Estate. If you are able, join the Emily Dickinson Museum by making a gift this year. Your support allows the Museum to expand its mission of amplifying Dickinson’s revolutionary poetic voice in exciting and innovative ways.
Donate: bit.ly/SupportEmilyDickinsonMuseum
Poem of the week!
The Heart is the Capital of the Mind
The Mind is a single State -
The Heart and the Mind together make
A single Continent -
One - is the Population -
Numerous enough -
This ecstatic Nation
Seek - it is Yourself.
(F1831)
Who is your Emily Dickinson?
In honor of Emily Dickinson’s 190th birthday, the Museum is collecting your stories! So many of us feel a deep connection to Dickinson’s life and we want to hear from you. Submit a video of your story by December 3 for a chance to be selected for screening during the virtual Emily Dickinson Birthday Celebration at the Homestead.
Submit your video: bit.ly/EDStoryCollecting
"...her work helps me come to terms with the strange and wonderful in myself and in others." - Madeline Dye, Emily Dickinson Museum Staff
This looks wonderful!
"Named for one of the artist's favorite Emily Dickinson poems, the new Bruce Museum exhibition "She Sweeps with Many-Colored Brooms": Paintings and Prints by Emily Mason showcases the vibrant work of Emily Mason (1932-2019)"
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/she-sweeps-with-many-colored-brooms-paintings-and-prints-by-emily-mason-301176395.html
/PRNewswire/ -- Named for one of the artist's favorite Emily Dickinson poems, the new Bruce Museum exhibition "She Sweeps with Many-Colored Brooms": Paintings...
280 Main St
Amherst, MA
01002
| Wednesday | 11:00 - 16:00 |
| Thursday | 11:00 - 16:00 |
| Friday | 11:00 - 16:00 |
| Saturday | 11:00 - 16:00 |
| Sunday | 11:00 - 16:00 |
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This month's virtual poetry reading featured Rage Hezekiah, Taylor Johnson, and Brionne Janae. (content warning: adult language throughout, sexuality at 15:15)
Amherst Arts Night Plus at the Emily Dickinson Museum celebrates contemporary art and poetry in our historic setting. In May we took this monthly event remote with readings by members of the Florence Poets Society! Don't miss this reading by ten western Massachusetts poets, who share their experiences and inspiration in the time of quarantine.
Enjoy the 2020 Virtual Poetry Walk, which aired live on May 15. This beloved annual tradition honored the 134th anniversary of the poet’s death with readings of her poetry at historic sites around Amherst. In homage to Dickinson’s role in inspiring a new generation of writers, each stop features original poems and artwork from the 2019 project "The World Writes Back: Postcards to Emily Dickinson." https://www.emilydickinsonmuseum.org/the-world-writes-back-postcards-to-emily-dickinson/
Celebrate Poem in Your Pocket Day with this read aloud of 'On Wings of Words: The Extraordinary Life of Emily Dickinson' written by Jennifer Berne and illustrated by Becca Stadtlander. After you listen to the story, visit https://www.emilydickinsonmuseum.org/poem-in-your-pocket-day-2020/ for activities inspired by this book! This story read with permission of Chronicle Kids <3
The staff of the Emily Dickinson Museum is pleased to present a reading of “I felt my life with both my hands". Thanks to @taraskurtu and #internationalpoetrycircle for inviting us to participate!
Dr. Paraic Finnerty delivered a fantastic talk at the Homestead about Dickinson’s British Contemporaries, with ideas drawn from his forthcoming monograph on the subject. We apologize that the first few minutes of this lecture were not recorded, but there’s a lot to enjoy for those interested in Dickinson, the Brownings, and Tennyson.
A lively, interactive Q&A with Madeleine Olnek after the screening of her film, ‘Wild Nights with Emily.’
A sneak peek of tomorrow's concert "Some Favored Nook"
We can't wait for Free Fun Friday this week. Drop by for our free open house, activities, a book reading and signing by author Krystyna Porray Goddu, and more. There's still some summer left yet, friends! #freefunfriday
Dancer Kelly Silliman made site-specific magic last night in the Homestead conservatory art installation entitled "In Suspension". The artist Tereza Swanda was also present to talk about her collaborative process with Ingrid Pichler and Fletcher Boote. And a special thank you to those who shared their work at our poetry open mic in Emily's parlor! We couldn't love #AmherstArtsNightPlus more. If you missed your chance to see Kelly and Tereza, be sure to put the August 1 Arts Night in your calendar when they make a return visit! "In Suspension" is open for visitors any day the Museum is open. . . . #EmilyDickinsonMuseum #EmilyDickinson #artsandculture #localart #amherstma #openmicpoetry
The Emily Dickinson Museum comprises two historic houses in the center of Amherst, Massachusetts associated with the poet Emily Dickinson and members of her family during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Homestead was the birthplace and home of the poet Emily Dickinson. The Evergreens, next door, was home to her brother Austin, his wife Susan, and their three children. The Museum was created in 2003 when the two houses merged under the ownership of Amherst College. Our mission is to spark the imagination by amplifying Emily Dickinson’s revolutionary poetic voice from the place she called home.
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Amherst CenterBeneski Museum of Natural History
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