Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost are world renown poets both of whom lived and wrote poetry in Amherst. This silhouette sculpture by Michael J. Versi depicts Emily and Robert engaged in a poetic dialog. Nearby are open books. On the left page of each is a poem for which each is well known. On the right page of the book is a biography of the poets describing their relationship to Amherst.
Two silhouette figures, representing Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost, are seated on rocks separated by a short distance engaged in dialog. At the right of each figure are the open books. The sculpture was commissioned by the Amherst Public Arts Commission in 1995 and dedicated on 4 May 1996.
Emily Dickinson's book:
I held a jewel in my fingers-
And went to sleep-
The day was warm, and the winds were prosy-
I said "'Twill keep"-
I woke - and child my honest fingers,
The Gem was gone-
And now, an Amethyst remembrance
Is all I own-
c. 1861
and
Emily Dickinson
Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) was born in Amherst and lived an out-
wardly uneventful life in a community where her family had been
prominent citizens for several generations. her grandfather, a lawyer,
was one of the founders of Amherst Academy and Amherst College,
and her father and brother, also lawyers, were prominent in regional
and civic affairs.
Emily attended Amherst Academy on Amity Street and, at sixteen,
she entered Mount Holyoke College Female Seminary for one year. Her
home for most of her life was the Homestead, situated a very short
distance east on Main Street. Despite becoming increasingly reclu-
sive after the age of thirty-five, the wider world came into her home
in Amherst. Many of the distinguished visitors who came to Amherst
were entertained at the Homestead, and the literary journals to
which the Dickinson's (sic) subscribed along with her own extensive cor-
respondance kept her well informed.
Emily Dickinson began writing poetry as a young woman, rea-
ching her greatest peak in her early thirties, and eventually, completed
alomst 1800 poems. Her verse is noted for her concise style, wit, var-
ied meter, irregular rhymes and often startling imagery. Quietly and
privately, at home Emily Dickinson introduced audacious tones and
speech for lyric poetry to come into America in the 20th Century.
The first book of her poetry was published in 1890, through the
persistence of her sister Lavinia and the long editorial labor of
Thomas Wentworth Higginson and Mabel Loomis Todd. Many of
Emily's poems are now among the most admired and loved in world
literature. Sitting here in Amherst, close to home, she carries on
a quiet, private poetic dialog with her fellow poet and the world.
Robert Frost's book:
The Road Not Taken
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
and
Robert Frost
One of the best loved poets of the 20th Century, Robert Frost
(1874 - 1963) has a long relationship with Amherst. Frost first
moved to Amherst in January 1917, at 43, to teach at Amherst
College as a professor of English. In 1918-16, he lived in a second
floor apartment at 109 Main Street - on the lot now occupied by
the Amherst Police Station. It was here that he wrote the poem
"Fire and Ice". In 1932, Frost bought a house on 43 Sunset Avenue,
where he and his wife, Elinor, maintained a residence until her
death in 1938. In 1949, he was appointed Simpson Lecturer for
Amherst College, and thereafter visited Amherst for several weeks
nearly every year until his death in 1963.
While Frost never met Dickinson, he encountered and respond-
ed to her life and work. Admiring her work in his youth, in later
years he was somewhat critical of her technique of near rhyme.
But recognized that her poetry, like his, dealt with the simplest
and deepest aspects of human life.
Robert Frost belongs now to the world, but in Amherst he has a
permanent, living place. He sits here with Emily, among us, testi-
fying that life is lovely, dark and deep, and depends on the promis-
es we have to keep. We should be out for stars. He remind us that
"Only where love and need are one, And the work is play for mor-
tal stakes, Is the deed ever really done, For heaven and future's
sakes." We are responsible for the roads we take.
And what does Emily reply?