Events
| Sat | ||
|---|---|---|
Start: 2:00 pm
This may be jumping the gun just a bit, as Emily Dickinson's 179th birthday is not until December 10th, but it's nevertheless time for some observing of the beloved poet's life and work with a discussion of some recent Dickinson scholarship, and a reading of some of her poems and letters. Traveling here today for the festivities are Dickinson scholar Ellen Louise Hart, a contributor to Reading Emily Dickinson's Letters: Critical Essays (University of Massachusetts Press, edited by Jane Donahue Eberwein and Cindy MacKenzie), and Holly Springfield, founder of the Portland chapter of the Emily Dickinson International Society. "It is high time for renewed large-scale attention to Dickinson's letters and this volume provides a marvelously up-to-date range of critical, theoretical, and pragmatic responses to the personal, social, cultural, and poetic functions of her letter-writing." - Cristanne Miller. Ellen Louise Hart is also co-editor, with Martha Nell Smith, of Open Me Carefully: Emily Dickinson's Intimate Letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson (Paris Press). All are invited to read a favorite poem or letter of Dickinson's, a poem or letter of someone else's or their own in honor of Emily's birthday!
Start: 7:00 pm
Twice-married, father of three sons, and a Pulitzer Prize-winning music critic for the Washington Post, Tim Page was also plagued by mysterious obsessions, difficulties communicating, and extreme social awkwardness from childhood on. Parallel Play: Growing Up with Undiagnosed Aspergers (Doubleday) relates his story of struggling to make sense of both his problems and his considerable gifts, and his coming to terms at age 45 with a diagnosis of a form of Aspergers syndrome. "Page does not glorify or mythologize his condition, nor does he render a portrait of a soul victimized by circumstance. The view from this window is merely one of the human conditions, painted in emotions known to us all, yet rarely so finely drawn." - Los Angeles Times.
| ||
