It is no accident that at an impressionable age so many of us are entranced by the deadly earnestness of Poe. His haunting words seem whispered as though he expected that kindred spirits would be listening through the ages. Even to a hard-nosed kid like myself Poe's writings were instilled with a “cool” factor that was missing from most of the other classical poets that I stumbled across, not to mention that he held an advanced level of fame and, for most of us a youthful cognizance of "The Raven". I cannot recall my initial readings of either The Raven or Annabel Lee, so I cannot say they "stopped my in my tracks." Rather, I seem to have always been aware of the "shorn and shaven" raven cawing "nevermore" in the night, and of the distraught young man “lying down in the night-tide, at the side of his lost bride, in her tomb by the sounding sea." For these reasons I made an easy victim for Poe to lure into his desolate darkness.

It helped that the thing which brought me to poetry in the first place was not romance, as it is with so many, but death; the dawning realization at thirteen years old that I was indeed mortal, and that death would one day find me, growing in me a need to explore that further, to find those things which Mommy and Daddy held back for my “protection”. I have stated in other writes that my poetry journey began in the 7th or 8th grade with John Donne’s “Death, Be not Proud”, a poem found in the forward of a required read entitled “A Separate Peace”. That part of my poetry story is still true, but that poem was merely the beginning, and if it is morbidity you seek from the written word, it is Poe you will find.

The heart of the writer is the thing that captures a reader. A writer unwittingly includes pieces of himself in his work. Discovering another someone’s truths is why we read. Even fictional writings, by their nature, reflect who that someone is, what she has experienced, and what it is inside her that she feels the need to share. A writer seldom gets far away from who he or she is as a person; some being lovers, some dreamers, some realists, and some (like Poe) fatalistic and morose… although at least one talented bard managed to be all of the above.

Poe married his cousin Virginia when she was thirteen years old and he twenty-five. Twelve years later he sat at the foot of their bed rubbing his beloved Virginia’s feet in a vain attempt to warm her as she died from tuberculosis (the same disease that took his mother, father, and foster-mother, so he understood as he nursed her what Virginia’s eventual fate would be). A somewhat awkward outsider, Poe was losing the one person throughout his life who “got” him. Within three years of his Love’s passing Poe would join her in death.

Two years before Virginia’s death Poe wrote The Raven, the poem that made him famous, if not rich. Virginia was already very sick as he penned her ode, and his masterpiece. Even then Edgar and Virginia foresaw the end of their story.

“Tell this soul with sorrow laden, if that in that distant Eden,

it shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels named, Lenore.

Clasp that rare and radiant maiden whom the angels named Lenore.

Nameless here, forevermore.”

Poe was paid $10 for The Raven. The poem saw immediate success. After it was published, due to copywrite laws of the time, it was free to be re-published by anyone and everyone... and it was. Poe did readings of the work in attempts to profit from it. They say that Poe recited in a quiet, somber, deliberate tone that spellbound his audiences as he recited, but still he failed to make the fortune he craved, even though the poem was sweeping America and the rest of the English speaking world.

And then a year later Edgar gazed in as the light died in his sweet Virginia’s eyes.

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

Went envying her and me.

And neither the angels in Heaven above

Nor the demons down under the sea

Could ever dissever my soul from the soul

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.

There are varying accounts of Poe’s final three years of life, and also of the events surrounding his mysterious death, but it is simple to discern that it was not the alcohol, drugs, or madness that killed him, but rather the broken heart those elixirs sought to cure.

Annabel Lee was written after Virginia’s death. It was given to a friend in payment for a loan, and was not published until after Poe's own demise. Poe’s was a world of disease and death, lived in a time when children were not expected to survive into adulthood. Scarlet Fever, small pox, tuberculosis and cholera, among others, ravaged through his world with no cures in sight. Living in a time of death it was no accident that death and a dying love became the major themes in his greatest works.

Nor is it accidental that those themes still bring a shiver to his reader’s today.

(I bitted and pieced the poems to get the parts I wanted, and paraphrased on top of that, so if you see mistakes it is because I didn't consider it necessary to make it perfect. I also failed to follow the prompt to the letter, but this is what I got. Thanks for understanding!)

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

This poem by Robert Frost is the one that stopped me in my tracks as I faced the choice of continuing in university or choosing to go another way. My mother wanted that degree, and I was feeling like it was a dead end destined to finish in a second rate job. At the time many doors were still closed for women and my interest in languages and linguistics was going to put me into a cubicle translating documents. The thought of never seeing the wonderful world outside an office, terrified me.

