The Emily Dickinson Museum’s Annual Tell It Slant Poetry Festival is an event with international reach that celebrates Emily Dickinson’s poetic legacy and the contemporary creativity she and her work continues to inspire from the place she called home.

The Festival, which runs each September, is named for Dickinson’s poem, “Tell all the truth but tell it slant,” underscoring the revolutionary power of poetry to shift our perspective and reveal new truths. Festival organizers are committed to featuring established and emerging poets who represent the diversity of the contemporary poetry landscape and to fostering community by placing poetry in the public sphere.

This year’s line-up features workshops, panels, and readings, by a diverse and talented group of poets from around the world including Pulitzer Prize winner Tyehimba Jess. The cornerstone of the Festival, the Emily Dickinson Marathon, is an epic reading of all 1,789 of Emily Dickinson’s poems.

Schedule:
Monday, September 19, 2022
7:30pm: Language, History, Identity: Poetry at the Intersections
In this interactive panel and generative workshop, panelists Leonora Simonovis, Farnaz Fatemi, and Cynthia Parker Ohene will explore the intersections of language, migration, gender (bodies and boundaries), history, family, and patriarchy, and how these forces have shaped their identities as women from historically marginalized groups. The panel’s discussion will weave in short readings from the poets’ own work to address how each individual approaches these topics and how the themes intersect with the larger communities they belong to. Following the discussion, each poet will offer a generative writing prompt inspired by elements of their work. Participants will leave the panel with new tools to write about home, family and history.

Poets: Leonora Simonovis, Farnaz Fatemi, Cynthia Parker-Ohene

Location: Online

Tuesday, September 20, 2022
6pm: Wild Nights: Writing the Queer Love Poem
How is a queer love poem different from a heterosexual love poem? How have the contours of queer courtship been transformed as LGBTQ+ people have become more visible in our culture? In this panel, LGBTQ+ poets read queer love poems from their own ouvre and by other American poets of note, and then discuss some of the issues this work raises. Audience members are encouraged to engage and will leave with recommended readings.

Poets: Saida Agostini, Tanya Olson, Kim Roberts, Malik Thompson, Dan Vera

Location: Online

Wednesday, September 21, 2022
7pm: Trust the Process with Poet and Musician Tim Hall
Tim Hall brings you Trust The Process – a live performance infusion of poetry, storytelling, and music about creative expression, self love, and artistic exploration. Hall’s poetry draws inspiration from his lived experiences – charting the nuances of blackness, masculinity, and the beauties of life.

Poet: Tim Hall

Hybrid Program

Thursday, September 22, 2022
6pm: Phosphorescence Poetry Reading Series
Phosphorescence featured poets: Jessica Cuello, Eugenia Leigh, and Joan Kwon Glass
To Emily Dickinson, phosphorescence, was a divine spark and the illuminating light behind learning — it was volatile, but transformative in nature. Produced by the Emily Dickinson Museum, the Phosphorescence Poetry Reading Series celebrates contemporary creativity that echoes Dickinson’s own revolutionary poetic voice. The Series features established and emerging poets whose work and backgrounds represent the diversity of the flourishing contemporary poetry scene. The 2021 Series will be a virtual event to ensure the health and safety of participants. While we are disappointed not to gather together in Amherst, we are excited to connect with a global community of friends and writers.  Join us on the last Thursdays of each month to hear from poets around the world as they read their work and discuss what poetry and Dickinson mean to them.

Poets: Jessica Cuello, Eugenia Leigh, Joan Kwon Glass

Location: Online

Friday, September 23, 2022
4pm: Poetry Isn’t Perfect: A Publication Panel with The Common
Emerging writers of all ages will learn about the process of submitting poetry to literary platforms like The Common, an award-winning literary magazine with a sense of place and a global perspective. Join editorial assistants at The Common and a panel of established poets Jennifer Jean, Karen Skolfield, and Matt Donovan in discussing writing and submission processes from every angle. Writers will leave with concrete advice on inspiration, workflow, and the step-by-step process of literary publishing.

