Are you really addicted to a specific poet? Take them to work with you.

Jonesing for a little Robert Frost or Maya Angelou during the weekdays, but find yourself going through withdrawals and the shakes while at work? Good news! You can take them to work with you.

Oh, hello, T. S. Elephant. #TakeYourPoetToWorkDay #PoetToWorkDay @tspoetry pic.twitter.com/PkZ8PmZZhG

— WC Literary House (@WCLiteraryHouse) July 20, 2016

An organization called Tweetspeak Poetry sponsors various poetry "holidays" throughout a given year, all in an effort to make poetry more approachable to today's modern sensibilities. Picture your mom gussying up cauliflower when you were a kid all in hopes you might digest more of it. Same thing.

The third Wednesday of every July is Take Your Poet to Work Day. This year that would be July 19th. As the sponsors, Tweetspeak Poetry has a downloadable coloring book of famous poets ranging from American (Dickinson, Hughes, Whitman, etc.) to international (Akhmatova, Neruda, Issa, etc.).

Happy #TakeYourPoettoWorkDay Forget yours @ home? Stop by the 2nd fl. & make a new one :) @tspoetry #poettowork pic.twitter.com/hT3xQEuqZF

— CSCC Library (@CSCC_Library) July 20, 2016

After coloring in your favorite poet, you're supposed to cut out the drawing and adhere it to a Popsicle stick and--voila!--you take them to work with you. Not only do you get to color, you have a semi-valid excuse to scarf down a half-dozen Popsicles all of a sudden.

Tweetspeak also recommends leaving coloring book sheets in the lunch room, all in hopes that lazy coworker of yours might actually show some initiative and color in their own favorite poet, too.

I snuck a #poettowork today @KCLibrary #AnnaAkhmatova pic.twitter.com/Z3fc8tj3Yz

— KaiteStover (@MarianLiberryan) July 20, 2016

Polish off another half-dozen Popsicles and tell yourself you're just doing it to be selfless and help others who need a stick.

You're so generous!!

The Friday Poem: I Died For Beauty, by Emily Dickinson

As another week concludes, we end with a random poem. Famous poets, obscure poets, amateur poets, whatever poets--just a poem to cap off the week.

Like this one:


I died for Beauty — but was scarce, by Emily Dickinson

I died for Beauty — but was scarce
Adjusted in the Tomb
When One who died for Truth, was lain
In an adjoining room —

He questioned softly "Why I failed"?
"For Beauty", I replied —
"And I — for Truth — Themself are One —
We Brethren, are", He said —

And so, as Kinsmen, met a Night —
We talked between the Rooms —
Until the Moss had reached our lips —
And covered up — our names —

If alive today, Emily Dickinson would've been a homeowner on HGTV.

Lover of a good garden.

"I just love to entertain," Emily Dickinson would say, head tilted back, hand to chest, a lilt in her voice. "Having guests by, a great meal, some wine while sitting in the garden--it's what I love."

Emily Dickinson was born in the wrong century for HGTV fame though, otherwise she'd be a regular at Pier One and Crate and Barrel. And while not a socialite on the scene in her day, guests often visited Dickinson's family home in Amherst, MA, where an extensive garden once covered 14-acres. Now, the Emily Dickinson Homestead, in conjunction with archaeologists from the University of Massachusetts, are working to recreate the grounds at the reclusive writer's home as they were in the mid-19th century.

Already in the works is the rebuilding of a glass conservatory that once existed at the home. According to NPR, archaeologists are digging for old plant stems and seed remnants in order to have a concrete idea of what sort of flowers and vegetables existed on the property. The hope is that in a year's time visitors to the museum can feel as if they've been transported to a different era that inspired the poet.

"[V]isitors may be able to roam among varieties of asparagus, corn and beans that made up the original Dickinson vegetable garden," they say.

And if Dickinson was on the ball, this would all come full circle and she'd make a bean and corn salsa over some roasted asparagus for her guests while entertaining.

Lawsuit claims teaching assistants at Amherst College were encouraged to sleep with undergrads.

There are a few things I think we all associate with Amherst, Massachusetts. Emily Dickinson, people speaking Spanish, and pure, carnal, sexual heat. And if you can picture all three of those at once, you're not only mildly disturbed, but you're envisioning a seemingly average day in the rural hinterlands of western New England.

Dimaris Barrios-Beltran is a former lecturer for Amherst College. 'Former' because she was recently let go from her position in the Spanish department after, she alleges, refusing to give into a culture of potential sex with undergraduate students to make the department look more appealing. This differs from your average English department, where wallowing in poetry while wearing Birkenstocks is par for the course. Subtle difference in cultures, to be sure.

