Tag Archives: laura zolman kirk

Emily Dickinson – Poetry of a Homebody

Posted on by

Words by Laura Zolman Kirk
Imagery provided by Amherst College Special Collections

Many of us were introduced to Emily Dickinson during high school English class, finding her work elusive and over our heads. Yet, behind the oddly-placed dashes and lines that make our minds zing, there is a woman who―aside from sharing her complex thoughts in verse—doesn’t differ much from many of us trying to blaze a trail of our own.

Visit the Dickinson homestead in Amherst, Massachusetts on a late winter afternoon and you can watch the sun set from Emily’s bedroom window, just as she would have seen it working from home and just as she described it, likely from that very spot:

“Soft as the massacre of Suns/ By Evening’s sabres slain” (Fr1146).

Well, maybe not all of us would describe a New England sunset quite like Emily Dickinson did, but there is something alluring about experiencing her home-based muses as a modern-day visitor.

It makes her more real. Her poetics are often so difficult to grasp, intentionally construed so only those who work at her words enjoy them. However, looking out to see the same sights as she once did somehow makes her words more tangible.

At her core, Emily Dickinson was simply a woman who worked from home. She was distracted by dirty dishes, scribbled down lines while baking bread, and sent her poems directly to her readers through letters.

To read more about Emily Dickinson, subscribe to CAKE&WHISKEY magazine or purchase the single issue here.

LeNora Fulton: The Native Leader

Posted on by

Taboo Issue Topic: Politics
Words by Laura Zolman Kirk
Photography by Keith Pitts

We found her by chance: a search for small-town female politicians. The more we researched, the more complex and diverse she became. “Surely this cannot be the same woman,” we thought. A run for president of the Navajo Nation, a mother of six , a grandmother to four, a member of the Navajo Nation Council, a unifying leader in her community and the current Apache County Recorder. Does a mother of six really run for president?

The answer we soon discovered was “yes.”

LeNora could easily be described as the Navajo Leslie Knope. You name it, she’s done it, with poise and a “that’d be fine” attitude. She is not the type of grandmother to sit around and let others take over the firewood delivery for her; she’s the one rolling up her sleeves to deliver it herself. She is a woman in the service of people: her family and her nation. What we need to do with our lives, LeNora told me through a tender smile, “is to help others, to love and have love in our hearts for other people.”

To read more about LeNora Fulton, subscribe to CAKE&WHISKEY magazine or purchase the single issue here.