I might hit up the Poe house this afternoon to check out the new exhibit. I highly encourage you to celebrate his big day with at least reading one of his poems or short stories. Here’s a great site to read some of his stories. I’ve been hooked on Poe ever since I memorized The Raven in the 7th grade oratory contest (losing controversially). I was captivated by not just his works but by his tragic life, and how the two are tied in so personally in his work. His brilliance lie in writing about characters who were evil and of no redeeming value, and still he made us somehow relate with them, bringing us in contact with the darkest corners of our own minds. His poetry was as haunting as his short stories, and he believed that the death of beautiful women to be the “most poetical topic in the world”. A good example of this is one of my favorites, Annabel Lee.
