Emily Dickinson Marathon Reading
Today we present part II of a community marathon reading of the work of Emily Dickinson recorded at the Hampton Library in Bridgehampton, NY in April 2010.
Farmers, writers and other lovers of literature read the work of the 19th century poet.
Emily Dickinson was born in December 1830 in Amherst, Massachusetts. As an adult she lived in virtual seclusion and died in Amherst in May of 1886.
She started writing poetry as a teenager but her first surviving poem is from 1850. The earliest poems can be heard on our previous program in the series.
In today’s program we hear poems written in 1859 and 1860 and included in The Poems of Emily Dickinson: Reading Edition edited by Ralph W. Franklin (The Belknap Press of Harvard Univ. Press, 1999). Franklin was the Director of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University.
The readers were all from the Bridgehampton area and included poets, a farmer, librarians, a public official, a photographer/bookseller and other lovers of literature.
The marathon reading lasted more than 8 hours. The following readers are heard in today's program:
Marilee Foster, Virginia Tiger, Arkady Nebelsin, Kathryn Szoka, Ann Mackesey, Hillary Strober, Lee Foster, Diana White and Marcia Mitrowski of the Hampton Library (thanks Marcia!).