Kurt Anderson’s Studio 360 rebroadcasts a 2006 piece on Emily Dickinson as part of the show’s American Icons series. Focusing on Dickinson’s The Chariot (a.k.a. “Because I could not stop for Death”), the piece highlights the strange and gnomic characteristics of Dickinson’s poetry, particularly as opposed to the loquacious style of the Fireside Poets.
Interviewed for the show was Belinda West, who portrays Dickinson (among others) for the Vermont Humanities Council, PBS and the History Channel. She wove Dickinson’s words about the perils of publication (”the auction of the Mind of Man”) and the pitfalls of fame into her responses in a natural, witty way.
The “common meter” peril–singing Dickinson to the tune of “The Yellow Rose of Texas,” “Gilligan’s Island,” or any number of hymns–is, of course, brought up; but so is the wordplay and subtlety of the poems that Dickinson dressed in such homespun garb. (Or in gossamer gown and tulle tippet; Billy Collins has his say, too, with thoughts on taking off Emily Dickinson’s clothes.)
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