Becoming Poe Again

Becoming Poe Again is basically a recap of most of Episode One of this podcast series - my background regarding Poe and how I became interested in the writer.  One dynamic that seems to run through my interest is the factor of just "dumb luck," and a fascination with Poe  that has resulted in over 200 podcast episodes regarding Poe - with that many more (at least) scheduled to come.

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MUSIC - Come Rest in This Bosom

Welcome to Celebrate Poe - Episode Two Hundred Ten, Becoming Poe Again
 
The music for the into210 you are hearing, Come Rest in This Bosom, is said to be from Edgar Allan Poe’s favorite song according to one of his sweethearts, Marie Devereaux.
 
 My name is George Bartley, and in this episode, I would like to talk a bit about my background, and how I became interested in Poe.  Now I know that I intended for this episode to be a chronological catchup of the first half of Poe’s life - I have written that and plan to release it two weeks from now.

But I realized this morning, that the majority of listeners to Celebrate Poe - at least according to my download stats - did not hear the first two episodes - and the first two episodes are basically necessary to understand - or at least give more depth to - the information that follows afterwards. And in this episode, I want to let you know where I am coming from and where I am as we take this journey together into the times, life, and works of “America’s Shakespeare” - Edgar Allan Poe. 
 
 In the next episode, I will describe my first encounter with the ghost of Poe, and how he became my co-host.

 Ten years ago, my partner (now my husband) and I moved to Richmond, Virginia.I began looking for a job, but didn’t have any luck. Then I saw an opening at the local Apple Store.This really ages me, but I bought a Macintosh 128K back when the Mac first came out, and have been an Apple fan ever since.
 
 Anyway, so it seemed to me that working at the Apple Store would be a dream job. I was called in for an interview, and really felt that it went well.But several weeks went by without me hearing from them - never a good sign. And finally I got a letter from the Apple Store saying I “did not fit in with their goals.” To me, this was not just a minor disappointment, but a devastating rejection.
 
 Later in the year, I thought about what it might be like to work at the Apple Store with its constant crowds of wall-to-wall people - mobs of upset Apple fans at Christmas - I could almost hear the constant roar and pressing crowds - then I realized it might not be the job of my dreams. 
 
 My husband then told me about an ad he had seen for a job at the Poe Museum in Richmond. To be honest, much of what I knew about Poe was just the usual stuff you learn in high school to get by - not that much. And like many uptight people from the South, I felt on some level that Poe was not quite decent. But that soon changed.

Now I had just gotten a graduate degree in Shakespeare and Renaissance Literature from Mary Baldwin University in cooperation with the American Shakespeare Center.(A mouthful, but that’s the way we are supposed to say it.)The American Shakespeare Center is located in Staunton, Virginia - a beautiful little town in the Shenandoah Mountains about 90 miles from Richmond.And since Poe is often referred to as “America’s Shakespeare,” I thought maybe I could emphasize my Shakespeare background and somehow make it work for me. It couldn’t be that big a jump from being a Shakespeare nerd to becoming a Poe nerd.

Now after leaving college,I had lived in Charlottesville - about thirty miles away - where Poe attended the University of Virginia for several months.His dorm room in the quad area gives a sense of what daily life was like for students in the university’s first years.From what I understand, the rooms in that area are reserved today for graduate students.Poe’s room was rather sparse, and all I remember was that it had a rather uncomfortable-looking bed, some bundled wood and a raven on the mantle. And the room number was, appropriately enough, number 13.

But the thing that impressed me the most was the gigantic poster of Madonna (who was extremely popular then) in the student’s room beside room 13. Ok, maybe I knew a little bit about Poe, but not that much.And I found out later that a great deal of it was wrong.

But back to the Poe Museum for my job interview -

You entered the Poe Museum through a rather small building called the Old Stone House - build around 1737. I later learned that this had been the residence of the Egge family who had helped supply General Lafayette’s troops during the Revolutionary War. Poe would have passed the house on his walks down Main Street.

The house is known as the oldest home in Richmond.In a city with many old homes, the Old Stone House is famous as the only home still standing build prior to the Revolutionary War.

The Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities saved the building from being destroyed in 1913, and loaned it to the Poe Foundation.

The house then opened as the Poe Museum in 1922.

