Emily dickinson and protestantism

Emily Dickinson often modeled her poems off of the structure of Protestant hymns. I still need to figure out which ones she liked the best, but this could be great for our piece. I know my dad knows a lot of protestant hymns because for a while he sang with a church to earn money. Also Edward's mom is a minister.

God-war-poets play? It seems like we could be moving in this direction as far as the center of our play's focus. Also, if we DO do move in this direction, some things we should consider (maybe not now, but soon)
--I think 1 musician would make a great bard/m.c., with maybe a banjo, a fiddle, something that we associate as American. This doesn't mean there can't be other music (harmonium, piano, guitar, etc) but to have one musician m.c. could be neat.
--if we decide to do this in Russell House, how big of a cast do we feel could fit there? At this point I could envision a piece on this theme with just the three of us plus an m.c., but that depends on what direction we want to take it.
--One that note, if it's just about Rainer and Dickinson, who would other cast members be in relation to them? I'm not saying they have to be huge historical personalities, but we should consider what their relationship to the material and the space is.
--If we do pursue the poet/god/war triumpherate, I think Joyce (irish identity, easter uprising of 1916, catholicism, sexual repression) and Virginia Woolfe (gender and domesticity before and after world war I, depression and domesticity in post-Victorian England) would be great candidates of sources/characters to add to the pile.
--Joe Hill would be a neat musician to consider because of his relationship to the labor movement in america and his response to immigration industrialization in the wake of world war I
--Stephen Foster is the quintessential white American composer (cause really, slave songs and spirituals were the first post-settlement reindigenized American form of music. we could also look to what these offer.)
--Civil War v. WWI? Also, I couldn't help but notice that Emily Dickinson is from the U.S., Virginia Woolfe from England, Joyce from Ireland, and Rilke from Germany. I don't know what that means, but it's interesting. Both Dickinson and Woolfe had very queer relationships with the non-human world, gardens, trees, etc.

Sorry if these questions are pushing us ahead of ourselves; it's the way my directorish brain works. And even if we don't answer any of these questions/proposals now, I think it's good to get them in the air. I'll stop before I overdo it more than I already have.

The Rilke text is wonderful. So wonderful.

I am getting SO EXCITED!!!! Like even more excited than I was before.

Love,
Gedney.