#jones library

I first learned of George Monteiro this past March from his daughter. Monteiro was a professor emeritus of English and of Portuguese and Brazilian Studies at Brown University, the author or editor of many books, and one of the founders of the Emily Dickinson Museum in Amherst. I wrote about him HERE and HERE.

On my recent trip out to LA, I had a chance to read a portion of Monteiro’s 1998 book “Robert Frost and the New England Renaissance” on my flight out west – specifically the two chapters on Dickinson’s influence on Frost.

​The second chapter of the book, “Dangling Conversation,” derives its title from a song by Simon and Garfunkel called “The Dangling Conversation”; here are some of the lyrics:

And we sit and drink our coffee Couched in our indifference, like shells upon the shore You can hear the ocean roar In the dangling conversation And the superficial sighs The borders of our lives And you read your Emily Dickinson And I my Robert Frost And we note our place with book markers That measure what we've lost Like a poem poorly written We are verses out of rhythm Couplets out of rhyme In syncopated time

You can listen to the song HERE.

​The chapter opens with this quote from Frank Prentice Rand’s 1969 book “The Jones Library in Amherst, 1919 - 1969”:

“The two Dickinson rooms on the third floor of the Library are a minor Mecca for both researchers and pilgrims. The Library’s crown of glory, however, are the Robert Frost rooms.

Monteiro’s text then begins with this:

“The Frost rooms in the Jones Library are high-ceilinged, fenestrated on three sides, spacious, and simple. The library’s Dickinson rooms are spare, small, low-ceilinged, and spottily fenestrated. That Frost inherited the better quarters can be attributed largely, of course, to his having been a living presence when the decisions to create and to find quarters for a Frost Collection were made. By the time arrangements were made for the Emily Dickinson Collection, the poet’s fortunes were in the hands of a proud niece, Martha Dickinson Bianchi, and a few well-meaning but disorganized strangers, who were no match for the living poet managing his own public relations.”

The first thing that jumped out at me was that word “fenestrated,” not a term you hear often. “Fenestrated” is just a fancy way to say “furnished with windows.” The OED shows the word’s etymology as “a borrowing from Latin. Etymon: “feerstrātus.” The word is also related to the German word for window, “fenster” (LOL – can you tell I took German in high school).

I looked up “fenestrate” and “fenestrated” on the online Dickinson lexicon, and the words were not there. She never used either in any of her poems; however, she did use “window.” I searched “window” on the Dickson archive, and found 64 entries representing 21 different poems; I added an “s” for “windows” and 35 more entries popped up representing 11 other poems. I realized that I had to search for “windows” separately when the poem “I heard a Fly buzz – when I died” was not among those listed for the word “window” – though the poem ends (rather famously) with these lines (I added the caps):

“With Blue - uncertain - stumbling Buzz / Between the light - and me / And then the WINDOWS failed - and then / I could not see to see”

Below: Dickinson's poems with "window" and with "windows":

I was surprised to find that “fenestrate” and “fenestrated” were not old as I would have thought – in the sense that the OED lists the earliest known use of both (in published texts) from the early 1800s. Additionally, I found this example of usage, from J. Weale’s “Rudimentary Dictionary of Terms of Architecture” (1849) to be chucklesome:

“Astylar and fenestrated ought..to be merely convertible terms; but as they are not.”

I’ve always thought the same; you? Why, I can remember years ago when I first met my wife and took her on a romantic dinner date, and there in the candlelight I whispered, “Astylar and fenestrated ought to be convertible terms, but they’re not.” ​ Okay, I’m being silly! Time to move on – and I’ll have more from Monteiro’s book tomorrow. For now, I’ll leave you with one of Dickinson’s well-known “windows” poems -- along with alternate word choices she considered:

What do you make of all this?

In the past few months, I’ve come across some confusing statements on different websites. In each case, I emailed the organization to ask for clarification. Below is background on each of the instances followed by how each organization responded – and that’s where my opening question comes into play, “what do you make of all this?” (particularly as related to the fourth instance).

INSTANCE 1: Yesterday, I came upon on a site operated by the Jones Library in Amherst, Massachusetts, where I read information about the history of the Amherst Cattle Show, an event that began in 1864.  However, Emily Dickinson’s loaf of Indian and Rye won second prize in the show in 1856. I emailed the library to ask for a clarification of the dates.

