Category: Washington DC

DC Bound

2/10/2019

From our Board Chairman Dorothy Dawe:

Emily Dickinson had a long-standing interest in politics, so after her father Edward was elected to the House of Representatives in 1853, she visited him in Washington, DC, in 1855. While there, she rode a boat down the Potomac to visit Mount Vernon, and of course, she visited the Capitol to see where her father worked.

We are excited to announce that Dickinson will once again visit Washington this April as part of National Poetry Month.

In early April, Board Members of the Emmett Lee Dickinson Museum will join Chicago poet Mary Steinberg to celebrate poetry with members of Congress. We will present selected members with poems by Emmett Lee Dickinson and complimentary copies of When They Go Low, We Go Haiku.

As National Poetry Month nears, we’ll provide more information about our historic trip – bringing Dickinson back to Washington.

By Emily Dickinson:

That Love is all there is,
Is all we know of Love;
It is enough, the freight should be
Proportioned to the groove.

By Emmett Lee Dickinson:

That Hate is all they have,
And all they have is Hate;
It's not okay, that hate should be
Just how they make us great.

For more information on When They Go Low, We Go Haiku, click HERE.

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The F-Word, Part 4

12/28/2018

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From Jim Asher, the world's leading authority on Emmett Lee Dickinson (Emily Dickinson's third cousin, twice removed -- at her request):

This is the fourth and final post on the December 10 Birthday Tribute to Emily Dickson at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington DC.

Part 1 -- about Jan Bervin's presentation based on Jay Layde's work -- is HERE.

Part 2 -- about Martha Nell Smith's presentation about correspondence between Emily Dickinson and her sister-in-law -- is HERE.

Part 3 -- about Martha Nell Smith's use of the F-word (no no, no -- not THAT F-word) -- is HERE.

Part 4 -- In this part I will share thoughts and pictures about my day in Washington DC on the following day, Tuesday, December 11.

THE PHILLIPS COLLECTION

I have visited Washington, DC, many times in the past, but I'd never been to the Phillips Collection, so I started my day there. The museum -- which touts itself as the first museum of modern art -- includes two paintings by Edward Hopper.

Edward Hopper was greatly influenced by the life and poetry of Emmett Lee Dickinson (Emily Dickinson's third cousin, twice removed -- at her request). Info about the Hopper-Dickinson connection can be found on this site HERE and on various plog (poetry blog) posts, HERE (scroll through the various posts).

The Phillips Collection also had a few paintings by Georgia O'Keeffe -- another artist heavily influenced by Emmett Lee Dickinson.

For information, check the posts HERE, and scroll through other posts HERE.

Pictured at the right: The Phillips Collection includes a painting by Paul Cezanne of a seated woman in blue holding the first volume of poems by Emmett Lee Dickinson (as shown below).

Below: Other shots from the Phillips Collection:

Click to enlarge the image at the left to read about Jacob Lawrence's migration series; some of the paintings in the series are shown below:

THE NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY

Next I visited the National Portrait Gallery (which is in the same building as the Smithsonian American Art Museum). My main reason for going to the NPG was to see the official portraits of the Obamas -- both of whom are great fans of Emmett Lee Dickinson.

Several years ago I sent the Obamas copies of my books Great American Poems REPOEMED.

I later received the nice postcard shown at the right (click the image to enlarge).

Pictured at the left: The museum had a special exhibit highlighting its daguerreotype collection. Two of the portraits were related to Emmett Lee Dickinson: one was of his sister Pythagoria; another was of his close friend Henry David Thoreau.

Pictured at the right: The museum includes a drawing called "The Death Bed of the Martyr President Abraham Lincoln," and it includes a likeness of Emmett Lee Dickinson (shown near the back left).

Dickinson and Lincoln were best friends (information is HERE), and Dickinson was devastated when Lincoln was assassinated.

More on the connection between Dickinson and Lincoln is included in the posts HERE.

Other connections to Emmett Lee Dickinson: Below left: A work by Andy Warhol -- who was greatly influenced by Dickinson (information HERE). Below right: The world of art's fascination with cows and cattle (information HERE).

Below left: Artworks that take a new look at American history. Below right: Folk art by Bill Traylor.

Below: Shots from around the museum.

Below: An upper floor in the museum includes a number of paintings of Emmett Lee Dickinson's family members:

Pictured at the right: One last connection to Emmett Lee Dickinson: an artwork depicting a hotdog. Hotdogs were invented by none other than Emmett Lee Dickinson.

Many people asked Dickinson for the ingredients in a hotdog, but he never told anyone.

"What is a hotdog made of?" he would say. "All I can tell you is that a ballpark frank is pure poetry."

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Make America Golf Again

3/26/2017

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From our political correspondent Dorothy "Lottie" Dawe:

In a recent event that has not made the headlines for some reason, President Trump signed an Executive Order to turn Washington DC’s National Mall into a private golf club for GOP donors. It seems that Trump, the very man who hounded his predecessor for playing “too much golf,” now admits that he’s addicted to the game. Since January 20th, he’s spent 286 more hours on the golf course than he has on the job.

“Look,” he said after his humiliating health care defeat, “I work very hard. I devoted hours, many hours, many hard-working hours to repealing and replacing Obamacare, so now I need time for a different type of R and R – and golfing for me is different than Obama’s golfing. The golf course is where I think my thoughts, and I have a lot of them, I have a lot of thoughts, a lot of really terrific thoughts – so many thoughts that you’d wonder how I have so many thoughts, but I have ‘em – and then you’d know that I really need the time to golf so that I can think all of those thoughts.”

He had his staff applaud him after he made that statement.

Below: The initial plans for Trump's National Golf Club, to be open only to big-time GOP donors.

Initial plans for the Mall course have been nixed because Trump wants to change the location of the 18th hole.

“That really should be on the White House lawn,” he said. “And we’re changing the name of the White House too,” he added. “Now it will be called the ‘White Club House,’ and the Oval Office will be the 19th hole.”

Again, he signaled his staff to applaud.

Below: A past Trump tweet about Obama's golf trips. Trump now says that his golfing is different from Obama's golfing.

Of course, the amount of tax dollars going to Trump’s golf outings (and his off-springs’ skiing vacations and overseas “business” trips) is staggering, and it reminded me of Emmett Lee Dickinson’s now-classic poem “Our World’s made penniless by his departure” (below on the left). Dickinson’s poem inspired his third cousin Emily to pen her poem “A World made penniless by that departure” (below on the right).

By Emmett Lee Dickinson:

Our World’s made penniless by his departure
To sites where palm trees sway
His sustenance is of the spirit
To Golf all Day –

By Emily Dickinson:

A World made penniless by that departure
Of minor fabrics begs
But sustenance is of the spirit
The Gods but Dregs –

Below: An early report of Trump's golf outings. The numbers for Trump are higher now.

Right: Past tweets reveal that hypocrisy is par for the course for Trump (click to enlarge).

Below: Oops! The press pool was told that Trump was "hard at work" -- but someone's Instagram photo said otherwise!

Below left: Hee hee! Fox news reported that Trump was "spending weekend working at the White House." He wasn't. He was golfing. Below right: On the campaign trail, Trump said he just wanted to stay in the White House and "work my ass off." Fortunately, when he said that, he was wearing Trump-brand fire-retardant pants.

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DC Bound

The F-Word, Part 4

Make America Golf Again

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