Emily Dickinson – Daguerreotype of Emily Dickinson taken at Mount Holyoke, December 1846 or early 1847, Amherst College Archives & Special Collections – Public Domain
When Martha Nell Smith was a child, she was given a book called The Golden Treasury of Poetry. “I was a nerdy kid, I liked to read,” the 72-year-old academic says, adding, “I also liked to play. I was a very sporty kid too. I was a tomboy.”
The book contained several poems by Emily Dickinson. “I thought these look so simple, but when you think about it, they are really weird,” she says. “But you could say that about almost any Dickinson poem.”
Smith recounts the long and winding path that led her to become one of the foremost experts on Emily Dickinson, with a particular focus on the poet’s secretly romance-laden letters to her sister-in-law, Susan Dickinson.
“The experience of figuring out Dickinson’s love for her sister-in-law, Susan, was an adventure,” says Smith, flashing a captivating smile. “I always knew, in what I call the still small voice inside myself — my gut — that they were the love of one another’s lives, or loves. And that people had tried to hide it.”
Smith chronicles that journey in her 1998 book Open Me Carefully: Emily Dickinson’s Intimate Letters to Susan Dickinson. On Tuesday, December 9, she will join fellow scholar Aia Yousef and contemporary romance author Nikki Payne to discuss Dickinson’s life, work, and legacy at the Folger Shakespeare Library’s annual Emily Dickinson Birthday Tribute.
Smith, who teaches at the University of Maryland and is a member of the LGBTQ community, wonders whether her early dive into Dickinson’s secret love life stirred her own inclinations.
“It may have,” she says. “It may have. In a former life, I was married to a male person. Now, I was a very young person when this happened, and so was he. We’re still good friends, but I realized my senior year of college, ‘Oh, I really like kissing girls. It’s different for me.’ But it was hard to realize that. As soon as I’d realized that, I’d go, ‘No, you can’t think that.’ For one thing, I was still married. But he had his own attractions to men. I don’t think they’re cause and effect. I think they’re more recognition.”
Poetry is often seen as a higher literary art form, one many people shy away from, considering it impenetrable.
“I think people are trained to say that from a very young age,” says Smith. “I really do. I think they’re taught.” But she notes that poetry is already part of our daily lives. “We call them lyrics. Some of my colleagues who shall not be named get furious with me for talking about lyrics as poems, but they are. I think Bruce Springsteen writes poems, Lucinda Williams writes poems. Nancy Griffith certainly did. Lyrics are poems. They’re definitely poems.”
I ask whether Dickinson would approve of academics mining her personal letters to uncover her proclivities, and Smith just laughs. “I think she would ask why we care, and why we would seek her approval? But I think that she would love the curiosity. She was, after all, a very curious person herself.”
The Folger’s annual Emily Dickinson Birthday Tribute, which will also honor Jane Austen on her 250th birthday, takes place Tuesday, Dec. 9, from 7:30 to 8:30 p.m. The event is sold out, but virtual access remains available on a pay-what-you-will basis with a $10 minimum. Visit folger.edu.
December 8 will be a big day for Cheyenne Jackson. That's when he'll take to the fabled stage at Carnegie Hall -- with his mother.
"This is a little scoop," he confides during a recent Zoom call. "My mom and my sister are going to join me on stage, and we're going to sing a trio. We haven't sung together in years. My mom, who's a retired widow living in Southern California, is going to get a gown on, get her hair done. It's going to be a family affair, and I'm so honored they're doing it. It's going to be so emotional."
The show, which Jackson says will feature "an incredible set list -- it's daunting, it's challenging," is deeply personal, reflecting "a lot of themes that come from my life."
As the year nears its end, the Capital Pride Alliance today announced that it will be retooling ahead of 2026.
CPA, which brings numerous LGBTQ Pride events to Washington and the region – most notably the annual Capital Pride Festival and Parade, along with World Pride 2025 – is moving from a president/vice-president leadership model to an executive committee of board chair, treasurer, and secretary leading the board of directors.
CPA also announced the incoming officers who will step into their roles in December. Notably, the new executive committee is the first in the organization’s history composed entirely of women.
For all you George Michael lovers who have been waiting for that day that The Life and Music of George Michael -- "a tribute, a party, an epic show" -- would return to town, have faith. Your knight in shining Ray-Bans is back on a North American tour, and dancing into D.C. for one night only at the National Theatre.
"We were there last year, and wow! Amazing audience," recalls Craig Winberry, who performs as the late, Grammy-winning gay icon in the concert-style show written and directed by Dean Elliott.
A singer-songwriter himself, in addition to performing theater roles Off-Broadway and on tour, Winberry has racked up nearly 100 dates and counting, bringing the music and legacy of Michael's 115 million albums-sold career to fans eager to relive that "Freedom '90" magic.
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