Milwaukie Poetry Series
Poet Discussion
Emily Dickinson with Ellen Louise Hart
Ledding Library of Milwaukie
10660 SE 21st ST. Milwaukie 97222
Saturday, Oct. 14, 1-3 PM

On Saturday, October 14 at 1 PM, the Milwaukie Poetry Series will host a presentation
and discussion of Emily Dickinson by Ellen Hart.

This marks the return of poet discussions that the Milwaukie Poetry Series had presented
prior to the Covid Pandemic. This will take place at 1-3 PM in the Community Room at the Ledding
Library at 10660 SE. 21st Avenue in Mlwaukie.

The program will consist of a presentation by Dr. Hart followed by a discussion led by her.
She arrived at Emily Dickinson’s poetry at age 14 and will talk about how that reading progressed.
She’ll read several of her favorite Dickinson poems, talk a little bit about them; and then say something
about Dickinson’s letters, how wonderful they are to read also. She’ll end with comments on
“the healing power of poetry,” explaining what that has come to mean to her over the years,
and what it continues to mean as she ages. A discussion will follow.

Ellen Louise Hart was born in Maine and grew up in Vermont. Her parents were both teachers
and committed poetry readers, and she followed in their path. She graduated from Mount Holyoke
College in 1976, a college where Emily Dickinson had studied. Following graduation she spent a year
in Germany studying a nineteenth century German poet, Annette von Droste Hulshoff, who has
been compared to Dickinson. In 1978 she moved west to the San Francisco Bay Area, and
began tutoring, then teaching academic writing at several community colleges, She taught
academic writing and literature courses at the University of California, Santa Cruz for 22 years.

In 1982 she completed a Master’s Degree at Mills College, in Oakland, with a thesis on
Dickinson’s poetry; and in 1996 completed a PhD. at the University of California at Santa Cruz
with a dissertation on Dickinson’s poems and letters. “Open Me Carefully: Emily Dickinson’s Intimate
Letters to Susan Huntington Gilbert Dickinson,” co-edited with Martha Nell Smith, was published in
1998. She taught for several years at Portland State University and for ten years in the Portland
Community College system, and is now retired from teaching.

The event will be in-person and on Zoom. No registration is required for the in-person event;
just come along to the Ledding Library. Contact Tom Hogan at tomhogan2@comcast.net for the
Zoom link. The event will be recorded and available for viewing on demand on the
Ledding Library YouTube Channel.

Please call Tom Hogan at 503-819-8367 or email at tomhogan2@comcast.net
with any questions about this or about the Series. We hope you can join us.