Day 94 Po, Po. Pitiful Me

In some twisted corner of my brain, I can hear Edgar Allan Poe singing the old Linda Ronstadt ballad, Poor, Poor Pitiful Me.  The first stanza I'm sure he could play with -


Well I lay my head on the railroad track
Waiting on the Double E
But the train don't run by here no more
Poor poor pitiful me

Poor poor pitiful me
Poor poor pitiful me
Oh these boys won't let me be
Lord have mercy on me
Woe woe is me

From what I've read Poe suffered from depression, probably severe depression.  He was obsessed with death. Some of his stories deal with women coming back from the dead to haunt their former lovers.

Poe lived a short while in Baltimore, about three years.  The Poe

home was small and forbiddingly dark.  Located on the corner of Lafayette and Amity, the current community is undergoing a lot of reconstruction.  You walk up a small set of steps into the house. The main room is small and houses the Poe gift shop and admission center.

From there it is a few steps into another poorly lit room that held a fireplace and was probably used as a kitchen/dining room. It's hard to really know as there isn't much furniture in the home.  Why? The house is the attraction. This is the place the author lived and as such makes it the main focal point.

Poe's Traveling Writing Desk

Narrow winding stairs lead to another level with a bedroom.  Off that room is a secondary bedroom.  The only way to get through it is through the main bedroom.  Finally, an even narrower stairway leads to the attic room, a dormer really, which may have been

The house is not handicap friendly, and had to have been difficult once upon a time for the elderly and infirm.  With my big support shoes, I found the stairs a bit daunting.

It was this house, in the gold grey days of spring and fall and the stifling sultry heat of summer, and the bone-chilling cold of winter that Poe wrote a number of his short stories. Poe is thought to have resided in Baltimore from 1831 through summer of 1833. 

After his time in Baltimore, Poe went to Richmond VA and worked on a literary publication.   Poe was sharp-witted and put that to use working with literary criticisms. Poe never came back to Baltimore to live but did return to visit on several occasions.  On one such visit, Poe was found on a park bench, barely lucid. He was hospitalized and died a few days later of causes unknown.

Over the years it has been speculated that Poe suffered from alcoholism, drug addiction and a number of physical ailments. Poe's young wife died of tuberculosis

. Many diseases were not treated or treated correctly. The truth is no one really knows.  A fire in Baltimore destroyed a lot of the city's records and the information on Poe's death could have perished with other historical information.

Arthur Conan Doyle credits Poe for creating the detective story.  Many European writers were influenced by him.  Even contemporary horror writer Stephen King admired him for making the villains important.

 

There is an admission fee to the Poe house of $5 per adult.  For what is there and what you see, it really isn't "worth" the money, but for what it does, the admission fee is trivial. Keeping this site in good physical condition and honoring the man that impacted the likes of H.G. Wells and Jules Verne  is totally worth the cost. 

Finding Poe's final resting place initially was a bit of a challenge. In Baltimore there are two streets with similar sounding names, Lafayette and Fayette.  Poe's grave is on Fayette.

His finally resting spot is on the corner, so if you don't care much for cemeteries you don't have to go far.

  His wife and mother-in-law are also buried there.  If you venture further in, the cemetery is home to a lot of prominent Baltimore families.  Poe's grandfather is here also.  The cemetery is old. The paths are of brick and a number of the residents have small tombs. 

Flowers are blooming and the grass is green right now.  Spring seems to have arrived in Baltimore and the cemetery is a happy recipient of sun and rain sprinkles like we had this morning. 

There are two sites here for Edgar Allan Poe - this one with his family, and the other where he was originally.

I'm glad to have been able to pay my respects to a man I discovered years ago when I read the Cask of Amontillado and The Tell-tale Heart.  Uncovering how much he influenced the genres of the mystery and of science fiction have given me a new appreciation for this literary genius.