Poe Collage --Serving Art and Commerce

GO HERE  Poe gets under your skin and on your skin (see evening gown image).

Big Read - 2011 Comes to a Close and a Beginning

Fascinating isn’t it how often someone or some thing you haven’t seen or thought of for years, even decades, comes to mind and cracks open the dam of the forgotten?  Connections in the mind, in conversations, in what you see and read in your normal rounds of life pour through this crack.  And then, magically, the debris of fading references, the flotsam of vague images, take concrete form. You’re delighted and surprised.  Parts of the past float into view and take on momentary (or, if you’re lucky, lasting) significance.  History may be a river and you may not be allowed to put your foot into the same part of that river more than once, but it seems the abandoned and the forgotten flowing on the current may come by again if you are watching. 

Reading Poe during this year’s Big Read had this effect. The great Mexican poet-novelist  Roberto Bolaño works this territory in his writing.  It was startling and satisfying to see the two streams-- memory traces reestablished/Poe-Bolano-- come together in Roberto Bolaño’s essay, “Who Would Dare?”  Here’s an excerpt:

. . . I don’t remember ever seeing lonelier bookstores. I didn’t steal any books in Santiago. They were cheap and I bought them. At the last bookstore I visited, as I was going through a row of old French novels, the bookseller, a tall, thin man of about forty, suddenly asked whether I thought it was right for an author to recommend his own works to a man who’s been sentenced to death.

The bookseller was standing in a corner, wearing a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows and he had a prominent Adam’s apple that quivered as he spoke. I said it didn’t seem right. What condemned men are we talking about? I asked. The bookseller looked at me and said that he knew for certain of more than one novelist capable of recommending his own books to a man on the verge of death. Then he said that we were talking about desperate readers. I’m hardly qualified to judge, he said, but if I don’t, no one will.

What book would you give to a condemned man? he asked me. I don’t know, I said. I don’t know either, said the bookseller, and I think it’s terrible. What books do desperate men read? What books do they like? How do you imagine the reading room of a condemned man? he asked. I have no idea, I said. You’re young, I’m not surprised, he said. And then: it’s like Antarctica. Not like the North Pole, but like Antarctica. I was reminded of the last days of [Edgar Allan Poe’s] Arthur Gordon Pym, but I decided not to say anything. Let’s see, said the bookseller, what brave man would drop this novel on the lap of a man sentenced to death? He picked up a book that had done fairly well and then he tossed it on a pile. I paid him and left. When I turned to leave, the bookseller might have laughed or sobbed. As I stepped out I heard him say: What kind of arrogant bastard would dare to do such a thing? And then he said something else, but I couldn’t hear what it was.

Does Literature Still Matter?

New Book Asks Whether Literature Still Matters
In era that prizes the 140-character tweet, Harvard professor ponders the value of literature

"The Use and Abuse of Literature" (Pantheon Books), by Marjorie Garber: In an age that prizes short bursts of electronic information, Harvard English professor Marjorie Garber asks whether literature still matters. As might be expected of someone who has spent her career teaching Shakespeare to undergraduates, she answers with a resounding "yes."

. . . and here’s why . . .

For Garber, of course, literature does matter. "Language does change our world," she writes. "It does make possible what we think and how we think it." Echoing an argument made by the eminent literary critic Harold Bloom, Garber claims for literature a sort of stem cell-like power to generate fresh and new imaginative experiences in those who read it.

HERE

If you’ve  been reading Poe’s stories and poems, it’s unlikely that you will deny Garber’s claims for literature.  When was the last time you received a 140 character message on Twitter that made you think as much as these twenty-one words from Poe:

“Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.”

Poe Wasn't in the Club

Age is opportunity no less
Than youth itself, though in another dress,
And as the evening twilight fades away
The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day.

Now that’s Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the Hiawatha and Spreading Chestnut tree guy.  The Great Gray Poet.  He looked like this. 



Who could ever be hard on this thoughtful looking, stereotype of a grandfather? Well, Edgar Allan Poe took aim at him regularly.  Poe also picked critical fights with more than a few other poets of his times.  Here’s a recent news article on Poe’s criticism of the New England poets of his day, “Edgar Allan Poe’s case against the Boston literati.”  What do you think of his tone? 

GO HERE

The Tell Tale Heart by FuserXXI

Richard Kopley: Discovering Poe

DESPERATION or inspiration?

The Aussies, Brits and Irish are also are struggling with the problem of alliterates (readers who no longer read).   They're trying a 1 million book give away.  So, if you're across the pond or down under on March 5, grab and read a great book.  However, if you are in The Haute or nearby in March, you should already have your free copy of Edgar Allan Poe's stories and poems and have read a good part of  it.  Programs and discussions of these works start soon.




Here's a story on the million book give away.  How many books have been given away by the Big Read  project in Vigo County?  Nope.  You're way too low.  And remember: "Read and Pass It On."

theaustralian.com.au
February 26, 2011 12:00AM

Desperate chapter in life of books
DESPERATION or inspiration? Opinions are divided among Australian authors, publishers, academics and readers about a scheme to encourage adults to read more.

