December 10
Scholars estimate that the reclusive Emily Dickinson wrote more than 1,700 poems in her lifetime, many of which contain unusual punctuation and imaginative metaphors.
1830:
The Belle of Amherst
Emily Dickinson is born in Amherst, Massachusetts
All the time she spent alone helped Emily Dickinson create some of the literary world’s most elegant and haunting poetry. As a girl, she attended school in nearby South Hadley, but was so homesick she dropped out and moved home. While she seldom entertained guests, she read widely and wrote tons of letters and poems—words that give us a glimpse into the workings of her heart and soul.
It was not until after her death in 1886 that her poems were published. Works such as “A bird came down the walk” and “Her final summer” (Dickinson almost never gave her poems titles, so they are generally referred to by their first lines), reveal her capacity for deep intellectual thought as well as an abiding love of nature.
