2016

This 19th century New England steeple clock seemed an appropriate repository for one of Emily Dickinson’s untitled poems about time. Originally written on the back of an envelope, it celebrates nature’s clock with the song of the cricket announcing the summer and its cessation heralding its end.’T was sooner when the cricket went Than when the winter came, Yet that pathetic pendulum Keeps esoteric time. A symbol of good fortune, crickets were often kept in cages so that their song could be enjoyed, a fate Dickinson might have considered related to the subjugation of women in her time. The image behind the cricket on the clock’s pendulum is a map of Amherst in the early  1800’s showing Dickinson’s home. The only currently authenticated photograph of  Dickinson is from the Amherst College Archives & Special Collections. This is a unique book, 20” x 11” x 4.5” of wood, glass and metal with prints on transparent film.