I love being around people. I love being outdoors where I can be in the weather, watch nature in all her glory, so I chose the path less taken. Driving for Calgary Transit. The job women were told was impossible for them. I was only the 25th women hired. The last stanza of this poem was the one I read the day before I applied for the job. In 1977 and barely 19 at the time, I was hired and completed a 41 year career with the city. The road less traveled by made all the difference in my life.

I read it again, a few years ago when I retired. The road less taken this time, was to put my energy into writing. All the people watching over the years in public service stored images and experiences which are now part of my creative process. The family I chose over the years tells me, "There she goes again. Reinventing herself to fulfill her inner guide. Doing something no one ever expected."

Again the road less taken, but the one which is right for me.

Robert Frost 1874-1963

Nature’s first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf’s a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.

. . .

(Sometimes I'll just remember the last line, and just stop for a moment.)

These two poems always reminded me of my roughest times and what it truly felt like to be out in the cold, harsh world during tough moments in my life. The first one evokes a feeling of what it means to feel disconnected from the ones you love the most because of the sicknesses of the modern world and how it turned me into a jaded individual that simply gave up over and over, and the second reminds me of the extremes I went to just to get out of my own personal hell in order to get back home, even if it only meant getting back home in my mind.

Snippet from Imru al-Qais:

Oh long night, dawn will come, but will be no brighter without my love.

You are a wonder, with stars held up as by ropes of hemp to a solid rock."

At other times, I have filled a leather water-bag of my people and entered the desert, and trod its empty wastes while the wolf howled like a gambler whose family starves.

I said to the wolf, "You gather as little wealth, as little prosperity as I. What either of us gains he gives away. So do we remain thin."

Cremation of Sam McGee:

There are strange things done in the midnight sun

By the men who moil for gold;

The Arctic trails have their secret tales

That would make your blood run cold;

The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,

But the queerest they ever did see

Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge

I cremated Sam McGee.

Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee, where the cotton blooms and blows.

Why he left his home in the South to roam 'round the Pole, God only knows.

He was always cold, but the land of gold seemed to hold him like a spell;

Though he'd often say in his homely way that "he'd sooner live in hell."

On a Christmas Day we were mushing our way over the Dawson trail.

Talk of your cold! through the parka's fold it stabbed like a driven nail.

If our eyes we'd close, then the lashes froze till sometimes we couldn't see;

It wasn't much fun, but the only one to whimper was Sam McGee.

And that very night, as we lay packed tight in our robes beneath the snow,

And the dogs were fed, and the stars o'erhead were dancing heel and toe,

He turned to me, and "Cap," says he, "I'll cash in this trip, I guess;

And if I do, I'm asking that you won't refuse my last request."

Well, he seemed so low that I couldn't say no; then he says with a sort of moan:

"It's the cursèd cold, and it's got right hold till I'm chilled clean through to the bone.

Yet 'tain't being dead—it's my awful dread of the icy grave that pains;

So I want you to swear that, foul or fair, you'll cremate my last remains."

A pal's last need is a thing to heed, so I swore I would not fail;

And we started on at the streak of dawn; but God! he looked ghastly pale.

He crouched on the sleigh, and he raved all day of his home in Tennessee;

And before nightfall a corpse was all that was left of Sam McGee.

There wasn't a breath in that land of death, and I hurried, horror-driven,

With a corpse half hid that I couldn't get rid, because of a promise given;

It was lashed to the sleigh, and it seemed to say: "You may tax your brawn and brains,

But you promised true, and it's up to you to cremate those last remains."

Now a promise made is a debt unpaid, and the trail has its own stern code.

In the days to come, though my lips were dumb, in my heart how I cursed that load.

In the long, long night, by the lone firelight, while the huskies, round in a ring,

Howled out their woes to the homeless snows— O God! how I loathed the thing.

And every day that quiet clay seemed to heavy and heavier grow;

And on I went, though the dogs were spent and the grub was getting low;

The trail was bad, and I felt half mad, but I swore I would not give in;

And I'd often sing to the hateful thing, and it hearkened with a grin.

Till I came to the marge of Lake Lebarge, and a derelict there lay;

It was jammed in the ice, but I saw in a trice it was called the "Alice May."

And I looked at it, and I thought a bit, and I looked at my frozen chum;

Then "Here," said I, with a sudden cry, "is my cre-ma-tor-eum."

Some planks I tore from the cabin floor, and I lit the boiler fire;

Some coal I found that was lying around, and I heaped the fuel higher;

The flames just soared, and the furnace roared—such a blaze you seldom see;

And I burrowed a hole in the glowing coal, and I stuffed in Sam McGee.

