Emily by Michael Bedard (1992) is a story about Emily Dickinson. It's not a biography, but first-person fiction, a memory told by a young girl who lives across the street from Emily. In an afterword, Bedard writes, "In writing this book, I went to Amherst to visit the house where she [Emily Dickinson] lived. I sat in the parlor with the piano, visited the room where she wrote. I stood beneath her window and she lowered this story to me." Does this explain the poetry in his prose? For example, as our protagonist's father sings her to sleep, "Like flakes of flowers the words fell to the sheets. I listened to them fall and fell asleep." Bedard's language transforms narrative into magic. What could have been an ordinary story is instead a lyrical tale. The young girl's father defines poetry by referencing how her mother plays the piano: "'Listen to Mother play. She practices and practices a piece, and sometimes a magic happens and it seems the music starts to breathe. It sends a shiver through you . . .it's a mystery.'" And so does this book. It breathes.
GTM has Emily Dickinson's "A Narrow Fellow in the Grass" Word Cluster . Teacher Shei has Emily Dickinson Clip Art. Gillian Healy has Powerpoint on Emily Dickinson poem "Hope."
