Table of Contents Author’s Note The Brick House Sister Vinnie Educating Emily Losing God Finding God Emily’s Dog Chance Slips The Myth White Dress Hedges The Poet Asks Yes Sue Yes Ardor for the Lie Our Fairy Aunt 1,775 Poems Emily Dickinson’s House Emily After Notes 7 10 11 12 15 16 18 20 22 23 26 27 29 30 32 35 36 38
Author’s Note These poems written over a period of seven years spring from bor though we lived two towns and slightly more than fifty years apart my love of the poet Emily Dickinson I have always called her my neigh I have visited her house known as The Homestead and her brother’s house The Evergreens many times Twice I had the opportu nity to read her poems aloud in her garden and another time I even recorded some of them in her broom closet The recordist insisted it had the best acoustics In this book of sonnets about Emily’s life I have given each poem a title and an indication as to the speaker whether Emily herself her sister Lavinia Vinnie her niece Martha Mattie her mentor friend Thomas Wentworth Higginson an unknown critic or me JY I have tried to tell the truth of her life but as Emily said Tell all the Truth but tell it slant Success in Circuit lies Jane Yolen 7
