by Barbara Dana
I hope she is right.
The next morning I heard another friend of feather. This time it was a robin. Carlo and I were walking in back by the woods, and there she was, perched on the limb of my Elm tree. It was a glad report. We watched her awhile before she flew off to spread the news of Spring, then continued along the edge of the woods. I stopped to look at the hill behind the trees. We would be moving over that hill, starting a new life. No Elm tree. No front door stone.
The first line of a little poem came to my mind. As I had nothing to write it on and no pen to write, I led Carlo back to the house to catch it on a scrap of paper.
I take my strength from Robin—
Perched high upon the tree—
With nothing more than stick bones
To hold her chemistry—
She traveled far—
From places South—
That I shall never see
If she can make so long a trip—
A hill’s not much for me!
There are times when one must rhyme. It helps to tie the senses on.
By October, when the leaves took on their red and flaming gold, plans for the move were well in place. Mother’s neuralgia was worse and her concern about the wallpaper did not help one bit. Mother enjoys change less than I do, if such a thing is possible. It was good neither Vinnie nor I was about to be married, as Mother needed all the help she could get.
Father was cheered by the impending move. He had convinced Austin to join him in his law practice and move onto the grounds of the Homestead. Father would be building a new house for him and his new wife—my soulmate sister! Susie wrote expressing concern about the advisability of the arrangement, but added that she was delighted with the plan to hire an Italian architect. It is my opinion that Austin did not want to join Father’s practice, desiring rather to settle in Chicago. I hope all works out smoothly. Austin is easily swayed by Father’s wishes, which I take not to be a good thing. I suppose the same could be said for yours truly, though I make every effort that it not be so. I walk a careful way with Father. In many ways I have pleased him without meaning to. I am well educated, yet do not use this education outside his House. I have strong convictions, but keep to myself all those in danger of falling into that dreaded territory of opposition to his own. I am at Home—in his House—where I long to be, with those I love—available to cheer his heart and bake his bread. It is, I suppose, a good arrangement, though in some ways it is just that—an arrangement. Not a very passionate way of life. And yet I have my Poems! Therein explodes my innermost life! My All! At the end of the day I assemble the fragments of my Self, gathered on scraps amid my daily labors. And who knows? One day my poems may reach outside his House. That will be—or not—as the wind decides. To be alive is so chief a thing! I do believe that is the truth—and we all know Truth is the thing that lasts.
Author’s Notes
Phrases
These are some of Emily’s own words that found their way into my attempt to capture her voice.
PHRASES FOUND IN THE POEMS
This list uses the first lines of the poems, along with their numbers, as they appear in R. W. Franklin’s The Poems of Emily Dickinson (see page 345 for bibliographical information).
p. 8, “but what of that?”: I reason, Earth is short (Fr403)
pp. 21, 120, “a wooden way”: After great pain, a formal feeling comes (Fr372)
p. 33, “a dreaming laid”: I cautious scanned my little life (Fr175)
p. 39, “docile and omnipotent”: I like to see it lap the Miles (Fr383)
p. 54, “strive at recess”: Because I could not stop for death (Fr479)
pp. 54, 186, 311,“where the meanings are”: There’s a certain slant of light (Fr320)
p. 56, “tell it slant”: Tell all the Truth but tell it slant (Fr1263)
p. 61, “the first league out from land”: Exultation is the going (Fr143)
p. 97, “my first well day”: My first well day since many ill (Fr288)
p. 206, “I heard the buckle snap”: He put the belt around my life (Fr330)
p. 214, “narrow hands”: I dwell in Possibility (Fr446)
p. 232, “dimity convictions”: What Soft—Cherubic Creatures (Fr675)
p. 314, “Centuries before”: After great pain, a formal feeling comes (Fr372)
PHRASES FOUND IN EMILY’S LETTERS
This list uses the letter numbers assigned in The Letters of Emily Dickinson, edited by Thomas H. Johnson (see page 345 for bibliographical information).
