280 Main Street

280 Main Street is Emily Dickinson’s address in Amherst, Massachusetts. A teacher took me there in elementary school; if ever I have felt a spirit in a place, that was the time. For all the dry, academic articles I read about her later in my education, I never shook the first feeling I had when I was a little girl. I was quite sure that she was still hanging around Amherst, amazed and amused, and sometimes pissed off: You aren’t really taking apart my homemade books and changing the order of my poems, are you? . . . . Oh, so now I’m some kind of weirdo recluse, eh? . . . . “Unrequited” love? So much for what you know. . . . I swear, you damned editor, if you change the punctuation one more time . . . .

It’s awfully nice to meet a poet when you’re a child, and your imagination rules your book-learning. Those are the ones you can talk to, and the ones who talk back–and read your blog. So, Emily, from a stay-at-home mother who is probably misjudged sometimes, to a stay-at-home poet who was, too–here’s a blog in your honor, no editors in sight.

Much Madness is divinest Sense- To a discerning Eye- Much Sense-the starkest Madness- ‘Tis the Majority In this, as All, prevail- Assent-and you are sane- Demur-you’re straightway dangerous- And handled with a Chain-
Emily Dickinson