Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) published his first collection of poems, Tamarlane, and Other Poems, in 1827, when he was 18 years old. A tendency to un up debts (including for gambling) kept him in constant state of reinvention – college student, poet, short story writer, soldier/officer school, literary journal editor and critic.
His personal life seemed to have stayed a general mess, but he had an enormous impact on both American and world literature. Consider the stories and poems that have been filmed, published, re-published, anthologized, celebrated and widely admired for more than 150 years: “Murders in the Rue Morgue, ” “Fall of the House of Usher, ” “The Raven, ” “The Tell-Tale Heart, ” “Annabel Lee, ” “The Bells, ” “Ulalame, ” “To Helen.”
For National Poetry Month, three by Edgar Allan Poe:
Annabel Lee
It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.
I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea:
But we loved with a love that was more than love–
I and my Annabel Lee;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.
And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsman came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.
The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me–
Yes!–that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.
But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we–
Of many far wiser than we–
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee:
For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling–my darling–my life and my bride,
In her sepulchre there by the sea,
In her tomb by the sounding sea.
A Dream Within A Dream
Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow:
You are not wrong who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.
I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand–
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep–while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?
The Valley of Unrest
Once it smiled a silent dell
Where the people did not dwell;
They had gone unto the wars,
Trusting to the mild-eyed stars,
Nightly, from their azure towers,
To keep watch above the flowers,
In the midst of which all day
The red sun-light lazily lay.
Now each visitor shall confess
The sad valley’s restlessness.
Nothing there is motionless —
Nothing save the airs that brood
Over the magic solitude.
Ah, by no wind are stirred those trees
That palpitate like the chill seas
Around the misty Hebrides!
Ah, by no wind those clouds are driven
That rustle through the unquiet Heaven
Uneasily, from morn till even,
Over the violets there that lie
In myriad types of the human eye —
Over three lilies there that wave
And weep above a nameless grave!
They wave: — from out their fragrant tops
Eternal dews come down in drops.
They weep: — from off their delicate stems
Perennial tears descend in gems.
Related:
The Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore carries on Poe’s legacy.
There is an Edgar Allan Poe Museum in Richmond, Va. (which I’ve visited).
Postings and News Updates:
Karen at Phoenix-Karenee started drawing in her copy of InsideOut: Poems by L.L. Barkat — and then got permission to show what she did: “Drawing in Books…of poetry.”
- Dana Gioia Defines the Enchantment in Poetry - June 12, 2025
- “I Am the Arrow”: Sarah Ruden Tells Sylvia Plath’s Story - June 10, 2025
- A Novel in Verse: “Eugene Nadelman” by Michael Weingard - June 5, 2025
nancy says
an so the month comes to an end
leaving me witn pen in hand
thank you for a month of poetry, glynn
Maureen Doallas says
You might know that every year in Baltimore, someone used to leave a bottle of liquor and a single rose at Poe’s grave. This past year, nothing was left. No one has ever known the person’s identity, the mystery of which seems fitting for Poe.
About two years ago I had occasion to see a young playwright’s work in which he set Poe’s writing to music. To hear Poe sung and acted was at times stunningly moving.
Maureen Doallas says
I also thank you for all the wonderful posts to celebrate National Poetry Month. You’ve given back to us some names we probably don’t read so often anymore, poets whose work still can surprise, refresh, engage, provoke thought, and just be darn fun to read.
Larry Meredith says
There is also a Poe House you can tour in Philadelphia. He lived there with his wife, Virginia and wrote several of his best known stories at that time.
Poe certainly had great influence on me becoming a writer, both of poetry and short fiction. Although I have to give a lot of credit to Robert Lewis Stevenson’s “A Child’s Garden of Verse”, it was “Annabel Lee” that really set me on the course of writing poetry. Poe’s “The Gold Bug” and “The Tell-Tale Heart” very early gave me an interest in short stories.
When I put my first collection of horror fiction together I took the title, “Never-Contended Things” from the last stanza of Poe’s 1829 poem, “Fairy-Land”.
In the morning they arise,
And their moony covering
Is soaring in the skies,
With the tempests as they toss,
Like–almost anything-
Or a yellow Albatross.
They use that moon no more
For the same end as before-
Videlicet, a tent-
Which I think extravagant:
Its atomies, however,
Into a shower dissever,
Of which those butterflies
Of Earth, who seek the skies,
And so come down again,
(Never-contented things!)
Have brought a specimen
Upon their quivering wings.
Larry
Erin says
Poe has always been a favor since my eighth grade teacher introduced me to The Tell-Tale Heart. I actually got a blue ribbon in the ninth-grade poetry competition my school participated in with a recitation of “The Raven.” What can I say, I like creepy. 😉