Emily Dickinson [author]

Calvin

Welcome to Headstones and Microphones where we use AI to step into the past through a researched, first-person simulation of history's most interesting people. I am your host, Calvin. While we’ve added some creative storytelling, our goal is to inspire your own study of these fascinating lives. Now, let’s meet our guest.

Calvin

I am absolutely thrilled today. We are sitting down with one of the most mysterious and brilliant figures in American literature. For those who may somehow not know who you are... who are you?

White Female Guest

To most, I am known as Emily Dickinson, the poet who lived much of her life behind the hedges of a yellow brick house in Amherst. But in my own heart, I was simply a traveler of the mind, capturing the "Gleam" of the world in small scraps of paper.

Calvin

It is truly an honor, Emily. Let's start at the very beginning. When and where were you born?

White Female Guest

I was born on a crisp December day—the 10th, to be exact—in 1830. My cradle was in Amherst, Massachusetts, in the very house my grandfather built, known as the Homestead.

Calvin

And what was your given name at birth?

White Female Guest

My parents named me Emily Elizabeth Dickinson.

Calvin

Is there a story behind your birth name?

White Female Guest

Elizabeth was for my mother, Emily Norcross Dickinson. It was a traditional choice, tying me to the lineage of the women before me. Though I often felt like a "Nobody" in the grander social sense, that name anchored me to my family.

Calvin

What was your hometown like growing up?

White Female Guest

Amherst was a quiet, intellectual village. It was dominated by the college and the church. We had the beautiful Pelham hills in the distance and a community that was deeply serious about faith and education. It was a place of white steeples and heavy snows.

Calvin

What was your family life like?

White Female Guest

My father, Edward, was a stern but deeply devoted man—a lawyer and a treasurer for the college. My mother was quieter, often busy with the home. I was sandwiched between my older brother, Austin, and my younger sister, Lavinia, whom we called Vinnie. We were a close-knit group, even if we were all a bit eccentric in our own ways!

Calvin

What kind of kid were you?

White Female Guest

I was full of "Vesuvius" at home! I was bright, chatty, and perhaps a bit more observant than was comfortable for the adults. I loved to roam the woods and bring back plants to study. I was a scholar of the meadow before I was a scholar of the book.

Calvin

What were your biggest fears growing up?

White Female Guest

I think, like many, I feared the "King" in the room—death was a frequent visitor to New England towns back then. I also feared the loss of my friends. Every time a friend moved away or married, it felt like a little piece of my world was being carried off.

Calvin

What did you dream of becoming as a child?

White Female Guest

I didn't dream of a profession in the way people do now. I simply wanted to understand the "Why" of things. I wanted to be a botanist of the soul, I suppose. I wanted to capture the beauty of a bird or a sunset and keep it forever.

Calvin

What were some of your favorite activities in school?

White Female Guest

I loved my time at Amherst Academy and Mount Holyoke! I was particularly fond of botany and Latin. Creating my herbarium—pressing over four hundred specimens of flowers into a book—was a labor of absolute love.

Calvin

What was your first job?

White Female Guest

My "job" was the care of the household alongside Vinnie. I was the primary bread-maker! I even won a prize for my rye and Indian bread at the cattle show. There is a certain poetry in the rising of dough, don't you think?

Calvin

Was there a moment where you realized you were different from everyone else?

White Female Guest

It was likely during the religious revivals in Amherst. Everyone was "finding" their faith and joining the church with such public fervor. I found I could not say the words they wanted me to say. I felt like a bird that preferred the open sky to the cage of a creed.

Calvin

What’s a decision that changed everything for you, but felt small at the time?

White Female Guest

Deciding to stay home. It wasn't a grand announcement; I just slowly began to withdraw from the "dimity convictions" of social calls. It gave me the silence I needed to hear the poems.

Calvin

What was your biggest break?

White Female Guest

In terms of my writing, it was likely my correspondence with Thomas Wentworth Higginson. I sent him four poems and asked, "Are you too deeply occupied to say if my Verse is alive?" He became my "Preceptor," even if he didn't quite understand my style!

Calvin

What were your biggest struggles before success?

White Female Guest

Well, "success" as the world sees it didn't come during my lifetime. My struggle was the lack of an audience that understood my "slant" rhymes and my dashes. People wanted poems to be like neat little gardens, and mine were a bit more like a wild forest.

Calvin

Did you ever consider quitting?

White Female Guest

Never. I couldn't stop the poems any more than I could stop breathing. They were my "letter to the World." Even if the world didn't write back, I had to keep sending the letters.

Calvin

Were there any specific daily habits or routines that you feel are essential to your success?

White Female Guest

I rose early to write by candlelight. I found that the world is most honest before the sun comes up. I also spent a great deal of time in my garden. A day without touching the earth or seeing a bee was a day lost.

Calvin

What job would you have had if fame never happened?

White Female Guest

I would have been a gardener. My flowers were my first poems, and I think I could have been quite happy just tending to my lilies and ferns for all eternity.

Calvin

What was your life like before fame?

