Another Emily Dickinson Photo Mystery September 5, 2012: Emily Dickinson, who already has a reputation for being enigmatic, didn't pose for many photos. But amateur sleuth Cynthia Haven presents not one, not two, but three possible photographs of Dickinson on her blog. Each one has a certain seduction to it, but the three photos are very different from one another. Will the real Emily Dickinson [...] by Harriet Staff

Emily Dickinson, the Opera August 17, 2012: Emily Dickinson is blowing up, huh? From The Sydney Morning Herald: One of Melbourne's favourite singers, soprano Helen Noonan [far right in photo above], is returning to the stage with her sellout show from five years ago, Voicing Emily, exploring the life and poetry of American poet Emily Dickinson. "It is beautiful music and many [...] by Harriet Staff

Facepalm of the Day: Louisiana School Textbooks Call Dickinson “Presumptuous” August 8, 2012: Mother Jones is on the warpath against Louisiana's decision to pay for poor and middle-class students to attend private schools. It's a complicated issue, but one thing's for sure--a textbook used in several of the private, Christian schools that qualify for this program has an interesting take on Emily Dickinson: "Several of [Emily [...] by Harriet Staff

Lambasted! LARB on the New Emily Dickinson Theory July 23, 2012: "Walsh does not let the facts get in the way of a good story," claims Hillary Kelly in her LARB review of Emily Dickinson in Love: The Case for Otis Lord, by John Evangelist Walsh. "Walsh fancies himself a literary Sherlock Holmes, deducing vast amounts of information from infinitesimal clues, and discerning characteristics and habits from the [...] by Harriet Staff

Emily Dickinson Concentrate From Paul Legault July 16, 2012: Today, McSweeney's posted excerpts from Paul Legault's new tribute to everybody's favorite shut-in. For those of us who are too busy to read Dickinson's complete works, Legault has provided the gist of all 1,789 of her poems in a collection of brief sentences. For example: 2. Hey, really historically important people. Guess what? You’re [...] by Harriet Staff

Dickinson Family Library June 28, 2012: Here's an update on the digitization of the Dickinson family library, via Harvard's Houghton Library blog. From the post: Work continues apace on our project to digitize the Dickinson family library. 59 books are now available to view through the Dickinson family library finding aid (click on the “Digital Content” tab at the top [...] by Harriet Staff

President Obama Quoted Dickinson and Whitman in Awarding Rita Dove and John Ashbery February 14, 2012: Well, the 2011 National Medals of Arts and Humanities ceremony took place last night at the White House--President Obama honored Rita Dove with the National Humanities Medal, and John Ashbery received the National Medal of the Arts. As Coldfront notes, a combined 15 artists were awarded medals at the ceremony, including actor Al Pacino. Turns out [...] by Harriet Staff

Questions for Poetry I April 2, 2011: In the 22nd century, what will the line look like and do?  Will the line continue to have its traditional roots ("traditional" not meaning middle road but rather a haunting presence of what the line has been in the past centuries however shaky and nonsequential)?  Will the line of Williams (short, aware of its breath both at beginning and end) [...] by Gillian Conoley

Revisiting the links between poetry and mental illness February 7, 2011: The BBC's Alex Hudson updates some of the familiar territory surrounding the links between madness and creativity, particularly poetry. Instead of wondering whether poetry drives one insane, however, Hudson wants to know if there's something about the act of writing poetry that attracts those who are predisposed to mental illness and mood [...] by Harriet Staff

Does poetry need its own Glee? January 13, 2011: On The Moderate Voice, Michael Silverstein proposes an unusual solution to restoring the place of poetry in civic discourse. The problem isn't with poetry itself, rather the medium for delivering it to the masses. Silverstein has had it with the Op Ed pages of newspapers which are now as overrun with "spin doctoring" and "hype" as any other [...] by Harriet Staff