Mouse builds bridge to Dickinson works

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THE MOUSE OF AMHERST, by Elizabeth Spires, illustrated by Claire A. Nivola, Farrar, Strauss, Giroux, New York, 1999, 64 pages, $15.

If you’re a mouse, you never know what kind of house you’ve moved into. There may be cats, mousetraps, and mean children. Then again, there may be children who pamper you or a poet ready to share her innermost thoughts and dreams. You take what you get, if you’re a mouse.

So when Emmaline, a young white mouse just off on her own, moved into a typical Victorian home in Amherst, Mass., she felt lucky indeed. She found she was sharing her room with a gentle, quiet soul who left gingerbread crumbs at her mouse hole and liked nothing better than to scribble verses. Her name? Emily Dickinson.

The poet’s room, reports the mouse, “was a light, airy room with four large windows, a single bed, a chest of drawers, a writing table and a chair. My room in the wainscoting was just as simple and pleasant with a solitary bed and bureau, a quilt of colorful scraps, and a chair and a table.”

The table, notices Emmaline, holds a note, with words that offer a warning of sorts:

Day by day and year by year,

You soon will find by living here —

That words you thought you knew so well —

Big ones, small ones, short ones tall ones

Words in every shape and size —

Hold many meanings more surprise —

Than you would ever give them credit for!

Very quickly, the mouse discovers that Emily (“like me … a nature lover”) writes poems that speak to Emmaline, who initiates a correspondence. Poet writes a poem, leaves the lines on her desk; mouse answers with poems of her own.

The two companions go about their lives, sharing their thoughts in poetry and prose. Dickinson bakes gingerbread for neighborhood children and gets rebuffed by an editor; Emmaline gets chased by a cat. Eventually, the mouse finds she must move on.

While Dickinson’s delicate, transparent words gather resonance through experience, her poems are also accessible to children. The problem is, how to bring a child to such words?

Emmaline makes a delightful bridge. Against some odds, she becomes the perfect foil for Dickinson. Yes, bringing a mouse on as alter ego to a great poet is risky, but then, Dickinson is the poet who once wrote, “I was the slightest in the house — I took the smallest room …”

You’ll find much more than a pleasant introduction to Dickinson and a brief biography of her life. There are insights into her works for adult and child here. For what is Dickinson but the mouse of poets, lovely but hidden?

Writes Emmaline:

I am a Little Thing.

I wear a Little Dress.

I go about my Days and Nights.

Taking little barefoot Steps.

But though You never notice me

Nor count me as your Guest,

My Soul can soar as High as yours

And Hope burns in my chest!

Emily responds with one of her most famous poems, beginning, “I’m Nobody! Who are you? Are you — Nobody — too?”

Steal a moment to spend alone with a child and “The Mouse of Amherst.” Take turns reading the pages out loud. In author Elizabeth Spires’ hand, the device not only works, it is actually illuminating.

Dickinson is direct, yes, but not so very simple as she seems. Spires, a poet herself, has a lovely touch, quietly complemented by Claire A. Nivola’s simple drawings. The result is a volume imbued with Dickinson’s clear lyricism.

Donna Gold is a free-lance writer who lives in Stockton Springs.