National Poetry Month Challenge Day Two

If you read my blog regularly, you will know that I partook in a blogger's challenge with the theme being April Fools or being a fool for books. I had a lot of fun and it gave me am idea.

I thought since this is national Poetry Month that I would do is (without the fancy graphics - I cannot do that), put up some fun images I dig up.

So with that short introduction, today is day two.

Challenge 2 - If you like poetry, talk about your favorite poet. If you do not like poetry, tell me an author you like that, if they wrote poetry, you would read it.

From Challenge 1 you know I like poetry. And looking up a lot of poetry to jog my 14 year span of missing memories I remember I was a fool for Edgar Allan Poe. In High School wow. He was the you know what. So I thought you might like to know a little bit about his poetry which is why I like it so much.

Poe started writing in Gothic to appease public taste. He centered a lot on death. Poe was strongly disliked. Poe referred to his followers as "Frogpondians" after the pond on Boston Commons and ridiculed their writings as "metaphor-run", lapsing into "obscurity of obscurity sake" and other things. Poe wrote a letter once to a friend that he did not dislike Transcendentalists "only pretenders and sophists among them"

Beyond horror Poe wrote satires, humoer tales, and hoaxes. In fact, "Metzengerstein", the first story that Poe is known to have published and his first foray into horror, was originally intended as a burlesque satirizing the popular genre. Poe also re-invented science fiction with works like "The Balloon Hoax" Poe wrote much of his work using themes specifically catered for mass market tastes. To that end, his fiction often included elements of popular pseudosciences, such as phrenology and physiognomy.

Poe's writing reflects his literary theories, which he presented in his criticism and also in essay such as "The Poetic Principle". He disliked didacticicism and allegory though he believed that meaning in literature should be an undercurrent just beneath the surface. Works with obvious meanings, he wrote, cease to be art. He believed the quality of the work should be brief and focus on a specific single effect. To that end, he believed that the writers should carefully calculate every sentiment and idea. in "The Philosophy of Composition", an essay in which Poe describes this method in writing "The Raven", he claims to have strictly followed this method.

There are many genres that Poe wrote in and he did get a lot of backlash in his days for his poetry. I do not want to give you too much to digest, but he is so famous that he has spawned over the years many imitators. One interesting trend was that Poe imitators claimed to be "channeling" Poe to create their poetry.

Poe had a rough time not only because of his drug problem and his work not immediately being recognized for what it was, which was amazing, but also because he received with his praise, criticism partly because of the negative perception of his personal character and it's influence on his reputation. Poe, throughout his attempts to live as a writer, had to repeatedly resort to humiliating pleas for money and other assistance.

Poe was considered part of the American Romantic Movement . He is best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre. Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor or the detective fiction genre. He is further credited with contributing to the emerging genre of science fiction. He was the first well known American writer to try to earn a living through writing alone, resulting in a financially difficult life and career.

I could go on forever about Poe. He was such fascination man. And he did interesting things. I could not even name my favorite poem by him. Of course The Raven and The Telltale Heart are two of my favorites. I did purchase a book of many of his poems and I am very excited to read it in between the tour books I am reading. The name of the book and where I got most of my information that I gave you above is The Works Of Edgar Allan Poe.

I would love to just write the pages and pages of interesting information I never heard about Poe from starting to read this book. But now it is your turn. Take part in the challenge!

Mismatched Bookends: Click here.