RESULTS: I emailed the library at 2:15 p.m.  I received a response on the same day at 4:34 p.m.:

“Thank you for your inquiry. The Hampshire Agricultural Society (separate from the three-county agricultural society) was founded in 1850 and took place in Amherst. I believe it ran until 1916. This is the fair that Emily and her family would have attended in 1856 when she placed for her bread. Her father was president and secretary for the Society. The wording on Digital Amherst is a bit confusing so we will go ahead and add a footnote explaining. Thank you for bringing this to our attention. Please let me know if I can be of further assistance.”

INSTANCE 2:  Yesterday, I emailed this to the Emily Dickinson Museum: “In the scope of things going on in the world, this is certainly a very minor issue, but I have a question concerning your page on the museum's site on ‘Emily Dickinson and Cooking.’"  I told them that the opening sentence of the first paragraph began with a double quotation mark, but there was no closing quotation mark. 

RESULTS:  I emailed the museum at 1:53 p.m. Five minutes later, at 1:58 p.m., I received this response:  “Thanks for pointing this out. The page has been updated.”

INSTANCE 3:  I noticed that the online Dickinson archive included an incorrect word in Dickinson’s poem “A train went through a burial gate.”  In line 6 of the poem, the archive showed “And bowed arid sang again.”  The word “arid” should be “and.”

RESULTS:  On September 4, I emailed Harvard Libraries at 9:45 a.m.  At 2:59 p.m. on that day, I received this response, “Forwarding this inquiry to Leslie M, outside of LibAnswers. Leslie, can you assist with this?”

At 4:21 p.m. on that same day I received this:  “Thanks for taking the time to report the error. You’re right, it’s definitely an OCR error. It will eventually get corrected, in the next round of updates.”

INSTANCE 4:  In late August, I came across an essay on poetic theory on the Poetry Foundation’s site called “The Poem as a Field of Action.”

The page states, “By William Carlos Williams,” and “Originally Published: October 13, 2009” -- and so I emailed to ask how this could be since WCW died in 1963.  

RESULTS:  I emailed one person at the Poetry Foundation on August 25th.  No response at all.

I emailed again on September 4th – and this time I added three other email addresses.  No response – except from one of the email addresses, I got this automatic reply, “Please forgive my delayed response in advance. I'm currently out of the office and will not be checking my email until September 9, 2025. I will reply to you as quickly as I can when I return.”

On September 18th, I emailed a third time asking for a response.  Nothing in return.

On Saturday, September 27th, I was in Chicago.  I visited the Poetry Foundation.  I spoke with a receptionist named Kat.  I told her about this.  She agreed that the page included confusing information, and she supposedly emailed someone name Meg to see if that person would get back to me.

I asked her what would be a realistic expectation for me as to when I could expect a response.  She said one week.  A security guard at the desk who heard our conversation spoke up and said “two weeks.”

Digital Amherst is a project of the Jones Library, the public library of Amherst, Massachusetts. This is a pilot project to develop a small but rich online collection of the historic and cultural stories about the town of Amherst and its influence in the Connecticut Valley and beyond. This project was initiated in celebration of Amherst's 250th anniversary in 2009.

Grandmaster Jane Yolen will be appearing at Massachusetts Book Awards Holiday Dozen - Valley Edition.

Photo: Jason Stemple

Representatives Mindy Domb, Natalie Blais, and, Lindsay Sabadosa, working with Massachusetts Center for the Book, Jones Library, and Amherst Books, invite you to kick off this holiday season in literary style. Join twelve Valley writers, all recently honored by the Massachusetts Book Awards, for an afternoon book party at the Jones Library in Amherst on December 7, from 2 to 4 pm.

The event begins with lightning talks by each writer, followed by an opportunity to mix and mingle, buy books from local bookseller Amherst Books, and have them signed by the authors.

Participating authors:  Heather Abel, Lisa Brooks, George Howe Colt, Anne Fadiman, Noy Holland, Natasha Lowe, Richard Michelson, Sabina Murray, Ilan Stavans, Ellen Doré Watson, Dara Weir, and Jane Yolen.  

Massachusetts Book Awards Holiday Dozen - Valley Edition Saturday, December 7 2-4 PM Jones Library Amherst, MA