AMHERST — An online poll has named the Emily Dickinson Museum in Amherst as the No. 1 celebrity pilgrimage site in Massachusetts, coming in ahead of the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston and in 10th place for the country.
“Through her poetry and letters, readers around the world have come to know something of this extraordinary person and she speaks to them wherever they are. Those who are able visit us in Amherst to get closer to that poetic voice. To understand where she was speaking from and to comprehend how she forged her powers of insight, creativity, and courage,” said Senior Director of Programs Brooke Steinhauser. “There is arguably no poet more connected to one home than Dickinson — daughter of a prominent Amherst family, neighbor, gardener, student, and later a recluse who would come to be known as ‘the myth of Amherst.’ She was born and died in the house her grandfather built, and this is where she produced her life’s work of nearly 2,000 poems.”
The museum offers the opportunity for visitors to explore the life of Dickinson in a way that other museums cannot necessarily do for those they honor.
“The Homestead was Dickinson’s home for all but 15 years of her life. The house her family occupied during those 15 years no longer exists,” noted Wald. “That makes the museum buildings, her own home and her brother’s house next door, uniquely associated with one of the world’s greatest poets. The houses and grounds are the only physical touchstones to Dickinson’s everyday life, and thus become the material portal to a better understanding of her poetry.”
Dickinson’s poetry still connects with people more than 150 years after Dickinson passed away. But people also find her life itself fascinating and one that they’re still trying to understand.
“[Her poetry] reads just as perceptive and relevant today as it did 150 years ago. Many find that her words speak to them personally and incisively,” explained Wald. “Second, people are intrigued by the many unanswered questions about events and circumstances of her life. Why did she withdraw from the larger society? Why did she adopt the habit of wearing only white? What romantic interests did she have? What did she think about politics and especially the Civil War that ravaged the country? Questions such as these may be unanswered or unanswerable, and that mystery clings to her and makes her endlessly fascinating.”
The museum offers various programs throughout the year that help elaborate on the story of Emily Dickinson, as well as special programs that highlight specific areas of her life.
“Coming up in September is our annual Tell It Slant Poetry Festival, a week-long celebration of Emily Dickinson’s poetic legacy and the contemporary creativity she and her work continue to inspire from the place she called home,” said Steinhauser. “Events include the 16-hour marathon reading of Emily Dickinson’s entire body of work, generative writing workshops, poetry panels, a musical theater performance about Dickinson family maid Margaret Maher, and a headliner reading with Pulitzer Prize winner Carl Phillips.”
A typical visit to the museum offers one of two options, either guided tours of the Homestead and The Evergreens, the home of her brother and sister-in-law, or self-guided tours with timed entry. Both offer insights into Dickinson’s daily life, as well as those of her friends and family, her education, influences on her poetry, how her poems were published and the legacy she left behind.
“We love to share our mission to explain how we see Emily Dickinson’s immense and everlasting imprint on poetry and her inspiration for individual creativity in all its forms — to spark the imagination by amplifying Emily Dickinson’s revolutionary poetic voice from the place she called home,” noted Wald.
Roughly 3,000 adults participated in the June online panel survey, published by Tarotoo.com and run by Apricot Content. The company used a two-step process to ensure representativeness through stratified sampling and post-stratification weighting.
