A Summer Spent Writing in Amherst: The Juniper Institute for Young Writers Follows Emily Dickinson’s Legacy
By Leila Metres
Content
As a writer, there’s nothing quite like the feeling of reaching flow state—when you sit down to write and feel the words coursing through you without fully having control of them yourself. That feeling, often, is the reason writers return to writing, even though sometimes the blank page can be daunting and revision can feel like pulling teeth. It’s exactly what high school students enrolled in the Juniper Institute for Young Writers were chasing in Amherst, Massachusetts this summer.
This July, two cohorts of 50 high school students came to UMass to spend two weeks writing, reading, and building community together. I was along for the ride as an undergraduate program assistant, helping these young writers and working on my own creative projects as well. And 150 years ago, the renowned poet Emily Dickinson was chasing that same feeling in her home in Amherst long before we ever set foot here.
Developing Our Writing
The Juniper Institute was a chance for young writers to practice different writing styles and forms. Dickinson’s writing style, in particular, is quite unique. She used a lot of dashes, which were not very common during her time, and would often capitalize words that you wouldn’t expect to be capitalized. Her poetry focused on many big concepts such as death, love, and nature. In this poem, which she didn’t title (as she almost never titled her poems), she dove into the concept of hope.
“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -
And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -
I’ve heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.
Throughout the month at Juniper, the students dove into drafting new pieces, experimenting in a few genres, learning about different writing styles, and putting it all together. I participated in many of the prompts and ended up writing a ton of poems and some flash fiction pieces.
Some of the writing prompts that were especially inspiring to me:
- Write a love letter to a color.
- Write a list of affirmations.
- Write about the shape of your body.
- Write as many memories as you can think of.
- Write a series of vignettes that are connected in some way.
Building a Writing Community
Something that Dickinson didn’t do much of was write with others—she composed many of her poems in her room at a famously small desk. She did send her poems to a few trusted friends and colleagues, including Sue Dickinson and Thomas Wentworth Higginson. But most of her writing life (as we know it) was somewhat solitary.
But the students at Juniper got to build their own community in writing labs, small groups, and in the dorms. I have always found that my writing experiences that have taken place with others have been the most generative and rewarding. And over the four weeks we spent working together, I created my own community as well.
I am no stranger to high school writing summer camps, but this was my first time being involved at UMass.
I was welcomed with open arms by my fellow undergraduate program assistants and the MFA students serving as the main instructors for Juniper. We carpooled, chatted over lunch, and failed miserably at trivia.
Getting Published
During her lifetime, Emily didn’t often have her work published. She had a few pieces anonymously published by newspapers and magazines like the Springfield Republican, but the story goes that they were published without her permission. The vast majority of her fame came after she died.
But at Juniper, we created our own anthology of student writing. The program assistants were in charge of compiling, reviewing, and designing the anthology’s cover. For our second session, I suggested that we take inspiration from Dickinson, and one of my coworkers ended up unearthing a drawing she had done of Dickinson’s bedroom to serve as the cover. It was such a special way to commemorate the hard work that the young writers did throughout their two weeks at the program.
The writing done by high school students for the anthology impressed all of the program assistants!
Visiting Dickinson’s House
Each Juniper session also had a field trip that took students to the Emily Dickinson Museum. We were led through restored rooms to learn about her family, her history, and her writing. I was particularly surprised to find out how short she was (around 5’3”). After exploring the house, the students sat down on the restored carpet to turn back to their own creative pursuits and respond to a writing prompt.
As we all worked on our own projects in the Dickinsons’ living room, it hit me that the young writers at Juniper were following directly in the footsteps of a storied lineage of writing in this area.
In the same small Western Massachusetts town, they were striving to create, to build worlds out of words, and to explore the magic of language, just like Dickinson did.
Featuring
Leila Metres
