So much referencing of Emily Dickinson

[BuntysTwinkle]

...in the books I've read this year.

Is she having a renaissance or had I just never noticed how popular she is?

I went back and looked and there have been references to or quotes by ED in

The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud
How To Stop Time by Matt Haig
A God In Ruins by Kate Atkinson
Frances and Bernard by Carlene Bauer

Books I've read over the past few months. There may be more that I haven't remembered.

Today I started reading What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours by Helen Oyeyemi and the first page mentions Emily Dickinson! I feel like she's following me from book to book

She's a very popular poet with writers. Personally I've always found her a bit difficult to get into, but I've only ever read her stuff in anthologies, which I think doesn't always work well for slightly off-beat poets. Something I've read this year (and I've not read any of your list, but I did read Gingerbread by Helen Oyeyemi so maybe it was that) also quoted Dickinson a lot. Maybe she is having a revival?

I'm a writer and I can't abide Emily Dickinson. I find her to be hugely overrated.

She’s quite of the moment - I think she suits 2020. Obsessed with her own inner state. A bit Billie Eilish. Would have loved lockdown.

Not my cup of tea really. I like a rousing verse myself.

Can’t abide her poetry, and yes, she seems to be the poet du jour.

You might appreciate the line in Frances and Bernard. "Reading the verse of Emily Dickinson makes me feel like I’m being suffocated by a powder puff full of talc."

I like the few poems of hers that I've come across. Love is the thing with feathers? But I've never sat down to read a book. I might see if the library has anything actually, while she's on the mind of my bookshelves...

She’s quite of the moment - I think she suits 2020. Obsessed with her own inner state. A bit Billie Eilish. Would have loved lockdown.

And now I know what to buy my DN for Christmas!

I can't read her poetry without thinking of the Wendy Cope poem:

Higgledy piggledy
Emily Dickinson
Liked to use dashes
Instead of full stops

Nowadays faced with such
Idiosyncracy
Critics and editors
Send for the cops

As a fan of both Emily and Wendy, I like this thread very much.

Emily Dickerson- she is an amazing writer, and being from a generations where women should only be housewives didn't stop her.

There have been two more Emily sightings in my books. One in Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey where her poetry is one of few books in the cabin and is read out at an event; and in Charlotte by Helen Moffett with a reference to a "truth told slant" poem right near the end (in the chatty author's part, not the actual story - even I know those dates wouldn't line up!)

I've ordered a book of Emily Dickinson poems for DN, and also for me, because I begin anticipating the next ED reference every time I pick up a book now

Love her. Don't care that she's wafty.