p. 11, “address an eclipse”: (L261)
p. 18, “in all my glory”: (multiple)
p. 37, “culprit mice”: (L202)
p. 66, “obliged to write”: (L6)
p. 79, “found my Savior”: (L10)
p. 82, “How Large they sound”: (L6)
pp. 117, 259, “same old sixpence”: (L260)
pp. 123, 245, “quick gratitude”: (L260)
p. 123, “on the piny”: (L6)
pp. 207, 230, “A little of both maybe”: (L86)
p. 223, “democratic Death”: (L195)
pp. 228, 326, “chief a thing”: (L860)
p. 231, “if he lives long enough”: (L172)
p. 246, “the far state”: (L86)
p. 254, “my shaggy Ally”: (L280)
p. 273, “my final decision”: (L6)
p. 289, “Lay her a’hold!”: (L195)
pp. 315, 320, 334, “My Philadelphia”: (L750)
NOTE ON GRAMMATICAL USES
Emily’s phrasing, and occasionally spelling, were idiosyncratic. For example, she spelled “don’t” as “do’nt,” and “skunk” as “skonk” (although this may have been only twice as a child of eleven in a letter (L1) to Austin). She used “do’nt” instead of “doesn’t,” as in “that do’nt bother me any,” added “ly” to adjectives as in “the forsythia looked finely,” and sometimes omitted verbs from her sentences. She used many dashes. To help make her more approachable to the modern reader, I have kept these usages to a minimum.
Basic Facts about Emily Dickinson
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massachusetts, on December 10, 1830. She died in Amherst on May 15, 1886. Although the cause of death was listed as Bright’s disease (a kidney malfunction), she is considered by many to have succumbed to severe hypertension.
Emily had one brother, William Austin Dickinson (Austin) (1829–1895). She had one sister, Lavinia Norcross Dickinson (Vinnie) (1833–1899). Her father, Edward Dickinson (1803–1874), was a prominent lawyer who served a term in Congress from 1853 to 1855. He was also treasurer of Amherst College for thirty-eight years. Her mother, Emily Norcross Dickinson (1804–1882), was a homemaker. Emily attended Amherst Academy from 1840 to 1847 and Mount Holyoke Seminary from 1847 to 1848.
What happened to Emily after this book ends? In a nutshell, Emily became one of the most famous poets of all time. But what was her life like after the age of twenty-four? How did she spend her days? She remained living in her father’s house, the Homestead, in Amherst, where she was born and where she died at the age of fifty-five. She helped her mother and Vinnie with the housework; cooked; baked bread, black cake and gingerbread; read books; played the piano; wrote letters; tended her garden; walked with Carlo (until he died at the age of sixteen) and wrote her poems. Emily continued to suffer debilitating bouts of anxiety and suffered what appeared to be a severe attack of anxiety and depression in the fall of 1861. However, then began an extraordinarily prolific period for the poet. In 1862 she wrote close to a finished poem every day. From that time on she became increasingly housebound, rarely leaving the Homestead. She did, however, keep up a lively social connection with friends and relatives with copious letter writing, in which one could see her thriving sense of humor.
In the years following the end of this book Emily corresponded with Reverend Charles Wadsworth (My Philadelphia). An intense relationship developed between the two. In the spring of 1860 he came to visit her in
Amherst. He left for San Francisco with his family in May of 1862, when Emily was thirty-one. He visited Emily again in the summer of 1880. He died in 1882. Emily referred to him in a letter (L765) the summer after he died as “my closest earthly friend.” It had been a long friendship. He was clearly important to her throughout her entire life.
Emily never married. She is said to have been enamored of several men, all of them married. In addition to Charles Wadsworth, the names most often discussed in this connection are Samuel Bowles, a family friend and editor of the Springfield Daily Republican, and Judge Otis Phillips Lord, a business associate of her father’s. After her father’s death and the subsequent death of Judge Lord’s wife, he and Emily were said to have had a romantic relationship, nearly becoming engaged.
Emily Dickinson wrote over seventeen hundred poems. Only ten were published in her lifetime. Most of these appeared in the Springfield Daily Republican, and were submitted, for the most part, without her knowledge. Three were published in the Civil War publication Drum Beat. She initiated the publication of none of her poetry. Emily bound her poems in small hand-sewn booklets called fascicles, which she kept in a drawer of her bureau. She sent copies of some of her poems to friends and relatives as gifts and condolences. In 1890, four years after her death, the first edition of some of her poems was published, entitled Poems by Emily Dickinson, edited by Thomas Wentworth Higginson and Mabel Loomis Todd.
