​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​📖 National Great Poetry Reading Day — April 28

Dear neighbors,

Today is National Great Poetry Reading Day — falling perfectly at the close of National Poetry Month. There’s no better way to close National Poetry month than with Emily Dickinson.

She wrote nearly 1,800 poems in her lifetime — and published almost none of them. She wrote in secret, tucked her work into drawers with strings, and expressed deep skepticism about publishing — believing it would compromise the integrity of her work. She left it to the world to find after she was gone. She rarely left her home in Amherst, Massachusetts, yet her mind traveled everywhere — death, immortality, nature, love, faith, doubt. She dressed only in white in her later years. She was called reclusive, eccentric, difficult to understand. She was also a genius — one of the most original voices in the American literary canon. We’re still finding her.

As a college student completing an independent study for my senior seminar in Dickinson’s body of work, I fell deep into her figurative world. She personifies everything: death rides a carriage, hope is a bird, poetry itself becomes a fellow hemming up the bay, while watching the poem emerge. Her vision is so alive, so precise. You feel it before you understand it. That’s the gift she left behind.

— Emily Dickinson (c. 1861)

“Hope” is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul,

And sings the tune without the words,

And never stops at all.

That’s the whole point.

Do you have a favorite poem? Hit reply and tell us — we’d love to know what stays with you.

———

This week’s riddle:

I have feet but I never walk. I have a voice but I never talk — unless you read me. What am I?

———

📚 Speaking of words — Calico Books just opened in Occoquan. A full post is coming soon.

———

Coming up in the Gazette:

🍦 The Best Ice Cream in Prince William County

📅 Your May Events Guide

🐴 Criswood Farm — a beloved Prince William County equestrian center makes way for Hoadly Square. Story coming soon.

📸 Follow us on Instagram: @WoodbridgeGazette

Every Monday. Free. Just for neighbors.

The Woodbridge Gazette | woodbridgegazette.com | Every Monday​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

📸 Follow us on Instagram: @WoodbridgeGazette