Never mind faded forests, Austin,
Never mind silent fields -
Here is a little forest,
Whose leaf is ever green;
Here is a brighter garden,
Where not a frost has been;
In its unfading flowers
I hear the bright bee hum:
Prithee, my brother,
Into my garden come!

~ Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson is one of the most famous American female poets of the 19th century – a title she would never have expected owning during her lifetime.  She grew up in Amherst, Massachusetts, part of a prosperous and religious family.  Austin, mentioned in the poem above, was her brother.

It is said that Emily was known as a recluse in her community, which noted for her penchant for wearing white, and she carried out most of her life’s friendships through correspondence. 

Although she wrote nearly eighteen hundred poems, less than a dozen were actually published while she was living.  Many of her poems she actually bound herself into packets, using needle and thread. 

One of her most important friendships was with Thomas Wentworth Higginson, who was also a writer.  Emily only met him twice during her life and so her friendship with the political reformer was chiefly through correspondence. Thomas was the commander of the first troop of African-American soldiers during the Civil War- an experience which he wrote about later in his life.  He would receive poems from Emily.  One of these was the famous poem, “Safe in their Alabaster Chambers”. 

At the age of 55, Emily passed away.  And at her funeral, Thomas read “No Coward Soul Is Mine” – a poem by Emily Bronte that was one of Emily’s favourites.  It wasn’t until her sister, Lavinia, discovered Emily’s caches of poems that they crossed into the hands of her acquaintances (Thomas being one of them) and began to be published.  However, these were heavily edited. 

The world would not see Emily’s poems in an unaltered state until the release of The Poems of Emily Dickinson in 1955.  The photo above features Emily Dickinson stamps, issued by the U.S. Postal service in 1971.