WEBVTT

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About three weeks ago, I went
to visit Amherst, Massachusetts,

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and I was walking
in the Main Street

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looking for bookstores
and fabric stores.

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And I noticed the graveyard
behind some of the stores.

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And I walked over
there, and I remember

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that Emily Dickinson
lived in Amherst

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and was probably buried there.

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So I went and I saw
her grave and she's

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right next to her sister Lavinia
and right next to her father.

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The interesting thing is, I've
been in Amherst so many times,

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and it never occurred to
me that she'd be there.

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She's one of my favorite poets.

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And a couple of weeks before,
I had just written a sestina

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called "An Introduction
to Emily Dickinson,"

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which I'm going to read for you.

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I'm not going to tell you which
of the six repeating N-words

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are.

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See, if you can get them.

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And what I wanted to
do was start off almost

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like a lecture in this poem.

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And then, I started remembering
all these little anecdotes

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about Emily Dickinson that
have to do with my own life.

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So I thought I'll throw that
stuff into because the hardest

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thing about the sestina,
since it's so long,

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is how to keep it interesting.

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So I figured a little
gossip never hurts.

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An introduction to ED.

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In 1830, Emily
Dickinson was born

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into the paradise on Earth
of Amherst, Massachusetts,

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and rarely left its
white circumference.

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Out of 1,775 poems she wrote
in her day, she saw only eight

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of them published.

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What an introduction
to the literary world?

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They were punctuated
with dashes.

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"Pure" and "terrible" is how she
described her father's heart.

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But Emily never
married and never

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had the heart to leave him.

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Like an angel or nun
inhabiting paradise,

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a patron saint CF
William Carlos Williams.

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Emily dashed in and out
of her heavenly garden

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dressed in a white habit.

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After reading the complete
poems introduction,

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its index of first
lines, I counted

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26 poems ending with "de."

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My writer friend, Robert,
worked as a caretaker

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day and night in the
Dickinson mansion, a beat

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in the heart of Main Street.

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Visiting poets needed no formal
introduction or appointment.

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They could casually enter the
Paradise of Emily's living

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room, French doors alternating
with white marble fireplaces.

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But no little desk
where Emily dashed off

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poems on brown paper bags.

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Father's huge bed, the
one dash of furniture

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left in the house that
had seen better days.

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Robert camped out
in his sleeping bag

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with a copy of
the White Goddess,

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too worshipful to
sleep upstairs.

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Ate his heart out beneath
Emily's bare bedroom

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on this side of paradise.

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Upstairs, he'd had
headaches, blinded

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by the sun's introduction.

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Lori G sent me ED's cookbook,
her Bible, whose introduction

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proved it was genuine, no joke.

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Hundreds of dashes and dots
on its pages, a Morse code

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of souls in paradise.

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Emily's recipe for
federal cake could

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feed a dazed army of poets.

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Now, so much butter
stops the heart.

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Can you imagine Emily up to
her elbows in white flour,

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10 cups of flour, and 21 cups
of pulverized white sugar, five

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eggs, half pint of milk
added after the introduction

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of butter?

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This is not recommended
for the faint-hearted baker

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or poet whose batters know
simple slapdash operation.

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Roses and a federal loaf arrived
one day at Mrs. Boltwoods'.

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Some gifts are more
hell than paradise.

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It's true.

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The terrified heart
is no paradise lost.

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Frightened white Emily
greets Higginson, dashes

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into his hand two day lilies.

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These are my introduction.

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