The BELLE of AMHERST- Emily Dickinson Kindly Stops for Us

Universally recognized as one of America's most important poets, Emily Dickinson lived a very sequestered & banal life.  Very little is known of Dickinson's personal life but her legacy of poetry attest to her intense feelings regarding her family, nature, religion & mortality.  The BELLE of AMHERST is a 1 woman play featuring Joely Richardson (in a shakey portrayal) of Emily Dickinson (ED.)  Emily enters the set of her home in MA in 1883 at the age of 53.  Emily immediately speaks to the audience as if on intimate terms.  For the next 2 hours, ED shares her cake recipe, desires & intimacies with a thread of her poems woven into her soliloquies.  The play is most rewarding during the  recitation of some of her most beloved poems.  Richardson falters often but redeems herself nobly when giving life to ED's poems & her strong desire to have them published.   ED produced more than 1,800 poems in her 56 years but fewer than a dozen were published during her lifetime.  Her her cache of poems were uncovered after her death. Higginson published her 1st collection although he spurned most of the work she had submitted to him.  Emily never married & lived nearly her entire life within her family home.  Her timid & banal existence belied her deep contemplations on life/death & connection with her surroundings.  "Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul and seizes the tune without the words and never stops at all."  For those who enjoy poetry readings & learning about the poet, this charming show will delight.  Although most will not stop for poetry, it kindly arrested me.