One million books, accessible works of enduring quality by some of the world's most successful authors, will be given away in Britain and Ireland on March 5. . . .

GO HERE for full article 

Was Edgar Allan Poe kicked out of West Point for nakedness?

Jeff Schogol writes for Stars and Stripes and calls himself The Rumor Doctor.  Here’s his take on the story of Poe’s short and stormy life as a cadet at West Point.

"It’s not hard to believe that Edgar Allan Poe, author of “The Pit and the Pendulum” and other horror stories, went to the United States Military Academy at West Point, an institution conspicuously absent from the list of top party schools.

Poe tried hard to get kicked out of West Point, and in 1831, he succeeded. Rumor is that the final straw came when he reported for drill wearing belts for his cartridges, a smile and nothing else, but did he actually do it? . . . But there are no records of Poe showing up for drill naked. Instead, Poe was court-martialed after he stopped going to class, parade, roll calls and chapel in January 1831. The following month, he was dismissed.

THE RUMOR DOCTOR’S DIAGNOSIS: The true story about why Edgar Allan Poe left West Point is sad and short, much like Poe’s life, but will the legend of him appearing naked ever die? Quoth The Rumor Doctor: Nevermore!"

GO HERE for full article.

Poe is the only major American writer to attend the United States Military Academy at West Point. Why Scholgol thinks Poe's enrollment there was, in his words, "not hard to believe" as it was "an institution conspicuously absent from the list of top party schools" is either a typo or an attempt at humor. Poe was a gambler and a hell-raiser at the University of Virginia (a major party school even back then). He appears to have continued on this course while at West Point. Jeffrey Myers’ biography of Poe states “only a quarter of the cadets in each class ever graduated; the rest were dismissed for bad conduct or scholastic deficiency.”  Poe never suffered from "scholastic deficiency."

For Poe’s military record in the National Archives GO HERE.

Your views on this aspect of Poe’s life?  Do you see any of Poe’s military career in his writings?

“The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe Published on This Date, Jan. 29, 1845

January 29, 1845: “The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe reaches print for the first time in the New York Evening Mirror. . . .

Often called the most famous poem ever written, early reviews of “The Raven” were ecstatic.  We have to remember these are the days before press agents roamed the land and cyberspace.

“Everybody reads the Poem and praises it . . .”

“A BEAUTIFUL POEM.”

“wild and shivery,”

“A Stanza unknown before to gods, men, and booksellers”

Isn't it a wonder and something to think about that poetry was once reviewed regularly in the press?  How and why has poetry and poets gone out of our lives?  What have we lost?  

It should be added, however, that “The Raven” was not destined to remain without critics. One example:   William Butler Yeats thought the poem “insincere and vulgar.”  Do you see this in the poem?

Kenneth Silverman, one Poe's finest biographers, concludes: “Poe [with “The Raven”] succeeded all too well in suiting the popular taste, a work fatally destined to be Beloved, a poem for people who don’t like poetry.”

Is this harsh?  Too sweeping?  What do you think?

Here are some outstanding readings of the poem (and, inevitably, one spoof).

QMx Presents: The Raven read by John De Lancie

The Raven: Read by Christopher Walken

The Raven read by James Earl Jones

The Simpsons the Raven

It's Not Over Till It's Over --Poe Toaster Lives!

I was there -- the Poe Toaster came

By Michael Madden

Baltimore Sun 2:25 PM EST, January 26, 2011

Yes, Virginia, there is a Poe Toaster.

Now that smoke from the supposed failure of the Poe Toaster to materialize on Jan. 19 has cleared, it is time to consider the fundamental question: Did the Poe Toaster appear, or not?

I was among the crowd gathered outside the graveyard at Baltimore's Westminster Hall, hoping for a glimpse of the Poe Toaster — the mysterious visitor who, since 1949, had crept unnoticed into the ancient graveyard on that date, leaving cognac and flowers on the grave of Edgar Allan Poe. . . .
GO HERE

Poe and the Big Two-Oh-Two -- born January 19, 1809

No, that's not Poe with a feathered  friend. It's John Cusak who will be playing Poe in a movie scheduled for release in 2011.

 Five minute review of Poe’s life.

GO HERE

Edgar Allan Poe's Birthday: Weirdest, Worst And Most Wicked Pop Culture References (VIDEO, PHOTOS)

GO HERE

HAPPY BIRTHDAY EDGAR ALLAN POE

HAPPY BIRTHDAY EDGAR ALLAN POE -- b. January 19, 1809.  Born in Boston, the second child of David and Elizabeth Arnold Hopkins, both traveling stage actors.

Will the three roses and a half-empty bottle of cognac show up on Poe's grave this year?

GO HERE

Books Around Your Crib

Here's a nice tool that will take you back to the reading habits of yesteryear.

Birthday Best Sellers

To display a list of New York Times best sellers for the week of your birth enter your date of birth and press Show me the List. Note that if your birthday was before 1950 the best sellers for your birth year will be listed.

GO HERE

Compare this list with current best sellers.  Comments?  Are we reading less demanding fiction and non-fiction? Have you read any of these birthday books?  And where's Poe?