Dickinson Season One ends with a funeral, a wedding, and another Funeral, in Emily’s brain.
Is Emily subconsciously guilty about her relationship with Sue? Was Mrs. Dickinson a lush? Did George Gould really go for gold? And why are season finales so difficult? Plus, new poems from our cohosts — and the Dickinson verse that launched #emisueforevermore.
Jericho, Breezy and Aífe talk back to Dickinson Season One, Episode Ten "I Felt a Funeral, in My Brain."
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Poems featured in this episode:
One Sister have I in our house by Emily Dickinson
I Will Die Alone by Brionne Janae
Sitcom by Jericho Brown
I felt a Funeral, in my Brain by Emily Dickinson
In the finale of Dickinson, Season One, Emily gives Sue a poem so small she has to use a magnifying glass to read it.
On this bonus episode, Jericho, Breezy and Aife explore Emily Dickinson's radical experimentation with what we'd now call "mixed media" — using the skills of women's work the AppleTV+ series portrays her as not possessing.
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That poem Emily gives Sue:
A solar eclipse darkens the skies over Amherst. Is it a miracle of God's creation? A disturbing omen? Or just a great place to take a date?
In the series' most emotionally wrenching episode so far, Emily grapples with all these possibilities — and ends up begging Death to let Ben live.
Breezy, Jericho, and Aífe, joined by special guest and two-time US Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith, talk back to Season 1, Episode 9 of Dickinson: "'Faith' Is a Fine Invention."
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Poems featured in the episode:
I’m “wife”—I’ve finished that by Emily Dickinson
Once or twice or three times, I saw something by Marie Howe
The Angels by Tracy K. Smith
“Faith” is a fine invention by Emily Dickinson
It's Christmas Eve at the Dickinsons, and they've got visitors, including bestselling author Louisa May Alcott (on a runner's high) and just-returned-from-Spain Aunt Lavinia (experiencing widow's euphoria). Conspicuously absent (though perhaps not missed) is Edward Dickinson, who heads off to DC — but not without leaving a double-edged gift for Emily.
Could Emily cook? Were Austin and Sue into hunching? And does being a writer have to mean turning your back on your family?
Breezy, Jericho, and Aífe, joined by special guest poet Chen Chen, talk back to Season 1, Episode 8 of Dickinson: “There's a Certain Slant of Light"
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Poems featured:
They shut me up in Prose by Emily Dickinson
Origin Story by Chen Chen
There's a certain Slant of light by Emily Dickinson
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Songs referred to:
Left Alone by Fiona Apple
Love Is Stronger Than Pride by Sade
If You Don't Believe by Deniece Williams
Let's Go Crazy and 1999 by Prince
Lovin' You by Minnie Riperton
On Friday, we release bonus material that takes you deeper into the world of Emily Dickinson, and the work of our guest poets. This week Evie Shockley talks about the complexities of Zora Neale Hurston's legacy — and how Black women writers have found meanings and possibilities in Emily Dickinson's poetry far beyond what Dickinson might have had in mind.
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Referred to in the episode:
"Coloring Dickinson: Race, Influence, and Lyric Dis-reading" by Evie Shockley
It’s Election Day, and Rep. Edward Dickinson is showing his true colors, culminating in a literal blow to Emily.
Was Edward Dickinson dead set against his daughter becoming a poet? Can his refusal to embrace abolitionism be traced to the fact that both his and his wife's family fortunes depended on enslaved labor? And if her family hadn't profited from slavery, would Emily Dickinson have had the space to write the poems we continue to revere?
Breezy, Jericho, and Aífe, joined by special guest, poet and scholar Evie Shockley, talk back to Season 1, Episode 7 of Dickinson: “We lose — because we win”
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Learn more about what our researcher Anna Smith uncovered about the ties between the Dickinsons' family wealth and enslavement:
A Racial History of Amherst College: "There Are No Good Billionaires, or the Trask-Dickinson Connection"
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Poems featured in this episode:
A Burdock—clawed my Gown by Emily Dickinson
daddy's girl by Evie Shockley
We lose—because we win by Emily Dickinson
Death was a constant presence in 19th century America, including Emily Dickinson's Amherst. But if you were poor, Black, or indigenous — or all three — the risk of death from illness and overwork was much greater.
As our rogue scholar Aífe Murray describes in this bonus conversation, the prominent citizens of Amherst, including Emily's father Edward Dickinson, were vigilant about their own health. But they weren't much looking out for the health of their less advantaged neighbors and hired hands. In fact, if it suited their purposes, they just might send you out to die on the edge of town.
Joining Aífe in the conversation are cohosts Jericho Brown and Brionne Janae, and special guest Amber Flame.
Emily feigns mortal illness so her family will leave her alone in her room to write. Sue, who's already suffered so much loss, hurries back from Boston to visit what she thinks is her friend and lover's deathbed, only to find it's a hoax. And to make it worse, Emily chooses this moment to tell Sue she should marry Austin, her possessiveness apparently softened by the previous night's poetic flirtation with her father's clerk Ben Newton.
What do we know about the real relationship between Emily and Ben? How can Emily be so insensitive to Sue? Is Dickinson treating queerness as a "phase"? And is there a poet out there who hasn't been tempted to do something they shouldn't to get time to write?
Breezy, Jericho and Aífe, joined special guest Amber Flame, talk back to Season 1, Episode 6 of Dickinson: "A Brief, but Patient Illness."