While Poe never specifically lived in the house it does have a connection to Poe - something I will discuss when we cover Poe’s youth. In any case, I walked into the museum - not really knowing what to expect - Chris Semtner (the brilliant director of the museum), greeted me and proudly showed me around.

By the way, before I go any further, the museum, like many places, has been closed to the public because of the Covid crisis.But now the museum is open with masks or face coverings required, timed entry, and a limit of 6 people at a time. And if you are not in a position to visit - or even if you are - let me encourage you to support the museum by shopping at their gift store online - the gift store has some awesome Poe related items.Their web site is poemuseum.org

The exhibit I remember the most from that day - I was rather nervous - was an exhibit of lines from Shakespeare’s plays that Poe had copied.For some odd reason, I distinctly remember part of the document was from 

Hamlet.Now Poe was not trying pass the words off as his - but as a tribute to Shakespeare - a great writer who had a tremendous influence on Poe’s work.

Chris basically just talked, and I told him some things about my background. The interview seemed to go really well but I think I had learned enough to know an interview could go either way.Imagine my surprise at being hired on the spot - the first and last time that has happened to me anywhere. I would like to think that it was because of my background and education - but in reality I think they just needed somebody right away.

During the next few months, I was constantly amazed to learn how many creative or artistic people had visited the museum - including the writers Gertrude Stein and H.P. Lovecraft, as well as Vincent Price - the star of many movies based on Poe stories.During Mr. Price’s visit in 1975, he had his photo taken with the museum’s famed stuffed raven.In 2014, his daughter, Victoria Price visited the museum, and said that Poe had been such a part of her life that she thought of him as her uncle.

The museum is near the Richmond Coliseum - so often the musicians who were appearing at the Coliseum would visit the Poe Museum. Willie Nelson with his entourage were visitors.And Billy Corgan and the Smashing Pumpkins were also among those who stopped by. One day, a rather quiet and reserved lady wandered in off the street alone.It was Bette Midler - who apparently had a real interest in Poe. I later talked with a friend who was fortunate enough to see her show that night at the Richmond Coliseum, and he said that Bette Midler mentioned the Poe Museum during her concert.

To say I enjoyed becoming immersed in learning about Edgar Allan Poe would be an understatement - and getting paid for that passion was a bonus.

Then my partner told me that he had gotten a job in Washington DC.To move or not to move was a difficult decision, but we ended up leaving Richmond, and I assumed my interest in Poe was going to be a thing of the past.I got a job as a tour guide at Woodlawn - a colonial house across the Potomac River from Mount Vernon, and the Pope-Leighey House - a home designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.

Then we moved to West Virginia where I interpreted for several Deaf students at West Virginia University, and was a tour guide at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater in Pennsylvania.  Notice a pattern here?

And the ironic part was that my interest in the life and works of Edgar Allan Poe was to intensify in a personal and professional way that I could have never imagined - all because I was now in West Virginia.

You, see I found myself in the enviable position of traveling through the state of West Virginia dressed in costume as Poe as a historical re-enactor.

But more about that later. 

I am going to start this part of the podcast with a story that I don’t think I’ve told anybody before. As a kid, I was painfully shy.In the first grade, the teacher would say raise your hand if you need to go to the bathroom.That was unthinkable to me - I was way too scared and just couldn’t stand the idea of calling attention to myself.Several times I would leave for the day and there would be a pool of urine beneath my desk. I was just too shy to hold up my hand.

I even decided to become an interpreter for the Deaf because I erroneously thought that would keep me from talking to people.Well, I could not have been more wrong.As an interpreter, you are constantly faced with medical, educational, legal, and even performance arts situations where people are paying constant attention to your communication.As an interpreter, I ended up signing for thousands of hours - in schools, hospitals, for plays, religious settings, and almost any area requiring communication.

So, over the years I started forcing myself to communicate in front of a group.Being a tour guide was a very structured way of doing that - and you had plenty of chances to get it right.

Getting back to West Virginia, my husband and I had moved to Morgantown - site of West Virginia University - and like most college towns, it has its progressive elements.Morgantown is a bustling city, but in 10 minutes you can be in the middle of beautiful forests on the side of a mountain.And you can look down into a valley with a winding river that takes your breath away. It is a beautiful area, but I thought there just wouldn’t be the opportunities I was looking for.I was an interpreter for the deaf at West Virginia University but it was hard to depend on a specific number of hours. I worked at the Morgantown tour center, but that was part time work.And I was a guide at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater.I REALLY enjoyed that - but it was in Pennsylvania (about a two hour drive) and also was part time.