According to the Washington Post, department supervisor Victoria Maillo is described in the suit as looking online for "pretty faces" to hire as teaching assistants in hopes of attracting more students to study Spanish.

As the Post explains:


"Early in 2013, Barrios-Beltran’s teaching assistant called her in tears, according to the lawsuit, saying that Maillo was treating her like a prostitute. The teaching assistant claimed that Maillo was angry that she was dating a student at the University of Massachusetts and told her and other teaching assistants to go to parties with students and sleep with them to encourage them to take Spanish. Barrios-Beltran claims that in frustration, the teaching assistant asked Maillo if she wanted her to sleep with a different guy every night like another teaching assistant was doing, and the teaching assistant told Barrios-Beltran that Maillo responded, 'that is what I brought you here for.'"


Amherst College claims they let Barrios-Beltran go solely because of declining enrollments. Or, if you're paying attention to this story, for exactly the same reason why Maillo is alleged to have been trying to counteract while channeling her inner madam.

In the end, both women no longer work for Amherst College. English majors? Still wallowing in poetry.

Boston Public Library 'Special Collections' has something truly special, if only they could find it. Now they might be able to.

Earlier this year, in the Special Collections section at the Boston Public Library, they had a little problem. Someone misplaced works by Rembrandt and famed German artist Albrecht Dürer, valued at roughly $650,000. Except you don't really know that at first, do you? It's not like misplacing the car keys or the television remote.

A scandal broke out, leading to the firings of two leading figures at the library. But as misplaced things are tend to be, the art was found nearby, roughly eighty feet away from where they should have been in a massive warehouse. This small oversight has led the entire collection to be inventoried for the first time in the library's history.

Led by Simmons College professor Dr. Martha Mahard and a team of stud----wait, wait, wait----the library never got around to this before now??? It's been a bastion of Boston for 167 years, and no one paused to say, "Hey, Joe, at some point, let's keep track of where Emily Dickinson's poems are or where those Winslow Homer prints might be, okay?"

According to Fox25 in Boston (which has a video of all that excitable behind the scenes inventory action), Mahard is delightfully happy at the process.

"We keep hitting things that we didn’t expect," Mahard said. "The kinds of things where we open a box. You think it’s going to be 20 prints and it’s 150 that aren’t in mattes."

((((head in hands))))

Poems on shirts. Very, very expensive shirts.

Erdem is a fashion designer who has experience with Vivienne Westwood and Diane von Furstenburg. I know this because I'm fairly literate and just read it off the Neiman Marcus website.

What does this have to do with us? Erdem has released poetry-inspired high fashion shirts, covered in verses from his two favorite poets, Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman.

Described as a "Naomi Handwritten Love Poem Script Lace Shell"--which itself sounds as delicate as Dickinson and as cryptic as Whitman--the shirt consists of portions of both poets' works on the front, while the reverse side is labeled as a "very sheer organza back with keyhole." Ooh-la-la.

Dickinson's "I hide myself within my flower" and Whitman's "Passing Stranger!" are the two poems selected. The shirt retails for a gotta-have price of $1,490.

You, too, can stand frozen with a moody face and lifeless arms in a shirt that costs 1/30th the average American's salary!






I know what you're saying: But how can I pull the look together??
Neiman Marcus would like to recommend Erdem's Bonite Boxa Organza Lace Jacket for $2,640, matched with Erdem's Zola Tailored Lace Organza Trousers for $769.

Wearing an everyday Walt Whitman outfit for under $5,000? Tres chic.

Some Famous Writer Once Lived Here: Amherst, Massachusetts

Some Famous Writer Once Lived Here is where we check out cities or towns that--you guessed it--a famous writer once lived. Picture the illegitimate lovechild between the US Census report and a tourist pamphlet from a local chamber of commerce. What's it like there today? Here's where we find out.


Today:  Emily Dickinson once lived in Amherst, Massachusetts:

Outside of Boston, whenever you think of a nebbish, scholarly, cultured New England type, the stereotype you're envisioning is largely located in Amherst, MA, where academic elitists blend with barefooted hobos in a delightful human fondue of awkwardness with a quaint, small town vibe.

Sure, she never left the house much, but that doesn't stop the good folk of this western Massachusetts enclave from building its agoraphobic reputation partly around Emily Dickinson and the socially uncomfortable, depression-inducing ideals you'd come to expect from a powerhouse literary neighborhood.

Amherst College, Hampshire College, and UMass-Amherst all call the town home, placing tens of thousands of students into the cozy confines of a rural New England hamlet. It's the equivalent of having an Insane Clown Posse concert in your grandma's living room.


