Shedding new sunlight on Emily Dickinson the gardener
AMHERST -- When Emily Dickinson died in 1886, she was eulogized primarily as a gifted gardener. ''Her conservatory [was] ever abloom in frost and sunshine," wrote her sister-in-law Susan in a newspaper obituary.
But when Lavinia Dickinson opened her sister's desk a few days after her death, she discovered neatly sewn packets containing almost 800 poems. Lavinia burned the correspondences she found, as her sister had instructed, but could not bear to destroy the poems. So began Emily Dickinson's new public identity as one of the greatest American poets of the 19th century.
After the family home was sold, Dickinson's conservatory was demolished and some of the gardens were grassed over. But her poems found ever more readers, conveying an unexpected immortality.
And they have even given her gardens an afterlife. In recognition of the poet's growing stature, the Dickinson Homestead was purchased by Amherst College in 1965 and opened for tours (and doubled as a faculty residence for many years). Though there is no surviving plan or photograph of the garden from Dickinson's time, in 1972 a horticulturist from Smith College used her poems and letters to friends and family to reinstate many of the plants she grew.
Now there are plans to do more. The Evergreens, where Dickinson's brother Austin and his wife, Susan, lived next door, was transferred to Amherst College just two years ago. Kept intact by heirs of the Dickinson family, it is a virtual time capsule with original furnishings. The merger of the houses and their shared 3 acres has resulted in the Emily Dickinson Museum, which is now developing a master plan, due next month, for further restoring both properties. Funding includes a $200,000 grant from the Save America's Treasures program administered by the National Park Service.
''It's an exciting time for us," said museum staffer Cindy Dickinson (who sometimes wears a tag saying ''not related").
Dickinson's gardens have also been the focus of two recent books. ''The Gardens of Emily Dickinson," by Judith Farr (Harvard University Press, 2004, just out in paperback), takes as its premise that understanding the poet's relationship with specific flowers enhances appreciation of her life and of the floral symbolism in her radically spare metaphysical poems, which she called ''blossoms of the Brain." In London on Nov. 17, Farr will be awarded the British Academy's Rose Mary Crawshay Prize, given to a woman writer for a book of distinction that is significant to English literature or history. This is the first time it has honored an American woman writing on an American woman poet.
And last October, a charming popular book, ''Emily Dickinson's Gardens" by horticultural writer Marta McDowell, was published by
McDowell said that rediscovering Dickinson as a gardener is important because fully a third of her poems contain floral references. ''If you've never seen the wiry seed pods on a clematis vine, it's hard to appreciate Emily's phrase 'her electric curl,' " noted McDowell in an e-mail.
Such knowledge can illuminate some of her riddle-like poems, which might otherwise be misinterpreted. When Dickinson writes ''Behold, Whose multitudes are these? The Children of whose turbaned seas," she is writing about the power of beauty -- in this case, tulips (which originate in Turkey) -- and not the ''New Englander's dream vision" of the brightly uniformed Turkish army described by one British critic, Farr said in a phone interview.
Here's another example from Farr's book: ''A Visitor in Marl - who influences Flowers - Till they are orderly as Busts - And Elegant - as Glass ... And whatsoever Mouth he kissed - Is as it had not been." Some critics (obviously non-gardeners) have confused this killing frost with replenishing dew, Farr writes, and mistaken sexual arousal for Dickinson's grief over the icy death of her beauties.
Though the new books enhance one's appreciation of Dickinson's poetry, they do not reveal why she is a great poet and not just another Victorian lady gardener who scribbled forgettable verse. But considering Dickinson as a gardener does present a fuller biography of this enigmatic and cloistered artist, who withdrew from all contact except with family members in her early 30s. It even makes her seem ''more normal," said Farr.
True, Dickinson hardly looked ''normal" to neighbors who spotted her gardening in a white dress by lamplight after dark, kneeling on a blood-red blanket. ''But she had trouble with her eyes, and couldn't stand the sun, so this strange white figure out there at night was not crazy," said Farr in her defense.
Dickinson had a superior classical education for women of her era, attending Mount Holyoke College and Amherst Academy, where she created a very artful ''herbarium" of pressed wildflowers that will be reproduced in book form next year (and which, like the poet's furniture, is owned by Harvard University).
''She was given a very wonderful, expensive education. And then her father begged her not to read her books. . . . He tried to turn her into a little housewife. He preferred her to be a gardener than to write verse or be an artist," said Farr. Gardening ''was what was open to her, so she ran with it," finding in her flowers metaphors for death, passion, sex, war, and immortality.
Though always shy, in her youth Dickinson traveled several times to Boston, and even journeyed to Washington, D.C., when her father, Edward, was elected to Congress. Throughout her 20s she took long country walks with her beloved dog Carlo.
''She said at one point, 'I do not leave my father's grounds for any house or towns,' " said Cindy Dickinson, ''but she spent a good bit of time outside."
Why did she go into permanent seclusion?
''Some people say that she had a psychological disorder," said McDowell. ''I think she just withdrew, especially after her father died and her mother became so ill." Her mother was paralyzed by a stroke for many years during which Dickinson cared for her. ''Sometimes life just gets to be too much."
Today someone with Dickinson's fear of people might be given a drug such as Paxil, said Farr. But removing herself from the world also gave Dickinson time to write.
She maintained many correspondences. Instead of seeing people, she would send flowers as her social surrogates, sometimes with a poem tucked among the leaves. In those days there were books that assigned meanings to flowers, so you could send a silent message with a bouquet. (One vestige is the tradition of sending red roses to connote romantic love.)
Dickinson used this ''language of flowers" both in her floral gifts and in her writings. She even assigned certain flowers as symbols of people in her life -- the haughty crowned imperial fritillaria for the dominating Susan, the sincere chrysanthemum for her protective sister Lavinia, and, sometimes, the earnest late-blooming gentian for herself.
Jasmine meant passion. Farr is among the many who have speculated on the poet's romantic life and believes ''her big love affair was with a married man" named Samuel Bowles, editor of The Springfield Republican. ''He gave her jasmine flowers she cultivated to the end of her life, long after he had died."
This year marks the 175th anniversary of the poet's birth. Dickinson's birthday on Dec. 10 is the last day before the museum closes until March 1. It is always observed with free admission and birthday cake made from the poet's recipe.
''Every year an anonymous admirer gives out single roses to visitors on that day," said Cindy Dickinson. ''It's very, very nice. I know there are people who come just to get a rose."
This year, 175 roses will be given out.
The Emily Dickinson Museum, 280 Main St., Amherst, is open Wednesday and Saturday 1-5 p.m. through Dec. 10, by guided tour only. The last tour is at 4 p.m.Admission is $8 for adults and $5 for children 6-12. The tour isnot recommended for childrenunder 6. There will be a scholarly lecture Dec. 8 at 4 p.m. For more information, call 413-542-8161or visit emilydickinsonmuseum.org.