One day, I was surfing the web, and ran across a page about a program of the West Virginia Humanities Council called History Alive.The program featured West Virginia citizens portraying historical figures at such venues as schools, libraries, community centers, and festivals.At first I was excited at the idea of possibly portraying Edgar Allan Poe - but that hope was dashed when I realized there seemed to be an emphasis on West Virginia history, and initially  I really did not know any connection that Poe had with West Virginia.Edgar Allan Poe breathed his last in 1849, and West Virginia did not become a state until 1863 - a difference of 14 years.It was one of those times when you get all excited about something, and then your hopes are dashed when faced with reality.

Then I began frequenting the West Virginia Library.I did a lot of research and found some historical information that I could use - for example when I was traveling though the northern part of the state as Poe, I could talk about Poe’s writings about Harper’s Ferry - a historic town in the northern part of West Virginia.

Another connection was Dr. Thomas Dunn English - Poe and Dr. English were today what we might call frenemies, and while they were friends at first, Dr. English later made some libelous statements about Poe in print.Edgar Allan Poe sued Dr. English, won the case, and was able to buy some new furniture.Dr. English was the first mayor of Logan, West Virginia, a small coal town about sixty miles from Charleston in the middle of the state. It is believed that when Poe wrote the horror story “The Cask of Amontiado”,” he was writing about Dr. English in the character of Fortunado - who is buried alive in the tale.How many mayors can say they were sued by Edgar Allan Poe?Or buried alive in a Poe’s story?

When I had bookings as Poe in the southern part of the state, I could emphasize how the Allan family vacationed there with the rest of the then southern aristocracy at White Sulphur Springs in Greenbrier County.And even though Poe could be very unbelievably critical of other writers in his reviews, he spoke quite highly of Phillip Pendleton Cook from the southern part of what became West Virginia.He also spoke highly of Dr. Joseph Snodgrass, a writer from Berkley County in the same area. When Poe was found in a Baltimore tavern just before his death, he called out for Dr. Snodgrass.Dr. Snodgrass was one of the few people who attended Poe’s funeral.

So it started to look like Poe just might be good subject for a history alive character.All applicants for the program had to write a detailed paper/application regarding his or her chosen subject - and if there is one thing that college teaches you to do is write papers.

So after submitting the application and an audition, I was chosen to be Edgar Allan Poe - the Humanities Council even paid for a costume.And for the next few years, I traveled around West Virginia (and later Pennsylvania) as Edgar Allan Poe.Each presenter’s program was structured to have three sections.In the case of Poe,

First I would speak as Poe regarding the historical, social, and political issues that influenced his life.Then I would answer questions from the audience - still as Poe.

For the final part, I would “break character” and speak as myself to answer questions - as a researcher I could answer questions that the historical character would not know yet - such as how his life influenced other writers, movies, etc.)

This podcast will be structured as basically an extended version of that History Alive character - instead of covering Poe and his world in a half an hour, there will be hopefully hundreds of hours devoted to covering Poe and his influence on our world.

I mention all this because this podcast is a real deep dive into the life and works of Poe with a great deal of information, and I think a variation of the format I used for History Alive would be the simplest, most logical, and entertaining way of getting the narrative, - and the many connected stories -across.

Whereas a presentation is usually rather structured for a classroom, this podcast will hopefully be a great deal more free-flowing.

You could almost say this podcast has two hosts - myself and the ghost - or if you will - the spirit of Edgar Allan Poe.The character of the ghost of Poe is obviously fictional, but what he says is based on thousands of hours of research into historical events.

Now to answer the very basic question - how will the listener know when I am speaking as me, and when I am speaking as Poe. Well, after a great deal of thought, I decided to record the audio on two tracks with separate pitch filters. I would speak as myself as appropriate regarding narration, questions, and commentary on one track.And I would speak as Poe’s ghost - more about that in the next episode - about his life and works, and even events after his death on the other track - using his words and what others have said about him. All this probably sounds a lot more complicated than it really is.Hopefully it will all come across seamlessly.

But how do we know what Poe sounded like?