Emily Dickinson is considered by many to be America’s foremost poet. As I write this, all one thousand seven hundred and eighty-nine of her known poems have been published in The Poems of Emily Dickinson, edited by R. W. Franklin. There are countless editions of her poetry in the United States and in many languages around the world. The Dickinson Electronic Archives (www.emilydickinson.org) is currently in the process of publishing Emily’s poems and letters on the internet, the largest known audience in the history of recorded time!
I was introduced to Emily Dickinson in 1976 when I saw my acting idol, Julie Harris, on Broadway in William Luce’s The Belle of Amherst. I was astounded by Julie’s magnificent performance and overwhelmed by the spirit of Emily Dickinson. Some years later, when my publisher suggested I write a book based on the young life of a strong, original, accomplished woman, Emily came to mind.
I had previously written about the young life of Joan of Arc (Young Joan, HarperCollins Publishers, 1991), and being an actor as well as a writer, I had approached the writing of Young Joan much the way I approach an acting role (I had played Joan of Arc twice). I decided to embark on my research for this book about Emily in a similar manner, though I haven’t had the privilege of playing her. Not yet, anyway!
Here’s how it went. Emily grew up in the mid-1800s. That meant, for starters, I needed to study the time period. What did she wear? What did she eat? What was her house like? Her town? I had to learn about the religious expression of the period, the transportation, school life, hobbies, furniture, plumbing, medicine, habits, customs and on and on. How was it different then? And how was it the same? My acting teacher, Uta Hagen, had stressed these two questions equally. Exploring how we are like people from other centuries and other countries helps us feel closer to them. The answers to the second question (how was it the same?) are similar for most periods of time and in most countries. Young girls have birthdays and get their periods. They have crushes, girl friends, parents, siblings, relatives, pets, holidays, colds, moods, fears, joys, boyfriends and so on. I didn’t have to research the similarities, but the differences were another matter. My work took several forms. And several years.
I began by reading the letters. Emily was a prolific letter writer. The Letters of Emily Dickinson, edited by Thomas H. Johnson, contains over one thousand letters written from the age of eleven until a few days before her death. It is an extraordinary resource for immersing oneself in the poet’s voice. Not only did I read the letters over and over for several years, but I also spent endless hours listening to a two-tape set of readings of the letters and poems by Julie Harris. Hearing her speak Emily’s words was an invaluable gift.
Early on I joined the Emily Dickinson International Society. With the help of several Dickinson scholars I studied Emily’s life and work. With biographer Polly Longsworth (who wrote The World of Emily Dickinson and Austin and Mabel) I explored her life. With poet-professor Joy Ladin I studied the poems, deep and spare, containing razorlike thoughts of insight and inspiration. Many of them are funny, too. Some are hard to understand; some are simple. But they are always nourishing. Both the poems and the letters gave me a realization of her wonderful sense of humor.
I did a lot of reading. Biographies, reminiscences, essays and books about nineteenth-century New England all added to my understanding of this extraordinary woman.
I spent a great deal of time in Amherst. The Emily Dickinson Museum became my second home. The museum includes the Homestead, where Emily was born, lived for most of her life and died. I spent many hours in her bedroom, her parlor and her garden. The house in which Emily lived during most of the story of this book no longer exists. It has been irreverently replaced by a Mobil gas station! I checked it out, though. The cemetery Emily used to see from her window is just behind the gas pumps. Emily, her mother, her father, and Lavinia are buried there. Her gravestone says “Called Back.” Austin is buried with Sue and their children in Wildwood Cemetery, about a mile and a half to the north.
It was interesting to visit Amherst in all seasons—exploring, taking pictures and making notes in the heat of summer, the joy of spring, the grandeur of fall and the snow of winter. I walked Emily’s walk to school at Amherst Academy. (The location is now a parking lot with a plaque stating that the school used to be there.) I walked her walk to church and along the road she so often walked with Carlo. I visited Mount Holyoke College (Mount Holyoke Seminary in Emily’s time). I felt like a detective, searching for the truth, a grand adventure!
