Born on this day in Amherst, Massachusetts, poet Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) wrote with passion and beauty, capturing the essence of the heart.
A hermit, she rarely ventured out of her home and beloved garden, which inspired much of her writings. No one knows why. "I never had to go anywhere to find my paradise," she observed.
Year after year she wrote, on scraps of paper and backs of envelopes, 1,775 "little poems," she described, "tied together with twine in sixty little bundles." In one year, she wrote 364 poems. She wrote for her own pleasure, not to be published.
"Publication is the auction of the mind," she wrote in a letter. Only seven poems were published in her lifetime, anonymously.
"That love is all there is is all we know of love," she shared.
Original...using vibrant language to explore the heart and human condition, celebrating nature in beautiful verse. Catching miracles in the simplicity of daily life. Waiting, watchfully, with hope: "Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door."
More Emily DICKINSON Quotations
Open every door with hope.