Well, in an article from the excellent The Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore web site, the author states that sometimes Poe’s voice was very restrained, and other times very theatrical - that he did not have a single style of presentation.Mary Gove Nichols wrote in 1863 about Poe that “He always spoke low, even in a violent discussion.”On the other hand, Mary Starr in 1888 wrote “His voice was pleasant and musical, but not deep. So that doesn’t help much.

Unfortunately Poe breathed his last in 1849 long before sound recording was invented. One lady who heard Poe speak, wrote that he sounded like the great actor Edwin Booth (the brother of John Wilkes Booth who shot Abraham Lincoln.) And we do have an 1890 recording of the great actor Edwin Booth from one of Shakespeare’s tragedies, Othello.By today's standards, the sound quality is quite poor, so I will read it first, so you can hopefully understand the words better.

Most potent, grave, and reverend signiors, 
 My very noble and approved good masters, 
 That I have ta'en away this old man's daughter,
 It is most true; true, I have married her:
 
 Before listening to these four lines - I am not going to subject you to any thing longer - pay special attention to the end for what are probably the clearest words in this passage - “I have married her.”
 
 Here’s Edwin Booth from 130 years ago.
 
 (scratch, hard to understand sounds)

Most potent, grave, and reverend signiors,
 My very noble and approved good masters,
 That I have ta'en away this old man's daughter,
 It is most true; true, I have married her:

OK - that might help a little bit.I guess that is about as close to hearing Poe’s voice as we will get - taking into consideration that Booth was from Maryland.    Now what about Poe’s accent? I was taught in a theater class that if appropriate you should YOUR accent in developing what the character might have sounded like.And the closer your accent is to the character - the better

I had lived in Richmond several years - same as Poe.And grew up in Staunton - a place Poe visited every year when the Allan family spent summers at White Sulphur Springs. I also had lived in West Virginia for several years. I had spent some time in New York and Baltimore, like Poe and lived in Pennsylvania - just like Poe. People in Pennsylvania who I worked with would comment on my Southern accent - that I “talked funny.”

Poe most likely spoke with a strong Southern accent - He did not have the influences of hearing speech on television, radio, and the internet.Most ofthe speech patterns he picked up were most likely those of the Richmonders around him.For example, in the Richmond of Poe’s time (and still in many areas of Virginia) the phrase “haunted house” is pronounced “han’ted house.”So in The Raven, Poe would have most likely said “on this desert land enchanted On this home by horror han’ted -.”So, with Poe, , “enchanted” and “han’ted” would rime.

I used this approach to “what did Poe sound like” in developing the historical character for the history alive program and throughout this podcast.

By the way, as I said,I try to keep the ghost of Poe as historically accurate as possible - especially when he talks about his life.But this is not a scholarly paper, and the ghost will occasionally make such statements as “I currently hant the halls of the Library of Congress.”It seems logical that the a ghost of Poe would choose to haunt a library because he loved to read so much, and the Library of Congress is the largest library in the world.Iencourage you to use the links to ask questions from the character of Mr. Poe at celebratepoe@gmail.com - there is no need to include your name, unless you want a shout out.I do have quite a few questions from my days at History Alive as Poe - but I want to deal with the subjects that YOU are most interested in.  As you can probably guess, most of the information in this podcast is from an earlier episode - but Celebrate Poe has surpassed my expectations.  The podcast has barely gotten through the first half of Poe’s life and has had over 200 episodes - that’s approximately 2,000 pages of script.  Naturally just a few people heard the introductory material that I included in episodes 1 and 2 - but since then Celebrate Poe has had over 11,000 downloads - not on the scale of an Oprah or Rachael Maddow, but not too shabby for an educational podcast - if I do say so myself.

Again you can just send any questions - for Mr. Poe, or even me - to celebratepoe@gmail.com

So much for the nuts and bolts of this podcast - I want to give future episodes a supernatural vibe - so join me for the next podcast, where I first encounter the ghost - or if you will - spirit of Poe.

Resources include Robert Blumfield’s excellent Accents: A Manual for Actors.

Well, thank you very much for making it this far, as we take a deep dive into learning about America’s Shakespeare, and how he has changed our world. Remember to subscribe to this podcast.There is so much to come in Celebrate Poe, and you don’t want to miss it.

MUSIC - Come Rest in This Bosom