Library Book Club

All experience levels are welcome to a monthly book group moderated by library staff. In 2013, the library will ask individuals from varied backgrounds to select a title that has been meaningful to them. Space is limited to 15 participants. Please register in advance by emailing library@poetryfoundation.org.
 
November’s curator, Jane Wald, selected The Poems of Emily Dickinson: Reading Edition (Belknap Press of Harvard University)  for the following reasons:

"To me, Dickinson’s poetry is almost impossibly vibrant and timeless. Her work is intriguing on many different levels at once, and all of them matter. I admire the artful economy of language deployed to land the greatest impact with first lines so arresting that there’s little hope of escape from what follows. I always pause at how she wrung every drop of meaning from her lexicon so as to arrange syntax and words either as extravagant delicacies or as dissonant chords that don’t quite resolve. The experiential and emotional range of these poems is comprehensive, from agonizingly authentic depths, inconsolable searching, and singular passion, to ruthless observation, wry incisive wit, triumphant apprehension, and gentle confidence. Which means I’m never without something provocative to read. Dickinson’s body of work navigates countless themes and topics so adroitly that they remain perpetually new and universally relevant. Isn’t it great, then, that each small poem can be its own compact puzzle waiting for the next contestant."

Jane Wald is executive director of the Emily Dickinson Museum consisting of the poet’s Homestead, where she wrote nearly all her 1,800 poems, and The Evergreens, home of Dickinson’s brother and family. Wald has worked in public history and museums for more than 25 years, and has guided the Emily Dickinson Museum (est. 2003) through most of its first decade.