De-Collins-izing Emily Dickinson

The shady ladies tackle a  misogynistic poem about Emily Dickinson, then consult her tarot  for responses. It's Tea, Shade, & Amherst Lemonade, so lace up your gloves and let's get into it!

The offending poem can be read here. For CA Conrad’s takedown of this poem (and some comments by Metres), see this blog post of Phil Metres’s here.

If you haven't read TERFy Adrienne Rich's essay on Dickinson, "Vesuvius at Home," it's worth your time here. 

You can purchase the Divining Poets: Dickinson tarot deck here.

 For more about the EBay auction of Dickinson's hair and the troublesome history of its possession, read this fascinating and disturbing article in LitHub.

The hair is still on eBay, and going for 450,000 as of this writing.

Amherst College holds the original of the only currently authenticated photograph of Emily Dickinson. The daguerreotype was included in Millicent Todd Bingham's gift of Dickinson material to Amherst College in 1956. Bingham acquired it from Wallace Keep (AC 1894) whose brother, Austin Baxter Keep (AC 1897), received the photograph directly from Lavinia Dickinson sometime in the 1890s. Read more here.

In an "Fresh Air" interview with Terry Gross, Collins details what "inspired" him to write the poem:
"I mean, I actually at one point, when there were so many books out about speculating particularly on Emily Dickinson's sexuality, you know, was she lesbian, was she celibate, did she have an affair, I was driven actually by all of that curiosity and speculation to write a poem called "Taking Off Emily Dickinson's Clothes," in which I attempted, in a kind of playful way, to put the matter at rest by having sex with her.