The basics of Amherst, Massachusetts:

Location:
Just shy of 75 miles away as the crow flies from Boston, but nearly 100 miles on surface roads, Amherst is directly closer to Albany, NY, and Hartford, CT. But you should never want to visit Albany or Hartford under any circumstances, so 100 miles to Boston it is.

2010 Census:
Population: 37,819, up nearly 3,000 since 2000. Some college graduates just won't leave.

Racial Makeup: 76.9% white, 5.4% African American, 0.2% Native American, 10.9% Asian. Out of the 37,819 people in Amherst, only 13 defined themselves as a Pacific Islander, verifying once and for all that Amherst is nowhere near a Pacific island.

Good news for single men: 51.1% of the population is female, and only 99.98% of that population wants you to wear shoes.

10.6% of Amherst residents live below the poverty line, while 56% of the work force works in education. Sounds like those three colleges need to start paying their employees more coin.


What to see, what to do in Amherst:

Ravenous hungry caterpillars wear shoes.

Do you enjoy Emily Dickinson, but find looking at words to be too much of a hassle with the reading experience? Good news! The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art is located in Amherst. Is there a monument to The Very Hungry Caterpillar? There is if they know what's good for them.

After you're done examining the artistic complexity of Brown Bear, Brown Bear, head on down to the National Yiddish Book Center. As one One Yelp reviewer describes it, it's "worth a trip for the whole micschpokhe."

And when you're looking to take the edge off, there's the Amherst Farm Winery, where an old dairy barn has been converted into a modern, cozy, den of boozy deliciousness. $5 gets you a logo glass, a taste of five wines, and a brief buzz.

Of course, there's the Emily Dickinson Museum, a National Historic Landmark, and what used to be the poet's home during her secluded life. Remember, folks, agoraphobia is less depressing when you see it on a guided tour!


Where to eat in Amherst:

For intriguing menu item names alone, The Black Sheep Deli wins for sandwiches called the Purple People Eater (eggplant), Fowl Play (chicken), and the Humongous Fungus (grilled portobellos). It sounds creepier when you say "grilled fungus on a roll" though.

Bistro 63 at the Monkey Bar and Grille is a mouthful to say, as is their description of their Oyster Rockefeller, which includes "lemon butter parnod besciamella sauce." At least three of those are real words. That said, everything tastes more delicious when it sounds deceptively French and/or Italian.

Looking for a Denny's experience but with 99% less shame than a Denny's experience? Head over to the breakfasts of The Lone Wolf, which straddles the bitter culinary breakfast divide between Israel (Challah French Toast) and Mexico (Chilli Relenos).


Didn't Robert Frost once live in Amherst?

Gypsy.

Indeed, but he lived everywhere in New England, so it hardly counts. Robert Frost was like a Johnny Cash song come to life.













Emily Dickinson's thoughts on her hometown:

"[C]ould it please your convenience to come so far as Amherst, I should be very glad, but I do not cross my father's ground to any house or town."

The Friday Poem: Noon—is the Hinge of Day, by Emily Dickinson

Every Friday we'll have The Friday Poem. (A capitalized title--and italicized!--so you know it's official and whatnot.) Famous poets, obscure poets, amateur poets, whatever poets--just a poem to end the week.

Like this one:


Noon—is the Hinge of Day, by Emily Dickinson

Noon—is the Hinge of Day—
Evening—the Tissue Door—
Morning—the East compelling the sill
Till all the World is ajar—

Rare photo of Emily Dickinson released to public.

What makes it so rare? It's only the second photo of her known to exist.

Believed to be taken in 1860, the daguerreotype apparently shows a 30-year old Dickinson with her friend, and possible lover, Kate Scott Turner.

The only known photo of Dickinson known to exist before this was from 1847.

The 1860(ish) photo, with Dickinson on the left:

Emily Dickinson or Kim Kardashian?

I'm confused.

Edvard Munch is world's most expensive painter, part-time poet.

"The Scream"--Edvard Munch's crayon drawing from 1895--sold at auction yesterday for the highest price ever publicly paid at auction for a piece of art: $119.9 million.

The drawing, seen here, is widely known. It's also one of four interpretations of "The Scream," and the only version held in private hands. (The other three are in Norwegian museums.)

