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It was a dark and stormy night in Amherst Massachusetts

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if you happen to go by the old Dickinson place and look at an upstairs window at

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just the right moment you might notice a pale woman dressed all in white eek a [Man stood in front of house with umbrella sees eerie white figure in a window]

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ghost whoops scratch that it's just Emily being Emily yeah. Born in Amherst

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in 1832 the family that founded and pretty much ran Amherst College, Emily Dickinson

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spent her early years skipping school because of her fragile physical

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condition. When her tummy ached she couldn't just pop a Rolaid... As a young [Edward Dickinson holding a pile of homework whilst Emily is laid in bed]

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woman she went to Mount Holyoke College but she was put off by the school's

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Christian evangelical efforts organized religion just didn't you know jingle

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her keys. And so she ditched uni for a life at home with her family, fewer

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toga parties but otherwise much better. As the oldest unmarried daughter Emily [Emily stood with her family, Edward still has the large pile of homework]

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was expected to look after her parents and unmarried brother. She was expected

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to do chores and to keep the garden from turning into a jungle with that

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kind of mundane and housebound experience is it any wonder that Emily

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took to writing poetry? Well because her life was so boring it wasn't too long

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before Emily got serious about her poems she published a few of them in a paper

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owned by a friend. She also befriended literary critic Thomas Wentworth

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Higginson by mail and earned herself a reputation as one of the nuttiest pen [Thomas Higginson opens an envelope from Emily full of nuts]

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pals ever. By the late 1860's Emily was becoming more and more reclusive she'd

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chill with her family and nieces and nephews but well pretty much nobody else

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she really preferred to be by herself writing poetry, maybe doing a sudoku or two...

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In 1874 for Emily started losing all the people she loved great for her poetry

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bad for her heart, her dad died then her mom, then her favorite nephew and a [Emily cries in front of grave stones]

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Massachusetts Supreme Court justice she just may have been in love with. Well

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Emily died of kidney disease in 1886, it was after her death that

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her sister Lavinia found her poems. Emily had rarely published her work when she

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was alive because she hated the whole publishing side of things. Lavinia

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however had no qualms about printing Emily's poetry. [Lavinia holds a collection of Emily's poems]

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Lavinia knew how to market.. While the people of Amherst found Emily's behavior so odd

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they nicknamed her the myth her poems are about things that everybody thinks

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about like self-identity, death, immortality and love. They're also [Boy reading Emily Dickinson Poem's book has thought bubbles]

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short which is great for when you need a poem on the go. Try one.

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