Brain Snacks: Tasty Tidbits of Knowledge
Dickinson's poem inspired a (now non-existent) online literary magazine, Frigate – check it out here.
Dickinson attended Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, but she left after only a year because she was so homesick (source).
Dickinson's little sister was named Lavinia. Lavinia is the name of a character in Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus, who is horribly abused in the play. Like her sister, Lavinia also lived in relative seclusion and isolation at home (source).
When she was little, Dickinson once wrote, "I am growing handsome very fast indeed! I expect I shall be the belle of Amherst when I reach my 17th year. I don't doubt that I will have crowds of admirers at that age" (source).