Publisher, Naxos Audiobooks (February 2008)

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"Teresa Gallagher gives Emily Dickinson a New England voice that succeeds in conveying the poet’s distinctive duality: her gentle, mystical other-worldliness underscored by a resolute strength. In these 99 poems, recurring words – sea, Heaven, sun – chime mantra-like, along with the lyrical assonance and rhyme. Dickinson is acutely sensitive to the beauty of light and nature – ‘the colour on the cruising cloud’ – while her metaphors and personification intrigue. Does the 'door ajar' shut her out or invite her in? Is the ‘realm of you’ Heaven or some paradise of earthly love? Even though recurrent themes are death and self-denial, the mood is airy and buoyant, like the angel’s wings Dickinson imagines she wears." --Review by Rachel Redford, The Observer, 17 February 2008

"Emily Dickinson is remembered as a 19th-century New England recluse, but she is reaching a wider audience than she could ever have expected via this Great Poets audio series. A wide range of the poet’s work is here and, as read by the charismatic Teresa Gallagher, the problem of how to turn dashes into pauses is managed with aplomb. To quote the great lady, ‘Beauty be not caused – it is’; and this is beautiful." --Review from Waterstone’s Quarterly, Spring 2008

Born in Massachusetts in 1830, Emily Dickinson composed over 1770 poems; but apart from her closest friends, no-one knew she was writing at all. Only after her death was her astonishing output discovered and published.

A reclusive figure for much of her life, few could have imagined the range of her subjects, the intensity of her imagination or the powerful delicacy of her writing.

Emily Dickinson is one of America’s greatest writers. This selection includes 147 of her best known poems, and is a perfect introduction to her unique voice.

Poems included in this recording:

A drop fell on the apple tree
A narrow Fellow in the Grass
A poor torn heart a tattered heart
A something in a summer's day
A still - Volcano - Life
A thought went up my mind to-day
A toad can die of light!
A word is dead
A wounded deer leaps highest
Adrift! A little boat adrift!
After great pain a formal feeling comes
All the letters I can write
Alter? When the hills do
Ample make this bed
Apparently with no surprise
As imperceptibly as Grief
Beauty - be not caused - It Is
Because I could not stop for Death
Come slowly Eden!
Dear March come in!
Death is a dialogue between
Drab habitation of whom
Drowning is not so pitiful
Each that we lose takes part of us
Eden is that old fashioned House
Exultation is the going
Fame is a fickle food
Finite to fail but infinite to venture
Forbidden fruit a flavor has
Forever - is composed of Nows
Glee! The great storm is over
He ate and drank the precious words
He fumbles at your Soul
He touched me so I live to know
Heart not so heavy as mine
Heart! We will forget him!
Heaven is what I cannot reach!
Her final summer was it
Hope is a subtle glutton
Hope is the thing with feathers
How happy is the little Stone
How the old Mountains drip with Sunset
I asked no other thing
I bring an unaccustomed wine
I can wade grief
I cannot live with you
I died for beauty but was scarce
I dreaded that first Robin so
I dwell in Possibility
I envy seas whereon he rides
I felt a Funeral in my Brain
I gave myself to him
I had no cause to be awake
I had no time to hate because
I have never seen "Volcanoes"
I have no life but this
I heard a fly buzz when I died
I hide myself within my flower
I know a place where summer strives
I know some lonely houses off the road
I many times thought peace had come
I meant to find her when I came
I meant to have but modest needs
I never saw a moor
I should not dare to leave my friend
I stepped from plank to plank
I taste a liquor never brewed
I think the hemlock likes to stand
I took my power in my hand
I went to heaven
If I can stop one heart from breaking
If I may have it when it's dead
If recollecting were forgetting
If you were coming in the fall
I'll tell you how the Sun rose
I'm Nobody! Who are you?
Is Heaven a physician?
It might be easier
It sounded as if the streets were running
It tossed and tossed
It was not Death for I stood up
It's such a little thing to weep
Like Rain it sounded till it curved
Love is anterior to life
Luck is not chance
Mine by the right of the white election!
Mine enemy is growing old
Much madness is divinest sense
My life closed twice before its close
My Life had stood - a Loaded Gun
Nature rarer uses yellow
Not knowing when the dawn will come
Not with a Club the Heart is broken
Of all the souls that stand create
On this wondrous sea
One blessing had I than the rest
One need not be a chamber - to be Haunted
Pain has an element of blank
Proud of my broken heart since thou didst break it
Safe in their Alabaster Chambers
She died -- this was the way she died
Some keep the Sabbath going to church
Success is counted sweetest
Surgeons must be very careful
Tell all the truth but tell it slant
That after Horror
That I did always love
That Love is all there is
The brain within its groove
The day came slow till five o'clock
The Dying need but little Dear
The grass so little has to do
The grave my little cottage is
The heart asks pleasure first
The leaves like women interchange
The moon is distant from the sea
The one that could repeat the summer day
The pedigree of honey
The rat is the concisest tenant
The Soul has Bandaged moments
The soul should always stand ajar
The spider as an artist
The waters chased him as he fled
The way I read a letter 's this
The wind begun to rock the grass
There came a Wind like a Bugle
There is no frigate like a book
There's a certain slant of light
There's been a death in the opposite house
They might not need me – yet they might
They say that 'time assuages'
This is my letter to the world
This World is not Conclusion
'T is little I could care for pearls
'Tis not that Dying hurts us so
To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee
'Twas like a Maelstrom with a notch
Unable are the Loved to die
We never know how high we are
We never know we go -- when we are going
What if I say I shall not wait?
What inn is this
Where Thou art - that
While I was fearing it it came
Wild nights! Wild nights!
Will there really be a morning?
You left me sweet two legacies

About the Performer: Teresa Gallagher has performed in many leading roles in both plays and musicals across the country, London’s West End, and Off Broadway. In addition, she is a well-known voice to listeners of BBC Radio Drama. Her work on film includes The Misadventures of Margaret and Mike Leigh’s Topsy-Turvy.