Tuesday 18 December 2012

A Survey of Emily Dickinson’s Family Artifacts from Ikea

Teapot. From Dickinson’s mother’s collection, probably purchased in preparation for marriage. "I like tea / and death / and being single, yo," as she famously put it in a letter to Judge Otis P. Lord.
The writing stand that Emily Dickinson used as a desk in her bedroom. No wonder her poems were so modern.

The Dickinson family sugar bowl and cream dish, ostensibly raided by Emily every time she made her famous "'all the single ladies' party cake."

Bowfront chest of drawers, kept in Emily Dickinson’s bedchamber. After Emily’s death, her sister Lavinia discovered hundreds of empty cigarette packages in the bottom drawer.



Egg timer, likely given to Dickinson as a thoughtful gift, and used to inspire many poems about the passage of time and the thudding inevitability of "eggs for breakfast--AGAIN." “And this brief Drama in the flesh — / Is shifted — like, omg, more eggs for breakfast –” etc.