Poets: Jennifer Jean, Karen Skolfield, Matt Donovan

Facilitators: Sarah Wu, Andrenae Jones

7pm: Poetry Open Mic featuring Nathan McClain
Let your voice be heard at our Festival open mic night! If you have longed to share your poetry in the safe and encouraging environment of Emily Dickinson’s garden, this is your chance. If you’d like to hear a wide variety of poets bravely sharing their work we hope to see you in the audience. Following the open mic, celebrated poet Nathan McClain reads from his new book Previously Owned (Four Way Books, 2022).

Poet: Nathan McClain

Location: The Emily Dickinson Museum

Saturday, September 24, 2022
1pm: After Dickinson and Disability: A Panel from Poetry Wales
Some readings of Dickinson’s poetics focus negatively on her potential writings about disability (from agoraphobia to Bright’s Disease), but this panel follows Dickinson critic Michael Davidson who takes a more radical Disability Studies stance, asking what gifts might be found in experiences of disability. This panel, organized by Poetry Wales editor Zoe Brigley, foregrounds work around disability and the experience of pain or chronic illness, featuring international poets who recently appeared in Poetry Wales’ special issue including Cy. Jillian Weise, Claudine Toutoungi, Hannah Hodgson, and Samuel Tongue.

Poet: Zoë Brigley, Jillian Weise, Hannah Hodgson, Claudine Toutoungi, Samuel Tongue

Location: Online

1pm: The Oxford Handbook of Emily Dickinson: Book Launch
The Oxford Handbook of Emily Dickinson (Oxford University Press, 2022)  is designed to engage, inform, interest, and delight students and scholars of Emily Dickinson, US literature, and the lyric poem. This is the first collection on Dickinson to foreground the material and social culture of her era while opening new windows to interpretive possibility in ours, balancing Dickinson’s own material culture and historical context with the critical conversations in our present –  as she wrote, “Forever is composed of Nows.”

Scholars, poets, and artists who contributed to the Handbook join editors Dr. Cristanne Miller and Dr. Karen Sánchez-Eppler in conversation and celebration. Join this esteemed gathering to consider debates about Dickinson’s manuscripts and practices of composition, the viability of translation across language and media, and about the politics of class, gender, place, and race. Refreshments will be served.

Poet: Karen Sánchez-Eppler, Cristanne Miller, Lisa Brooks, Claire Nashar, Jane H. Wald, Nan Wolverton, Mary Loeffelholz, Maurice Lee, Jennifer Leader, Renée Bergland, Kathryn R. Kent, Lesley Dill

Location: The Emily Dickinson Museum

7pm: Late Night Garden Party with Tyehimba Jess
Join us in Emily Dickinson’s garden or virtually to hear the powerful words of our headlining poets who read from their work and discuss their poetic practice and inspiration. Stay for in-person music, refreshments, and a book signing to follow.

Poet: Tyehimba Jess

Hybrid Program

Sunday, September 25, 2022
11am: Does Translation ‘Tell It Slant’? Translators on Process
Does the translation of a poem “tell it slant”? Do translators aim to tell the truth, but not the whole truth? What truths are uncovered when poems are given a new language? Do translators who are fluent in the language “uncover,” while those who may be just learning “discover”? In this session, panelists speak about their process of translating poetry and their relationship with truth-making, as well as read from their recently published translations. This program is brought to you by Festival partner, Massachusetts Center for the Book.

Poet: Danielle Legros Georges, Ilan Stavans, Dr. Regina Galasso

Location: The Emily Dickinson Museum

11am: The Dickinsonian [Death-Conscious] Exclamation Point! A Workshop
Elmore Leonard famously suggested that writers use 1-2 exclamation points per 100,000 words of writing. Theodor Adorno called the exclamation point “intolerable.” Emily Dickinson used around 384 exclamation points in her collected work, and her wielding of this controversial mark has provided an exemplary model of how poets might add a note of ecstasy and death-consciousness into their writing. In this workshop, we will begin by discussing three primary modes in which exclamation points appear in contemporary poetry and then segue into a series of light-hearted and serious writing exercises centered around this piece of punctuation.

Poet: Moriel Rothman-Zecher

Location: Online

Date: September 19 - 25, 2022

Location: Emily Dickinson Museum - 280 Main Street Amherst, MA 01002

Admission: Free

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