Emily Dickinson’s Garden: The Poetry of Flowers

FAIN: GI-50130-09

New York Botanical Garden (Bronx, NY 10458-5126)
Susan Fraser (Project Director: February 2009 to November 2011)

Implementation of outdoor and indoor exhibitions, and public and educational programs, exploring the importance of plants as a source of inspiration for noted American poet Emily Dickinson.

The New York Botanical Garden requests an implementation grant in the amount of $400,000 to help underwrite the costs associated with Emily Dickinsons Flowers, a Garden-wide multi-element exhibit that will demonstrate the importance of plants as a source of inspiration for poets and writers, in general, and to Dickinson, in particular. The exhibit, sited throughout the Garden's 250-acre historic landscape including the LuEsther T. Mertz Library, the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, the Everett Childrens Adventure Garden, and the permanent collection, will examine both the relationship between art and nature and Dickinson as a gardener, a poet, an amateur botanist, and a lover of flowers. Using dynamic and interpretative displays, signage, and educational and public programming activities, Emily Dickinsons Flowers will illustrate the natural marriage between plants and the written word, and make Dickinson's poetry broadly accessible to general audiences.