Loaded Gun

A passionate and deeply researched reassessment of Emily Dickinsons life and singular legacy in American arts and lettersWe think we know Emily Dickinson: the Belle of Amherst, virginal, reclusive, and possibly mad. But in A Loaded Gun, Jerome Charyn introduces us to a different Emily Dickinson: the fierce, brilliant, and sexually charged poet who wrote:My Life had stooda Loaded GunThough I than He may longer liveHe longer mustthan IFor I have but the power to kill,Withoutthe power to dieThrough interviews with contemporary scholars, close readings of Dickinsons correspondence and handwritten manuscripts, and a suggestive, newly discovered photograph that is purported to show Dickinson with her lover, Charyns literary sleuthing reveals the great poet in ways that have only been hinted at previously: as a woman who was deeply philosophical, intensely engaged with the world, attracted to members of both sexes, and able to write poetry that disturbs and delights us today.