In the fall of 2004, I took a graduate class in American Authors on Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson with Dr. Lucy Rinehart at DePaul University. I had no idea that the class would affect me so profoundly. [More about Dickinson Stuff]

It started with my explication of the poem ("Publication -- is the Auction"), the first that I had ever attempted -- done the second week of class. The directions were "just you and the poem." Thank God! If I had known then what I know now....

Material from classmates:

• "Emily Dickinson: A Private Publisher" by MaryClare Goller
• "For Emily, Wherever I May Find Her"- Which is Everywhere by Andie Arthur
• "Beyond The Belle of Amherst: Rereading Emily Dickinson's Theatricality in her Correspondence" by Andie Arthur.
• "Love Poem 640J/706F's Speaker's and Emily Dickinson's Privilige of Separation" by Michelle Collins. For those of us who are not Dickinson scholars (known by their ability to associate numbers to non-title titles) the poem is also known as "I cannot live with you."
• "Emily Dickinson: Contextual Issues in Poetry" by Grete Scott

If you're interested in what other classes have done/are doing, I'm working up a "Teaching Emily Dickinson" portion of this site. Thanks to Ellen Bayer, Northern Kentucky University, I've added her "Emily, 2001: A Photographic Journal."

I've just finished reading Emily Dickinson's Letter to Dr. and Mrs. Josiah Gilbert Dickinson, edited by their granddaughter, Theodora Van Wagenen Ward. Although I haven't quite finished the initial page (still making thumbnails), I have added pages so you can look at the manuscripts she included in the book. ==>

"My period had come for Prayer"

Several things worth looking at:

• the clipart illustration of the poem
• an animation I created to accompany the poem
• an explication of the poem

Research Resources

Houses

The Future

Hopefully there's more "Dickinson Stuff" to come -- I just need to find time to get into final format and post. In the meantime, enjoy and come back often.