I spent days in the archives at the Jones Library in Amherst, poring over endless bits of material, including letters written by Emily’s father; sermons delivered by her adored Reverend Charles Wadsworth; prescriptions ordered from the local pharmacy for the Dickinson family; records of the eye doctor in Boston who treated Emily for a mysterious eye condition in 1864; articles on tuberculosis (at that time called consumption), Bright’s disease, hypertension, conditions of the eyes, lupus, anxiety disorders and depression. Best of all, I held an original of one of her poems, “We play at Paste/Till qualified for Pearl” (Fr282). At the Frost Library at Amherst College I held her Latin book (a gift from Austin, shared with Abby) and saw a lock of her hair. It was like spun gold. At Harvard University I saw the bureau in which she kept her poems, a sampler she made when she was ten, her piano and her tiny writing desk. That was a surprise. How could a desk so small launch that grand outpouring of poems?
Perhaps the most enjoyable part of my research was my investigation into the habits, appearance and history of Newfoundland dogs. I got an added sense of Emily’s spunk, knowing that her constant companion for sixteen long years had been such an enormous, bearlike creature. A question among many that I never found the answer to was “Where did Carlo sleep?” I checked the letters, the poems and the biographies, but could find no answer. I started asking around. I asked the curator of the Archives at the Jones Library, I asked Polly Longsworth and Joy Ladin, Cindy Dickinson (Director of Interpretation and Programming at the Emily Dickinson Museum), the scholars at the Emily Dickinson International Society and the guides at the Homestead. No one seemed to know. One of the guides sent me a copy of an article about pets in nineteenth-century New England. It said that pets were usually kept in the barn or in the house. The choice was a personal matter. I would have to imagine where the Dickinsons might keep an enormous dog like Carlo. This ended up being a fun supposition! As with every choice in writing the book, my plan was to find out everything I could about what actually happened. If I couldn’t find out, I was free to imagine what might have happened in Emily
’s world in Amherst, Massachusetts, in the 1800s.
Writing this book in the first person was a bold choice. It would be as if Emily were talking. That way I felt I could get “inside her skin.” I had written Young Joan in the first person, but Joan’s voice is nowhere near as well known as Emily’s. With Emily Dickinson we have her poems and letters, not to mention college and university courses throughout the world, exploring her individual voice. Expectations would be high. I hesitated at first. Still, I ended up feeling that writing in the first person was the way I could best express my sense of what growing up might have been like for Emily. I figured that after studying the facts and the numerous opinions of others, this was what I had to do. And as Emily might have said, my own way is all I have.
My work ended up taking nearly ten years. I hadn’t expected it to take that long. And I hadn’t expected to form such a deep relationship with Emily. I know without a doubt that she will be with me for the rest of my life, and perhaps beyond. As Emily would say—did say—“This life is not conclusion.”
My biggest hope is that after reading A Voice of Her Own you may want to read her poems and to find out more about her. This book is my sense of what it was like to grow up as Emily Dickinson. What is yours?
I have many people to thank. I want to thank Julie Harris, my constant inspiration; Judith Schmidt for her endless support and love; my editor, Anne Hoppe, who guided me in countless ways to be far better than I thought I could be; my former editor, children’s book author Charlotte Zolotow, for her belief in me and for sharing her books and her love of Emily; Joy Ladin for her help with the poems and with life; Cindy MacKenzie for her invaluable Concordance to the Letters of Emily Dickinson, the wonderful bonding over Emily and for the laughs; Cindy Dickinson (Director of Interpretation and Programming at the Emily Dickinson Museum—no relation to Emily) for her welcoming support; Polly Longsworth for the endless information and for her spot-on understanding of Emily; Betty Bernhard for her meticulous reading of the manuscript, her fierce dedication to Emily’s mother and her warmth and advice; David Garnes for his help with Carlo’s sleeping arrangements; the members of the Emily Dickinson International Society (EDIS) for sharing their expertise and for so quickly accepting an actor/ writer of fiction into their midst; Shulamith Oppenheim for her love and generosity throughout my long journey; Pamela Newkirk for seeing Emily in me and not giving up; my family; and, of course, Emily—for being herself.