Plus: Aífe opens up Lavinia's juicy teen diary. Jericho speaks his truth on nude selfies, dating profiles, and men who act like they would never have anything to do with abortion, when in fact they've paid for them. And Breezy has a little something for the archivists and biographers of the future.
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Poems featured in this episode:
I would not paint — a picture — by Emily Dickinson
fear; low hum by Amber Flame
Tell all the truth but tell it slant — by Emily Dickinson
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Go deeper into the Dickinson dirt: This week's bonus episode "Death on Edward Dickinson's watch" drops this Friday, January 13th.
In this special episode, cohost Jericho Brown is in conversation with Alena Smith, creator and show runner of AppleTV+'s Dickinson. They go inside the making of the show, and why Emily Dickinson's life and poems continue to inspire.
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Poems in this episode:
You cannot put a fire out by Emily Dickinson
The Soul selects her own Society by Emily Dickinson
Duplex (I Begin With Love) by Jericho Brown
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This conversation was recorded at Smith College on September 29, 2022. We thank Smith for permission to use the audio, and for its support for The Slave is Gone.
On Fridays, we bring you bonus material that takes you deeper into the work of our poets, and the world of Emily Dickinson.
This week, Jericho asks about the Dickinson men and the Civil War, and Aife reveals the fascinating (and when you look straight at them, shocking) details of Austin Dickinson's absolutely legal evasion of the draft.
On Fridays, we bring you bonus materials that take you into the worlds of Emily Dickinson and our poets.
This time, it's Jericho on James Baldwin, racial insult, and just wanting to have this drink.
Every Friday, we release bonus material that takes you deeper into the world of Emily Dickinson, and the work of our poets.
This week, our Rogue Scholar Aife Murray asks Jericho Brown, Brionne Janae, and special guest Malcolm Tariq about where they first found their voice. And all three recounted experiences from the Black churches of their childhoods -- speaking, singing, writing, and much more.
There are rumors there's a fugitive slave in Amherst, which means the the threat of the slavecatcher hangs over all Black people in the town, including the Dickinsons' hired hand Henry. So how does Emily respond? By encouraging Henry to play Othello in her Shakespeare Club's latest production! George, having been rebuffed by Emily, decides to take the patriarchal route to get her to marry him. And in Boston, it's intimated that Sue may be sexually assaulted by the man who employs her as a governess for his children. It's a lot! (Probably too much.)
Learn what women dealt with in a world before consent was a thing, the truth about Emily and Austin's race and class prejudices (such as we can tell), and why Amherst is definitely not the town in Massachusetts an escaped slave would head to. Plus: Jericho's crush on George is definitively over.
Breezy, Jericho, and Aífe, joined by special guest, the poet and playwright Malcolm Tariq, talk back to Season 1, Episode 5 of Dickinson: "I Am Afraid to Own a Body."
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Poems featured in the episode:
"No Rack can torture me" by Emily Dickinson
"The Mother of Othello Comes Before Us" by Malcom Tariq
Emily's father scoffs at her objection to cutting down an old tree to make way for the railroad, sending her (and suitor George) on a pilgrimage to to see Henry David Thoreau, a visit that ends in disappointment. Should we be disappointed in the portrayal of Thoreau? Why does Emily's sister Lavinia play at being an Indian? Who are the real indigenous people in the background of this episode? And how do solitude and the wild figure in a poet's life?
Breezy, Jericho, and Aífe, joined by special guest US Poet Laureate Ada Limón, talk back to Season 1, Episode 4 of Dickinson: "Alone, I Cannot Be."
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Poems featured in the episode:
"I robbed the Woods" by Emily Dickinson
"Wife" by Ada Limón
"Swear On It" by Ada Limón
"Alone, I cannot be" by Emily Dickinson
Every Friday, we release bonus material that takes you deeper into the world of Emily Dickinson, and the work of our guest poets.
This week, Danez Smith talks with Breezy and Jericho about why the title on the cover of their latest book (Homie) is not its real title, and what that has to do with language, access, and who you're writing for. And in the middle of it all, Danez transports us to the scene "at the downlow house party".
A party jumps off at the Dickinsons, and raises lots of questions: Were they taking opium in 19th century Massachusetts? How did the son of a samurai end up there? What's with the colorblind twerking? And why doesn't anybody seem to understand Sue? Plus, the perils of poetry about Black death in a world of white readers.
Breezy, Jericho, and Aife, joined by special guest poet Danez Smith, talk back to Season 1, Episode 3 of Dickinson "Wild Nights."
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Poems featured in the episode:
Color - Caste - Denomination by Emily Dickinson
at the download house party by Danez Smith
Wild nights - Wild nights! by Emily Dickinson
Every Friday, we release bonus material that takes you deeper into the work of our guest poets, and the world of Emily Dickinson. The story of Angeline Palmer reveals how tenuous freedom was for Black people, even in the Yankee North -- and how the Dickinsons weren't exactly reliable allies.
What do we know about the reality of domestic servants in the Dickinson household, and about Maggie in particular? How was cross-dressing different when the emotional worlds of men and women were sharply separated? And as Emily erupts, sexually and poetically, Jericho asks: Where was queer TV like this when I needed it?
Breezy, Jericho, and Aife, joined by special guest poet Rage Hezekiah, talk back to Season 1, Episode 2 of Dickinson "I have never seen 'Volcanoes'".