But unlike most paintings, Munch had a poem inspired by/inspiring the painting, which he wrote in the edges of the frame of the painting:

I was walking along the road with two friends. The Sun was setting –
The Sky turned a bloody red
And I felt a whiff of Melancholy – I stood
Still, deathly tired – over the blue-black
Fjord and City hung Blood and Tongues of Fire
My Friends walked on – I remained behind
– shivering with Anxiety – I felt the great Scream in Nature

Sounds like a blend between Emily Dickinson and Sarah McLachlan. Put a couple of sad looking cats and dogs in a montage, and we've got ourselves an ASPCA commercial.

You are what you eat.

The New York Times had a cute little story recently about what famous writers ate while working on their craft. What they ate conjures images awfully similar to how they wrote. But the article is best surmised in the following drawing that was part of it:

Let's analyze the food choices for what they casually say about the writer:

Lord Byron:  Vinegar.
What it says about him:  Smelly dude, silent pickle lover.

Daniel Handler (Lemony Snicket): Raw, unpeeled carrots.
What it says about him:  Wow, there's a party.

Marcel Proust:  Espresso.
What it says about him:  Figures.

Joyce Maynard:  Lime popsicles.
What is says about her:  Less weird than JD Salinger.

Michael Pollan:  Tea out of a glass and roasted almonds during breaks.
What it says about him:  Someone just haaaas to be a little different, huh?

Walt Whitman:  Oysters and meat for breakfast.
What it says about him:  Aphrodisiac lover.

Mary Roach:  Pretty near-raw beef pho and corn nuts.
What it says about her:  Pretty gassy.

Truman Capote:  Coffee, mint tea, sherry, martini.
What it says about him:  Pees a lot.

John Steinbeck:  Cold toast and stale coffee.
What it says about him:  Potentially wrote at a booth at Denny's.

F. Scott Fitzgerald:  Canned meat eaten from the tin and apples.
What it says about him:  Possibly Hawaiian.

Franz Kafka:  Milk.
What it says about him:  Superhuman bone strength, kidney stones.



Photo / Drawing: New York Times, Wendy MacNaughton

The state of Vermont: Sponsored by Subaru.

I recently spent four days crossing northern Vermont during leaf-peeping season. (Nothing is easier on the wallet for a poor English major than just driving aimlessly. That is until gas prices shoot up again.) While the scenery was inspiring to write, I was too busy making mental notes about the people. The foundation for writing is often just the ability to observe. Though stereotypes are fun and work in a pinch, too.

First off, Vermont is made up of two types of people, and only two types of people. (Stereotyping, you say? Not so, if you've been to Vermont more than a few times in your life.) One type is the born-and-bred out in the countryside. They live in rusted double-wides with a Chevy/Ford pickup truck with 250,000 miles on it as their mode of transportation. They tend to have a thick and hefty beard, wear lots of random camo, have some scruffy dog that looks like it smokes two packs a day, and are the classic taciturn New Englander. If you chat them up, expect one word answers. Two word answers are reserved only if you marry them or buy dinner.

The other Vermonter is someone who moved in from elsewhere. They might have been born in Vermont, moved away, only to come back...or was born elsewhere, but felt the Kashi cereal magnetism that emanates from Vermont and felt drawn to its mountains of green. These people live in ornate Victorian homes that look like it was plucked from a Bronte sister book, run galleries for local artists, and grow their own manure pile in the backyard. They don't eat granola unless they've added a little extra tree bark for fiber. They drive Subarus. This is a fact. You will not drive in Vermont for more than 1/10th of a mile without seeing a half dozen Subarus fly past you. In fact, Vermont recently passed legislation that said the entire state is now just one giant Subaru dealership.

What is also clear about traveling throughout Vermont is that Robert Frost got around. Yes, Robert Frost was "New England's Poet." Apparently being New England's Poet meant he single-handedly kept the real estate market afloat in the early 20th century. This man seemingly owned homes, vacation spots, farms, dance clubs, yoga studios, and Chinese food restaurants. I've been to most every corner of New England over the years. At this point, it's clear Frost slept in more beds than Richard Gere in "American Gigolo." You drive for a half hour anywhere in northern New England and you're apt to see some Robert Frost real estate. (That includes one final piece of real estate: his burial plot in Bennington, VT.)

That's what makes Emily Dickinson easier to seek out. You might say she was a recluse or had some social anxiety disorder. I just say she was being kind and making things easier on a day tripper like myself. If Travelocity or Expedia want to hype a famous writer for tourists, they need to jump on the Emily Dickinson bandwagon. She's the anti-Frost, and especially the anti-Hemingway. (That's another blog for another day.) Birthplace? Home where she lived? Burial plot? Are you capable of walking 50ft without getting winded and needing a hit off an oxygen tank? If so, Emily is the woman for you! How helpful!

And best of all, you don't need to buy a Subaru to see it all.