White Female Guest

Since fame came after I was gone, my life was one of quiet intensity. It was filled with baking, writing letters to my dear friends, and watching the seasons change from my window. It was a small life, but it was wide on the inside.

Calvin

How did relationships change after success?

White Female Guest

Success didn't change my relationships because I was already quite tucked away by the time my work was known. But my friendships were my everything—my "Estate," as I called them.

Calvin

Did fame bring happiness?

White Female Guest

Fame is a "fickle food" upon a shifting plate. I preferred the solid happiness of a well-turned phrase or a blooming peony.

Calvin

What was the downside of becoming famous?

White Female Guest

For me, it would have been the intrusion. I valued my privacy above all else. I think the glare of the world's eyes would have wilted me.

Calvin

What misconceptions did people have about you?

White Female Guest

They thought I was a melancholic hermit, a "Myth" in white. They didn't see the humor in my letters or the joy I took in a good prank or a clever riddle. I wasn't hiding from life; I was focusing on it!

Calvin

What was your darkest moment?

White Female Guest

The death of my young nephew, Gilbert. He was the light of our family, and when he was taken, the world felt very gray for a long time.

Calvin

What past regrets did you carry, that you spoke about?

White Female Guest

I often regretted that my father and I couldn't always find the bridge between our hearts while he was alive. He was a man of "steely" exterior, and we sometimes missed each other in the shadows of the house.

Calvin

What’s something people misunderstood about your life?

White Female Guest

That my solitude was a cage. It wasn't! It was my workshop. I was busier in my room than most people were in the town square.

Calvin

Tell me about a time when everything went wrong and how did you handle it?

White Female Guest

When my health began to fail, I found it difficult to tend to my flowers. I handled it by leaning even more into my writing. When the physical world narrowed, the spiritual world expanded.

Calvin

Who had the biggest influence on your life?

White Female Guest

My sister-in-law, Susan Gilbert Dickinson. She was my most faithful reader, my "Avalanche" of support, and the person I wrote for more than anyone else.

Calvin

What was life like in your final years?

White Female Guest

They were very quiet. I stayed mostly in my room, wearing my white dresses, which I found so practical and pure. I spent a lot of time looking out at the garden and writing on the backs of envelopes.

Calvin

What were you working on in your career before you passed away?

White Female Guest

I was always refining. I was organizing my "fascicles"—those little hand-sewn booklets of my poems. I wanted them to be ready, even if I didn't know for what.

Calvin

When and where and how did you pass away and how old were you?

White Female Guest

I passed away on May 15, 1886, in Amherst, Massachusetts . I was only 55 years old.

Calvin

What’s a random fact about you most people have never heard?

White Female Guest

I was a very skilled baker! I used to lower baskets of gingerbread out of my window to the neighborhood children.

Calvin

What’s the craziest rumor ever told about you?

White Female Guest

That I only wore white because of a broken heart! While I did have deep loves, my choice of white was much more about my own sense of identity and perhaps a bit of rebellion against the dark, heavy fabrics of the time.

Calvin

What was your most unique habit?

White Female Guest

I would often write poems on the inside of chocolate wrappers or the back of recipes while I was in the kitchen. Inspiration doesn't wait for you to find a proper desk!

Calvin

What was your favorite food?

White Female Guest

Anything from the garden, really. But I did love a good coconut cake.

Calvin

What was your favorite book?

White Female Guest

The Bible was always there, of course, but I adored the works of the Brontë sisters and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Those women had "Thunder" in their pens!

Calvin

Did you have any known rivalries?

White Female Guest

Only with the limitations of language! I didn't have time for rivalries with people; I was too busy trying to capture the infinite in twenty lines of verse.

Calvin

Tell us a story nobody talks about.

White Female Guest

I once had a dog named Carlo, a large Newfoundland. He was my "mute confederate" for sixteen years. We would walk for miles in the woods, and he was the only one who truly knew all my secrets. I missed him terribly when he was gone.

Calvin

What’s your funniest behind-the-scenes moment?

White Female Guest

I used to delight in sending my poems with a single flower to friends, sometimes with a very cheeky note. I loved the idea of someone opening a letter and having a piece of the garden fall into their lap.

Calvin

What advice would you give people chasing success?

White Female Guest

Do not chase it. "Success is counted sweetest by those who ne'er succeed." Focus on the "Truth," and let the world find you if it must. The work itself is the reward.

Calvin

Emily, this has been an absolute joy. Do you have any closing remarks about our interview or the stories you shared that you would like to share with our listeners before we sign off?

White Female Guest

Only that the world is full of "Majesty" if you only stop to look. Thank you, Calvin, for calling me out of the shadows for a brief chat. It was a lovely "Day" indeed!

Calvin

Thank you so much for being here, Emily. What an incredible look into the life of a true American original. We talked about her garden, her mysterious white dresses, and that legendary dog, Carlo. And that wraps up another conversation from beyond the grave. Thanks for joining us on The Headstones and Microphones Podcast. Remember—legends may die, but their stories never do. Please help spread the word by sharing and following the pod.