I Told My Soul to Sing: Finding God with Emily Dickinson

A surprising patron saint for all who seek or wrestle with God A journey through faith and doubt with America’s greatest poet Many readers think that Emily Dickinson rejected religion and wanted nothing to do with God. And yet her poetry and life tell a deeper story. Looking closely at twenty-five rare and resonant poems, this intimate portrait reveals how Dickinson occasionally believed, thoughtfully doubted, and in her divine wrestling, met God. In chapters on belief, prayer, mortality, immortality, and beauty, Kristin LeMay uncovers the riches of Dickinson’s spiritual life and tells of her own search for God between the lines of the poems Dickinson called “hymns.” “Through her deep engagement with Dickinson’s poems—by turn prayers, partners, revelations, songs—LeMay has written a book that is, in Dickinson’s words, ‘the Heart’s portrait – every Page a Pulse,’ every page a kind of faith.” – Sarah Sentilles, author of Breaking Up with God: A Love Story