month

A few Dickinson news items have drawn our attention, and might warrant yours:

• Guy Noir sings Emily Dickinson?: the Amherst Bulletin notes that Emily Dickinson was the butt of an extended joke on Garrison Keillor’s Prairie Home Companion last week, with the erstwhile P.I. Guy Noir auditioning for a role in “Stop for Death,” a Dickinson musical. Of course, this is the same Keillor whose latest CD is called “English Majors” and who holds sonnet contests, so I’m sure the joke was in good fun (Cub Scout activities kept me from hearing the show myself, alas). I seem to remember an amusing riff a few months ago that involved Henry David Thoreau, Emily Dickinson, and wood ticks; Keillor is certainly one to monitor . . .
• Dickinson Marathon in St. Paul: another story with a Minnesota connection: St. Thomas University will hold a Dickinson marathon on April 25, 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM, in the O’Shaughnessy Room of O’Shaughnessy-Frey Library Center. “The goal: To read aloud all of Dickinson’s poems — from #1 to #1,789 — between 8 a.m. and midnight. Readers can come and go as they please; stay for a half-hour or make a day of it. Participants will sit in a circle and take turns reading; listeners are welcome too.” Common Good Books–Garrison Keillor’s bookstore–has provided copies of Franklin’s edition of Dickinson; this seems like a conspiracy . . .
• Wild Nights! reviews are all around us this Spring: the Minneapolis Star Tribune weighs in (will these Minnesotans not leave poor Dickinson be?), as does the New York Times Book Review. According to the Book Review’s podcast, the NYT reviewer Brenda Wineapple has a book about Dickinson and Higginson hitting the shelves this August.
• A Summer of Hummingbirds by Christopher Benfey is the next Dickinson-related book to watch: a fascinating look into the intersections of Harriet Beecher Stowe, Mark Twain, Emily Dickinson, and Martin Johnson Heade, a naturalist and artist who specialized in hummingbirds, a creature which frequently inhabits Dickinson’s poems.
• Fleda Brown discusses “I heard a fly buzz” in her ongoing series for National Poetry Month (and you thought April was just about fools and taxes . . .)
• Finally, we hope that the “Daily” aspect of “Daily Dickinson” will return this week, with several non-poetic things coming under control here at DailyDickionson World Headquarters; stay tuned!

Yvonne Hudson’s The Poet Lights the Lamp that had been scheduled for the University of Pittsburgh last weekend had to be cancelled.

However, the compilation will be presented in Washington, DC, for Emily’s birthday on Wednesday, December 5, 2007, at St. Augustine’s Lutheran Church, a co-presentation of Southeastern University and the monthly St. Augustine’s “Art and the Spirit” program.

Write New.Place.Collaborations@gmail.com for details on booking or attending this program and Yvonne Hudson’s presentations of ‘The Belle of Amherst,’ performed in Pittsburgh in 2006 for the 30th anniversary of William Luce’s play.

The Emily Dickinson Museum in Amherst has been making good use of their gardens and grounds this spring and summer, with the addition of tours of the homestead’s vernacular lawns and gardens and the formal landscaping of the Evergreens. This coincides nicely with several new publications related to Dickinson’s gardening life, as noted here last month.

Now the museum is sponsoring a series of readings that will bring the poetry out of doors: every Sunday from July 15 to July 29, at 2:00 PM, a poet will read both Dickinson’s work and their own:

• July 15: Poet Cleopatra Mathis, author of White Sea and What to Tip the Boatman.
• July 22: Artist Nancy Ekholm Burkert, illustrator of Acts of Light, a collection of Emily Dickinson’s poetry.
• July 29: Poet Dara Wier, author of Remnants of Hannah and Reverse Rapture, named 2006 Book of the Year by Poetry Center and American Poetry Archives.

If you’re in the Amherst area on a Sunday afternoon this July, head to the Dickinson House gardens to hear something old and something new.

Also: if you have a Dickinson event in your area that you’d like mentioned here, leave a comment and I’ll be sure to give it some notice.

If you were coming in the fall,
I’d brush the summer by
With half a smile and half a spurn,
As housewives do a fly.

If I could see you in a year,
I’d wind the months in balls,
And put them each in separate drawers,
Until their time befalls.

If only centuries delayed,
I’d count them on my hand,
Subtracting till my fingers dropped
Into Van Diemen’s land.

If certain, when this life was out,
That yours and mine should be,
I’d toss it yonder like a rind,
And taste eternity.

But now, all ignorant of the length
Of time’s uncertain wing,
It goads me, like the goblin bee,
That will not state its sting.