Growing up, whenever I was assigned to write a biographical report on a historical figure, I would always choose female writers and poets. I wrote about Sylvia Plath, Anais Nin, The Bronte Sisters, Emily Dickinson. . .
As I’ve returned to school intending to one day teach literature, I look forward to teaching the works of these fabulous ladies as well and they are my companions once more these days.
As it happens, when I was searching for an article for anthropology last week, I stumbled across the most nifty NPR piece that offered a new perspective on Emily Dickinson.
From writing about her years ago, I mostly think of her as being a recluse – which she was – and much of her poetry as being so beautiful and also so heavy.
While those things are all true, this piece brings a whole different side of her to light, with images of her baking treats and lowering them in a basket to neighborhood children, and sending out baked goods and flowers to those who were ill in her community so often that it was written in her obituary (though she did not go out personally).
http://archive.emilydickinson.org/susan/tedobit1.html
I love learning more of her story, a view of her more holistically – and I am so excited to have her coconut cake recipe. It just makes her feel more. . . accessible?. . for want of a better word.
More within reach. Perhaps that’s what I’m really trying to say.
(And this little literature nerd will absolutely have a baking with Emily afternoon.)
What a lovely reminder that there is a big picture to see with every person, always more to learn and know.
I am so looking forward to sharing her poems with my students one day – and I’m saving her coconut cake recipe to share with them too. ❤
Be well, everybody. Take care of yourselves and each other.
Grace and Blessings.
the autoimmune hippie. 