Since we travelled to Amherst yesterday, I thought we’d tarry a while. These two books have delighted our whole family for many, many years. (When Julia was young, she loved poetry so much (especially Francis, Dickinson, and Frost, that Amherstian triad) that we’d recite poems in the car together to while away the time. I have videotape of her reciting, almost flawlessly, Emily Dickinson’s poem “Hope is the Thing with Feathers” when she was two and a half while she danced around the living room. (It is a good thing that the video has a date stamp or I would think I made that up.) The book above is a fabulous introduction for even the very young, as it is sturdy and is full of color illustrations. For those who are beginning to read (and draw) on their own, the little gem below offers a wainscot-eye view from Emmaline the Mouse. The young child can imagine what it might have been like to share quarters with Emily Dickinson herself, and what it could be like to become, in a small way, as Emmaline does, a poet oneself.

Regarding the Poem for April 11, 2021: “Seattle Weather in Northfield, Minnesota”:

Today’s silly poem is a new version of my annual preoccupation with the April weather, an emphatic but impotent fist-shaking at lowering grey skies and a celebration of the variability of our local weather here.

Until tomorrow,

LESLIE