News & Events “Poetry in the Garden” at Emily Dickinson Museum July 9, 16 and 23

June 29, 2006
Director of Media Relations
413/542-8417

AMHERST, Mass.—“Poetry in the Garden” returns to the Emily Dickinson Museum: The Homestead and The Evergreens, on three Sundays this summer. The series of readings will take place in the garden at the Dickinson Homestead (280 Main Street.) At 2 p.m. on Sunday, July 9, Margaret Lloyd, professor of English at Springfield College, will present “Emily Dickinson and the Soul.” At 2 p.m. on Sunday, July 16, David Porter will read poems on the theme “Traveling the Reader’s Mind, and the World, with Emily Dickinson.” At 2 p.m. on Sunday, July 23 “Emily Dickinson and Geography” will be the focus of Sarah Willburn of Trinity College. The readings are free and open to the public. Parking is available on Main Street and side streets in downtown Amherst. Some seating will be provided, but audience members are invited to bring blankets or lawn chairs. In the case of rain, the events will move indoors.

Tricia Gilrein, the museum’s program coordinator, says the “Poetry in the Garden” series is a patchwork of blankets, bonnets and baby carriages on the museum grounds under the summer sky. “The poetry series is a terrific way to lounge on a weekend afternoon. Taking in poetry in a relaxed setting like the garden is the perfect way to enjoy Emily Dickinson.”

Margaret Lloyd chairs the Humanities Department at Springfield College, where she has taught since 1987. She has published a book of poems, This Particular Earthly Scene, and has published widely in poetry journals and four anthologies. She has recently completed a book-length cycle of poems, A Moment in the Field, centering on Arthurian Legend and myth.

David Porter is professor emeritus of English at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He is author of The Art of Emily Dickinson’s Early Poetry, and Dickinson: The Modern Idiom.

Sarah Willburn is a visiting assistant professor at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn., and has recently completed her first book, Possessed Victorians: Extra Spheres in Nineteenth-Century Mystical Writings, which examines the way in which mysticism and liberalism shapes the nineteenth-century individual in literary and non-fiction accounts.

The Emily Dickinson Museum, comprising the Dickinson Homestead and The Evergreens, two historic houses in Amherst, is devoted to the story and legacy of poet Emily Dickinson and her family. The Dickinson Homestead was the birthplace and residence of the poet (1830-1886). The Evergreens was the 1856 home of the poet’s brother and sister-in-law, Austin and Susan Dickinson. Merged into a single museum in 2003, both properties are owned by the Trustees of Amherst College. For more information, contact the museum at 413/542-8161 or visit the museum’s website.

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