AMHERST, MA. -- The Emily Dickinson Museum in Amherst, Massachusetts, announces a celebration of the 181st anniversary of the poet's birth. The birthday party will take place on Saturday, December 10, 2011, beginning at 5 p.m., exactly 181 years and twelve hours after Emily Dickinson was born in the very same house the Museum occupies today. Find details at www.EmilyDickinsonMuseum.org/birthday.
The celebration, which doubles as a fundraising event for critical projects at the Emily Dickinson Museum, features Glimpses into The Secret Life of Emily Dickinson with award-winning novelist Jerome Charyn. From 5 to 7 p.m. in Valentine Hall on the Amherst College campus, guests hear Mr.Charyn speak about "Emily Dickinson -- Outlaw," enjoy Dickinson-inspired sweets and savories, and toast the poet on her birthday. Mr. Charyn is author of the provocative historical novel, The Secret Life of Emily Dickinson, which imagines a life for the poet far different from the one we know. Each guest will receive a copy of the novel as a Dickinson birthday remembrance.
At 7:30 p.m. guests will arrive at the Homestead for a "candlelight soiree," complete with poetry reading, a masquerade tour, and glimpses of the unexpected. The Homestead soiree includes a tribute to documentary photographer Jerome Liebling who created the breathtaking photographic essay, The Dickinsons of Amherst, with images of the buildings, landscapes, rooms, and objects at the Homestead and The Evergreens. A selection of Liebling's photographs from the book will be on view at the Homestead in their original setting during the celebration and will remain in place until the Museum closes on December 31.
Tickets are immediately available for the celebratory fundraiser. For the evening party alone, tickets are $75. For both parts of the celebration -- the party and the candlelight soiree -- tickets are $125. For information and to purchase tickets, visit www.EmilyDickinsonMuseum.org/birthday or contact the Emily Dickinson Museum at 413-542-5311 or 413-542-5084 or info@EmilyDickinsonMuseum.org. All but $25 of the ticket price are tax deductible; proceeds benefit the Emily Dickinson Museum.
About Jerome Charyn
With nearly 50 published works, Mr. Charyn has earned a long-standing reputation as an inventive and prolific chronicler of real and imagined American life. He grew up on the mean streets of South Bronx while the world was at war. The school library was his refuge, and it was there that he discovered Emily Dickinson, or rather, she discovered him, when a volume of her poetry literally landed on his head. He never quite recovered and in 2010 wrote the bestselling historical novel, The Secret Life of Emily Dickinson, recently named a must-read by the Massachusetts Center for the Book. In a New York Review of Books review Joyce Carol Oates said that "Charyn has invented for Emily Dickinson an active, at times frantic counterlife ... a "secret" life of unrepressed erotic desire. There is seriocomic pathos here -- as well as a brashly subjective vision of our greatest American woman poet." Emily Dickinson is also the subject of his next non-fiction book, a study of the reclusive poet for Harvard University Press.
Charyn has been a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. He received the Rosenthal Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and has been named Commander of Arts and Letters by the French Minister of Culture. He was Distinguished Professor of Film Studies at the American University of Paris.
About Jerome Liebling
Jerome Liebling, a leading documentary photographer of American life, came to Amherst to teach photography and film at Hampshire College from its opening in 1970 to 1990. Several years after moving to Amherst, he became intrigued by the nearby home of another great artist--Emily Dickinson. His rich photographic essay, The Dickinsons of Amherst, published in 2001, captures the twentieth century personalities of the Homestead and The Evergreens in erie explication of Dickinson's poetic line "Art -- is a house that tries to be haunted." Liebling collaborated with Christopher Benfey, Polly Longsworth, and Barton St. Armand whose essays further illuminate the photographs and life in the Dickinson homes. His timeless images, Benfey suggests, create a poetry of "the afterlife of buildings and their peculiar sorrows" uniquely evocative of Emily Dickinson's own artistic inspiration. Selections from these photographs will be on view in their original setting at the Dickinson Homestead at the Candlelight Soiree and through December.
Sponsors
Media sponsors for "Just the Door ajar" -- Glimpses into The Secret Life of Emily Dickinson are the Daily Hampshire Gazette and by New England Public Radio WFCR &WNNZ. Other business sponsors of the event are St. Germain Investments, The Davis Group, Bulkley, Richardson, and Gelinas, LLP, The Lord Jeffrey Inn, Hope and Feathers Framing and Gallery, and Stifel, Nicolaus, & Co. Inc.
About the Museum
The Emily Dickinson Museum is open 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., Wednesday through Sunday, March through December. For complete information about all 2011 programming and special events, visit www.EmilyDickinsonMuseum.org.The Emily Dickinson Museum, comprising the Dickinson Homestead and The Evergreens, is devoted to the story and legacy of poet Emily Dickinson and her family. Both properties are owned by the Trustees of Amherst College. The Museum is overseen by a separate Board of Governors charged with raising its operating and capital funds. The Homestead was the birthplace and residence of the poet (1830-1886). The Evergreens was the home of the poet's brother and sister-in-law, Austin and Susan Dickinson. The Emily Dickinson Museum is located at 280 Main Street in Amherst.
The Museum is a member of Museums10, a consortium of ten Pioneer Valley museums forged to celebrate the collections and promote the programs of its affiliated museums to local, regional, and national visitors.
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