Oboe (Routes of Evanescence, for soprano and chamber \)

Among the correspondence of Emily Dickinson, her letters to T. W. Higginson, written during the last 24 years of her 

life offer a remarkable glimpse into her personality and creative thought. Thomas Wentworth Higginson, (1823-1911): 

poet, abolitionist editor and crusader for liberal causes (anticipating such current concerns as ecology, physical fitness and nutrition) were an impressive figure of his time. He graduated with a degree from Harvard Divinity School in 1847 but left the? Ministry for journalism and in 1862 enlisted in the Union Army as Colonel of the all Black First South Carolina Volunteers. Dickinson first approached Higginson as editor of the Atlantic Monthly asking advice on three submitted poems. Higginson later became an important advocate for Dickinson’s work as well as close friend. 

Routes of Evanescence is based on thirteen letters and six companion poems arranged in chronological order and 

divided into three parts. Part One begins with her first tentative communication to Higginson in April 1862. Part Two 

contains letters and poems reflecting the anxiety caused by Higginson’s involvement in the Civil War (he was wounded in 1863). Part Three documents the deaths of her parents and endsJ with the penultimate August 1885 letter, a year before her own death at age 56. In general the rhythm of the narration, with its stops and starts, was used to suggest Dickinson in the act of writing.