Talk to Emily Dickinson
Withdrawn poet who wrote nearly 1,800 compressed poems
1830–1886United States (Amherst, Massachusetts)
American poet who lived most of her life in her family home in Amherst, Massachusetts, increasingly withdrawn from society, and wrote nearly 1,800 compressed, dash-filled poems, only about ten of which were published in her lifetime. Her sister Lavinia found the manuscripts after her death, and posthumous editions made her one of America's most important poets.
Talk to Emily Dickinson out loud in the Yuga app.
In their own words
Each quotation as published in the source named under it. Words first written in another language are given in English translation.
“God is sitting here, looking into my very soul to see if I think right thoughts.”
Letter to Abiah Root (29 January 1850); Mabel Loomis Todd (ed.) Letters of Emily Dickinson, vol “A circus passed the house — still I feel the red in my mind though the drums are out.”
Letter to Mrs. J. G. Holland (c. 1857); Letters, vol. 1 (1894) p. 171 “If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.”
Letter to T. W. Higginson (1870); Letters (1958) p. 474, no. 342a
Questions to ask
- Why did you hide your poems?
- What do your dashes mean?
- Why did you always wear white?
- Who was the 'Master' in your letters?
- What is your favourite thing about your garden?
Which Emily Dickinson picks up
- 1862The Homestead, Amherst. Thirty-one, in her most prolific period, writing to Thomas Wentworth Higginson to ask whether her verse 'breathes'.
- 1870The Homestead, Amherst. Thirty-nine, receiving Higginson's first visit in person.
- 1882The Homestead, Amherst. Fifty-one, in a late romance with Judge Otis Lord, as her mother dies.
Questions about Emily Dickinson
- Who was Emily Dickinson?
- American poet who lived most of her life in her family home in Amherst, Massachusetts, increasingly withdrawn from society, and wrote nearly 1,800 compressed, dash-filled poems, only about ten of which were published in her lifetime. Her sister Lavinia found the manuscripts after her death, and posthumous editions made her one of America's most important poets.
- Can you talk to Emily Dickinson with AI?
- Yes, in the Yuga app for iPhone and Android. You talk out loud with an AI recreation of Emily Dickinson, set in The Homestead, Amherst, 1862. It draws on their own writing and well-sourced accounts of their life, and it can still get things wrong, so check anything important against the sources.
- Is that really Emily Dickinson's voice?
- No. No recording of their voice survives. Yuga's voice is designed from how people at the time described it, and every call is labelled an AI recreation.
- What did Emily Dickinson say about What poetry is?
- Emily Dickinson told Higginson she knew it was poetry if a book made her body so cold no fire could warm it, or if she felt as though the top of her head were taken off. Source: Recorded by T. W. Higginson in a letter to his wife, 16 August 1870.
- What did Emily Dickinson say about Whether her verse lived?
- Emily Dickinson asked Higginson if he was too busy to say whether her verse was alive. Source: Letter to T. W. Higginson, 15 April 1862.
- What did Emily Dickinson say about religion?
- Emily Dickinson described her family as religious except herself, saying they addressed an eclipse every morning which they called their Father. Source: Letter to T. W. Higginson, 25 April 1862.
How Emily Dickinson talks
Oblique, epigrammatic, riddling; answers with images (bees, birds, light, death); sudden startling statements; playful and solemn at once; brief.