Kidlit Celebrates Women's History Month: Miss Emily

March 26 - Today's post contributed by Burleigh Mutén

Miss Emily – Our Laughing Goddess of Plenty

Emily Dickinson loved children.

This is one of the first facts

I tell the five-year-olds I teach

when we study Dickinson.

“Not only did Emily Dickinson

grow up in Amherst, just like you,”

I tell them, “She loved nature,

just like you, and

she liked to write about it.

She wrote many poems about bees

and flowers, the wind,

birds, clouds at sunset,

the color of the hills at sunrise.

A lot of people all over the world

know about Emily Dickinson

and her poems,” I say,

“but most people don’t know

that she loved children.”

“Did she have any children?” someone asks.

I explain about the lucky children

who lived next door –-

her niece and nephews

and the children of the neighborhood

who loved to play in her yard

with hope that she might add

a whimsical contribution to their fun.

Sometimes a sweet treat.

I ask the children in my class

if they know a grown-up who

knows how to talk to children,

which is my way of saying,

Do you know anyone

who really respects you,

someone who is genuinely interested

in you and your thoughts,

someone who knows how

to join your play as an equal

for those precious moments

when you pretend together?

Their hands shoot up eagerly.

Sometimes someone

names a special aunt.

The perfect response.

One of Dickinson’s young neighbors,

MacGregor Jenkins, grew up and wrote

for Harpers and The Atlantic Monthly.

He also wrote a memoir about

his young life on Main Street, Amherst called

EMILY DICKINSON, FRIEND AND NEIGHBOR

in which he describes the poet as

“our laughing goddess of plenty.”

“It is impossible to imagine a personality

that would appeal to children

more than Miss Emily’s,”

wrote Jenkins. “One moment her eyes

were dancing with fun, filling

our hearts with a very new

and very wonderful feeling.

She was a joyous person.”

©Matt Phelan

The Teacher and Writer Within Me

instantly leapt into a lively conversation.

“A mischievous,

playful Miss Emily

is the way

to introduce young children

to Dickinson,” said the Teacher.

“You can show youngsters,”

said the Writer,

“that Emily Dickinson didn’t

totally sequester herself

in her home. She, in fact,

never stopped interacting

with the children she loved.”

It’s well documented that Dickinson

wrote many notes to the children.

We also know from her letters and poems

that she enjoyed watching the circus

parade past her home.

“The plot develops!” cried the Writer Within.

I started the story, writing in prose.

“But you love verse novels,” insisted the Writer.

“And so do young readers,” said the Teacher.

“You’re a poet,” whispered Miss Emily

as I sat at the keyboard. “Enjoy yourself!

Have a heyday with lineation!

Play with alliteration!”

“Ooh,” said the Writer and the Teacher together.

So I did!

I played with all aspects

of writing free verse

just as I’m doing right now.

MISS EMILY generously offered me

the chance to go “public like a frog”

with the secret I’d kept

since I was a teen: I am poet.

I was walking ‘round the reservoir

near my home one day when the first lines

of the book came into my head.

©Matt Phelan

Van Amburgh & Company’s Great Golden Menagerie

and Frost’s Roman Circus and Royal Coliseum

came to Amherst in June 1877.

The posters announced 175 horses,

56 wagons, five of the world’s champion riders,

bareback somersaulting equestrians,

the largest elephant in the world,

and a two-horned rhinoceros.

©Matt Phelan

It was fun researching

and writing MISS EMILY,

but it was not easy writing

a note to the children

which fit the story

but in actuality were my words --

not Dickinson’s.

I held my breath after submitting

the manuscript to a Dickinson scholar

and sighed when she returned it

with compliments.

As a poet Emily Dickinson was true

to her authentic voice

as a writer and person.

She was not fond of convention.

In any realm of her life.

As an educator,

I believe it’s vital for a child

to explore and find

her own writer’s voice.

Thanks to Miss Emily,

I claimed my own voice as a poet.

May MISS EMILY’s young readers

do the same!

Burleigh Mutén is the author of five children’s books. She is a kindergarten teacher in Amherst, MA and a member of the Emily Dickinson International Society. She has led writing workshops for older children throughout New England, including workshops focused on Dickinson and her work in which young authors actually write in the houses of the Emily Dickinson Museum.