Celebrate Edgar Allan Poe Day

Born in 1809, Poe has stood the test of time, and we find him cause for celebration. Your hosts, Eric and Sue Lee, invite those who agree and can come to attend festivities at their home. Festivities begin at 5 PM in St. David (driving directions here). Come about 6:30 PM if you don't want to be part of the potluck.

His birthday is Jan. 19, a Saturday this year, so let's make it happen that day. Because Poe's medium was the word and no known film adaptation comes close to doing him good service, consider having a Poe read-in (if you can't come) in a darkened room with candles of course. If no one feels up to providing a dramatic reading, audio versions of his stories are 'out there'. To start things off, consider suggesting that each guest/participant tell how they came to know and love Poe (or at least stand in awe of him). Also everyone should be invited to read their favorite Poe poem. When discussion starts to wander, offer up a short story or two. The 'Tell Tale Heart' is both classic Poe and perfectly illustrates his ideal of the short story as Poe conceived it, and his definition still stands today. It is also a short short story.

One of us, Eric, has a website that includes several of Poe's poems. 'Poems to Memorize and Memorable Poems.' This event is a 'San Pedro Valley Community Cultural Center' event. Some SPVCCC discussion about ideas for promotion, group outdoor activities, special interest groups, and so forth may be included at the beginning or end.

Just in case two or more would like to read/present the same poem/short story, a sign up list is below, so claim your favorite now. Also if you're coming to the potluck at 5 PM, indicate what you want to bring to avoid duplications. So something like, 'Sue L., Annabel Lee, a cask of Amontillado' would tell all. Having mentioned alcohol, we are gathering to celebrate Poe and, despite his taste for recreational drugs, we will not be celebrating mass alcohol consumption, so if you like the taste, bring your own, no problem, but immoderate consumption (dancing on the table...), would be inappropriate.

This gathering is open to the public; but sign up below, don't just show up, as indoor space is limited.

Name

Poems, stories, food items bringing

  1. Sue
Annabel Lee, potato casserole, condiments, table setting
  1. Eric
The Conqueror Worm, Tell Tale Heart, hot/cold drinks
  1. Ryan
Eldorado
  1. Judy M.
 
  1. Larry
The Raven
  1. Cyndi
Ham and rice
  1. Jim
Dessert
  1. Jose
 
  1. -

  1. Amber

  1. Virginia

  1. Libby





 

 

Space is limited so please RSVP ASAP.

Enter your name(s) below and what you want to bring.
Information will be manually transferred to the table above to confirm your place at this gathering:

-1'
-1'
-1'
Cameron I, Popcorn and Cups
Fuck Ya Hoe

 

 

Edgar Allan Poe Quotes

All religion, my friend, is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination, and poetry.
All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.
Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears.
Experience has shown, and a true philosophy will always show, that a vast, perhaps the larger portion of the truth arises from the seemingly irrelevant.
I am above the weakness of seeking to establish a sequence of cause and effect, between the disaster and the atrocity.
I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.
I have great faith in fools; self-confidence my friends call it.
I have no faith in human perfectibility. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active - not more happy - nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago.
I have, indeed, no abhorrence of danger, except in its absolute effect - in terror.
I wish I could write as mysterious as a cat.
If you wish to forget anything on the spot, make a note that this thing is to be remembered.
In criticism I will be bold, and as sternly, absolutely just with friend and foe. From this purpose nothing shall turn me.
In one case out of a hundred a point is excessively discussed because it is obscure; in the ninety-nine remaining it is obscure because it is excessively discussed.
It is by no means an irrational fancy that, in a future existence, we shall look upon what we think our present existence, as a dream.
It is the nature of truth in general, as of some ores in particular, to be richest when most superficial.
It will be found, in fact, that the ingenious are always fanciful, and the truly imaginative never otherwise than analytic.
Man's real life is happy, chiefly because he is ever expecting that it soon will be so.
Of puns it has been said that those who most dislike them are those who are least able to utter them.
Poetry is the rhythmical creation of beauty in words.
Science has not yet taught us if madness is or is not the sublimity of the intelligence.
Stupidity is a talent for misconception.
That man is not truly brave who is afraid either to seem or to be, when it suits him, a coward.
That pleasure which is at once the most pure, the most elevating and the most intense, is derived, I maintain, from the contemplation of the beautiful.
The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins?
The death of a beautiful woman, is unquestionably the most poetical topic in the world.
The generous Critic fann'd the Poet's fire, And taught the world with reason to admire.
The ninety and nine are with dreams, content but the hope of the world made new, is the hundredth man who is grimly bent on making those dreams come true.
The nose of a mob is its imagination. By this, at any time, it can be quietly led.
The true genius shudders at incompleteness - and usually prefers silence to saying something which is not everything it should be.
There are few cases in which mere popularity should be considered a proper test of merit; but the case of song-writing is, I think, one of the few.
There is something in the unselfish and self-sacrificing love of a brute, which goes directly to the heart of him who has had frequent occasion to test the paltry friendship and gossamer fidelity of mere Man.
They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.
To vilify a great man is the readiest way in which a little man can himself attain greatness.
Were I called on to define, very briefly, the term Art, I should call it 'the reproduction of what the Senses perceive in Nature through the veil of the soul.' The mere imitation, however accurate, of what is in Nature, entitles no man to the sacred name of 'Artist.'
With me poetry has not been a purpose, but a passion.
Words have no power to impress the mind without the exquisite horror of their reality.