Emily Dickinson’s Garden: The Poetry of Flowers
Isn’t there a bit of a poet in every gardener? After all, many of our greatest poets turned to their garden, whether for inspiration or solace when the words wouldn’t come or another rejection letter showed up.
From the daguerreotype taken at Mount Holyoke, December 1846 or early 1847. The only authenticated portrait of Emily Dickinson later than childhood, the original is held by the Archives and Special Collections at Amherst College.
During her lifetime, Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) was better known as a gardener than as a poet. Currently the New York Botanical Garden is hosting a multi-venue exhibition, Emily Dickinson’s Garden: The Poetry of Flowers, highlighting the connections between her life and poems, and her love of gardens. The exhibit re-creates Dickinson’s own mid- 19th-century New England flower garden, a replica of the family property in Amherst, along with books, manuscripts and other artifacts. Visitors can stroll through Emily Dickinson’s Poetry Walk, with over 30 poetry boards and audio messages featuring Dickinson’s poems and the plants and flowers that inspired her to write them — daffodils, roses, daisies, tulips, crabapples, and hemlocks.
Also on display is Emily’s white dress “She dresses wholly in white, & her mind is said to be perfectly wonderful.” – Mabel Loomis Todd on Emily Dickinson.
April 30 -June 13.