Then I made a hike, for I didn't like to hear him sizzle so;

And the heavens scowled, and the huskies howled, and the wind began to blow.

It was icy cold, but the hot sweat rolled down my cheeks, and I don't know why;

And the greasy smoke in an inky cloak went streaking down the sky.

I do not know how long in the snow I wrestled with grisly fear;

But the stars came out and they danced about ere again I ventured near;

I was sick with dread, but I bravely said: "I'll just take a peep inside.

I guess he's cooked, and it's time I looked"; ... then the door I opened wide.

And there sat Sam, looking cool and calm, in the heart of the furnace roar;

And he wore a smile you could see a mile, and he said: "Please close that door.

It's fine in here, but I greatly fear you'll let in the cold and storm—

Since I left Plumtree, down in Tennessee, it's the first time I've been warm."

There are strange things done in the midnight sun

By the men who moil for gold;

The Arctic trails have their secret tales

That would make your blood run cold;

The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,

But the queerest they ever did see

Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge

I cremated Sam McGee.

What it Is (Translated from Was es Ist) by Erich Fried

It is nonsense

says reason

It is what it is

says love

It is calamity

says calculation

It is nothing but pain

says fear

It is hopeless

says insight

It is what it is

says love

It is ludicrous

says pride

It is foolish

says caution

It is impossible

says experience

It is what it is

says love

By Veronica Shoffstall

After a while you learn

the subtle difference between

holding a hand and chaining a soul

and you learn

that love doesn’t mean leaning

and company doesn’t always mean security.

And you begin to learn

that kisses aren’t contracts

and presents aren’t promises

and you begin to accept your defeats

with your head up and your eyes ahead

with the grace of woman, not the grief of a child

and you learn

to build all your roads on today

because tomorrow’s ground is

too uncertain for plans

and futures have a way of falling down in mid-flight.

After a while you learn

that even sunshine burns

if you get too much

so you plant your own garden

and decorate your own soul

instead of waiting for someone

to bring you flowers.

And you learn that you really can endure

you really are strong

you really do have worth

and you learn

and you learn

with every goodbye, you learn…

I found this poem in an Ann Landers column in the 1970s. I still have the clipping. It was around the same time that I had my first crush and was crushed. I also bought my first marble notebook for the purpose of writing down my thoughts and feelings. (I am still partial to college-ruled marble notebooks.) This poem somehow lessened the adolescent anguish I felt and put relationships of all sorts in perspective for me. And life in general, really. I suspect it also inspired my first forays into writing poetry...although given the number of sonnets I wrote, someone else was of greater import to me. So there I was, here I am, full of sound and fury, signfiying nothing.

i thank you God for most this amazing

day: for the leaping greenly spirits

of trees

and a blue true dream of sky; and

for everything

which is natural which is infinite

which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,

and this is the sun's birthday;

this is the birth

day of life and of love and of wings

and of the gay

great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing

breathing any-lifted from the no of all nothing-human merely being

doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

by Archibald MacLeish - 1892-1981

A poem should be palpable and mute

As a globed fruit,

Dumb

As old medallions to the thumb,

Silent as the sleeve-worn stone

Of casement ledges where the moss has grown—

A poem should be wordless

As the flight of birds.

*

A poem should be motionless in time

As the moon climbs,

Leaving, as the moon releases

Twig by twig the night-entangled trees

,

Leaving, as the moon behind the winter leaves,

Memory by memory the mind—

A poem should be motionless in time

As the moon climbs.

*

A poem should be equal to:

Not true.

For all the history of grief

An empty doorway and a maple leaf.

For love

The leaning grasses and two lights above the sea—

A poem should not mean

But be.

by Lewis Carroll (1832 - 1898)

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun

The frumious Bandersnatch!”

He took his vorpal sword in hand;

Long time the manxome foe he sought—

So rested he by the Tumtum tree

And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,

The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,

Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,

And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through

The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!

He left it dead, and with its head

He went galumphing back.

“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?

Come to my arms, my beamish boy!

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”

He chortled in his joy.

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

(1871 - from Through the Looking-Glass)

- - - - -

At first glance this epic little gem seems silly, and nonsensical, but it is truly a magical piece of art.

Like many others, I fell in love with Carroll's work at a very young age, but it was in high school that I encountered this poem again, and grasped its true beauty. It stopped me in my tracks, because for the first time I truly understood the inherent flow and tempo that is the hallmark of all classic poetry, and had a major epiphany.

This poem showed me, like no other before it, that even if you invent your own words and phrases, you can use the flow of metered verse and the beat of strong syllables to paint word pictures in English that could never be expressed any other way.

By Edgar Allan Poe (1809 - 1849)

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?