Nuala O'Connor's novel Miss Emily vividly brings Emily Dickinson to life, depicting her reclusive days amongst her parents and sister at their estate, the Homestead in Amherst, Mass., in the 1860s, as well as through 18-year-old Irish maid Ada Concannon, a fictional confidant for Emily. O'Connor picks her favorite Dickinson poems. Links to the poems are provided.
Emily Dickinson did not leave any poetics or treatise to explain her life’s work, so we can come to her poetry with minds and hearts open, and unearth whatever it is we need to find. Her oeuvre is a large one and most of her work was done in secret – she didn’t share most of what she wrote.
Ten or so poems were published in her lifetime, mostly without her consent. She often included poems with letters but, after her death, the poet’s sister Vinnie was surprised to find almost eighteen hundred individual poems in Dickinson’s bedroom, some of them bound into booklets by the poet.
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