Emily Dickinson’s house from outside (Michael Longley) and inside (me)

During his reading at the University of Basel in late 1995 or early 1996, Irish poet Michael Longley told the story of how he ended up not having time to visit Emily Dickinson's house during a visit to Amherst, Massachusetts. But he did drive by it at night, and a light shining in a window made him imagine Dickinson up late writing a poem. I told him during the discussion that his experience of Dickinson's house was better than mine: I actually went into it one summer a few years before that reading, but the items on view there were not Dickinson's original things, which were all at Harvard University instead. (Andrew Shields, #111words, 6 March 2023)