Emily Dickinson

Perez Dickson

Emily Dickson

Last week, the incomplete story of H.C. Denny was the topic. Though he became one of Hickory’s most prominent citizens between 1888 and his departure to Washington, D.C. in late 1895, much of his story before and after those years remains a mystery.

There was a notice in the pages of the Hickory Press and Carolinian about a visit from his mother, Eveline that leads to one of America’s most famous poets. The article reported that she was “the housekeeper for Col. Perez Dickinson at his magnificent Island Home at Knoxville, Tennessee.” The item also revealed that “she owns much property” there.

After checking into who Perez Dickinson was, a trail leads all the way to his cousin once removed, Emily Dickinson. As a young man, Perez moved south in 1830, about the time Emily was born. In making the move Col. Dickinson (one of those honorific titles) came to Knoxville as the oddest of entities in the South. He was an abolitionist. Not only that, but he also built a house with a tunnel to the Tennessee River and used it as a stop on the Underground Railroad, which harbored enslaved people as they made their way to the North and hopefully, freedom.

The house he built in Knoxville is a long gone (its a parking lot now) and during the Civil War, he was forced to leave but upon his return, he hired H.C. Denny’s mother Eveline as his housekeeper.

Some folks in town even declared that cousin Emily visited and wrote some of here almost 1800 poems while staying with Perez but that may just be a Tennessee tall tale since reportedly as an adult, Emily was a recluse at the family home in Amherst and never left the house.

Dickinson had only ten of her poems published during her lifetime. When she died at age 55, her sister Lavinia was the one responsible for getting the work published and recognized. Admittedly, it’s a bit of a rabbit trail that connects Hickory to the Victorian poet, but the linkage is there.

As an example of Dickinson’s prodigious output, here are two poems that were published after her death. The first, titled “I’m Nobody! Who are You?” is followed by “The Brain is Wider Than the Sky.” My thanks to colleague and Dickinson scholar, Robert Canipe for the selections.

I’m Nobody! Who are you?

Are you – Nobody – too?

Then there’s a pair of us!

Don’t tell! they’d advertise – you know!

How dreary – to be – Somebody!

How public – like a Frog –

To tell one’s name – the livelong June –

To an admiring Bog!

The Brain – is wider than the Sky – For – put them side by side –

The one the other will contain

With ease – and you – beside –

The Brain is deeper than the sea – For – hold them – Blue to Blue – The one the other will absorb – As sponges – Buckets – do –