April is National Poetry Month and the perfect time to celebrate all the poetry in the world around us. Whether we read it in a book or listen to it on the radio, we enjoy poetry in countless forms. In Edgar Allan Poe’s time, when poetry was far more popular than it is today, people experienced poetry in a number of different ways. Much like today, poets gave public readings for their work or published it in books or magazines. Poe and his contemporaries also wrote their poems in ladies’ albums.
Ladies’ albums were popular gifts for girls throughout much of the nineteenth century. The owner ...
The Poe Museum Blog
“Lines on Ale” and Other Misattributed Poems
I recently came across a curious poem in a Poe anthology entitled "To Isadore." I was not familiar with it, but it certainly sounded like Poe's voice throughout the stanzas, at least so I thought. The publishers sure fooled me, for lo' and behold, it was deemed as being misattributed to Poe and it had been confirmed that it was not a Poe poem (Mabbott 509). What concerned me most about this situation was that there remain to be slipups even among our popular publishers today. The anthology I found this poem in will go unnamed; however, this post is meant to bring awareness to a few commonly ...
New Exhibit Sheds Light on Poe’s Talented Siblings
Above: Edgar's sister Rosalie Mackenzie Poe
In spite of being reared by a frugal businessman who discouraged his writing, Edgar Allan Poe became one of the world's greatest authors. Why did a boy who grew up in such a home decide to devote himself to a life in the arts? Was Poe born gifted, or was his genius the result of his upbringing? Maybe we can find some of the answers by learning about the family from which Poe was separated when he was orphaned at the age of two.
Above: Handkerchief Case Painted by Rosalie Mackenzie Poe
Talent runs in Edgar Allan Poe’s family. Not only was Edgar a ...
Poe Museum Invites Artists to Take Part in Exhibit
For the third year in a row, the Edgar Allan Poe Museum in Richmond, Virginia is inviting artists to paint, sketch, or photograph the museum's legendary Enchanted Garden for its exhibit Painting the Enchanted Garden 3, which opens May 26 and runs until July 17. The great quality and variety of the artists in the first two Painting the Enchanted Garden exhibits has encouraged the Poe Museum to bring back the popular show.
The rules of entering the exhibit are simple. Interested artists sign up by April 1 by emailing the Poe Museum's curator Chris Semtner at chris@poemuseum.org. Then the ...