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Pennymaker: *smiling, turning to face the camera* Hello, and welcome to the Sporadic Interview with a Dead Author Blog... *clears throat* Yes, well, don't think too much and just go with it... I have to say that today's author is one of my all-time favorites, as much because of his approach to poetry and the short story as his rather fantastic life story.

Poe: *offscreen muttering* That is entirely Griswold's fault.

Pennymaker: *clears throat again* Our guest today is none other than the illustrious Edgar Allan Poe, lately of Baltimore, Maryland.

Poe: *now on camera* *popping sounds of audio interference* How does this contraption work? *holds up lapel mic* More to the point, what IS this contraption? Some strange, unsightly spider, jaws that, pinching, perch it yonder, yonder upon my chest, *bends to follow mic cord downward* with one long and slender line that, from it, trailing, disappears under, under the... *muffled offscreen*...table...

Pennymaker: *strained smile* Mr. Poe?

Poe: *emerging from beneath studio table* *barely audible* I have plucked this strange beast out by the root, Miss. *drops unplugged lapel mic on the table* *tiny, serious smile* It will trouble you no longer.

Pennymaker: Oh. Ah. Thank you. We'll take a short break then, while I —

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Pennymaker: *smiling at camera* And we're back, with Mr. Poe as our guest writer, poet, and literary critic extraordinaire. Now. For my first question, Mr. Poe, I would love to know what your typical day looks like?

Poe: *silence* *somber staring into the camera* *takes flask from inside jacket pocket and unscrews cap* I pass my time by wandering the streets of Baltimore. Walking takes my mind off of things. Such dark things... *takes a sip, then offers flask across the table*

Pennymaker: *shakes head*

Poe: *shrugs, takes another swig while gazing vacantly into a middle distance* Tombstones. I read tombstones, mainly. Sepulchers. By the sea. *mumbles* Annabel...

Pennymaker: So! You have an interesting view on poetry, which was ground-breaking for your day. I've been dying to find out how you came up with your theories. Can you shed some light on what guided your journey as a writer?

Poe: *highpitched chuckle* Dying! You said dying.

Pennymaker: That was an unfortunate choice of —

Poe: Pedantry. I detest pedantry. There is a modern phrase you young people use. What is it? Keep it simple, stupid? I would, I believe, agree with that sentiment. Didacticism is the positive bane of poetry, and writing in general. If, by purpose, a poem must say a thing, let it simply say that thing.

Pennymaker: I see. So you would be —

Poe: As I mentioned in my Philosophy of Composition, (which, perhaps, you have read), nothing is more clear than that every plot, worth the name, must be elaborated to its denouement before anything be attempted with the pen.

Pennymaker: Ah. You're a plotter, then —

Poe: Yes. To quote myself further, I prefer commencing with the consideration of an effect. *pause to sip at flask* I say to myself, in the first place, "Of the innumerable effects, or impressions, of which the heart, the intellect, or (more generally) the soul is susceptible, what one shall I, on the present occasion, select?" Having chosen a novel, first, and secondly a vivid effect, I consider whether it can be best wrought by incident or tone- whether by ordinary incidents and peculiar tone, or the converse, or by peculiarity both of incident and tone- afterward looking about me (or rather within) for such combinations of event, or tone, as shall best aid me in the construction of the effect.
Writers don't always like to admit they do this, but I think it is the way will all those who put pen to parchment... Most writers- poets in especial- prefer having it understood that they compose by a species of fine frenzy- an ecstatic intuition- and would positively shudder at letting the public take a peep behind the scenes, at the elaborate and vacillating crudities of thought- *gestures lazily with flask* at the true purposes seized only at the last moment- at the innumerable glimpses of idea that arrived not at the maturity of full view- at the fully-matured fancies discarded in despair as unmanageable- at the cautious selections and rejections- at the painful erasures and interpolations- in a word, at the wheels and pinions- the tackle for scene-shifting- the step-ladders, and demon-traps- the cock's feathers, the red paint and the black patches, which, in ninety- nine cases out of a hundred, constitute the properties of the literary histrio... *swigs from flask*

Pennymaker: *wide eyed* So... didacticism is... Nevermind. You would say then, that you plot first, then pants while you're writing?

Poe: *doubtfully* Yeeessss? I'm not familiar with all of your new phraseology.

Pennymaker: Ah. Pantsing would be the 'in the moment erasures and interpolations' and 'the tackle for scene-shifting,' etc. So, if you were to, say, compose –

Poe: *giggling* I can't. I am decomposing.

Pennymaker: *momentary pause* *wry face* True.

Poe: *laughs out loud* *takes long drink* *stops laughing* *frowns* *tips flask upside down, eyes it mournfully* *begins to tear up* Virginia is decomposing too. *sobs* She lived with no other thought than to love and be loved... by... by...

Pennymaker: *speaking over loud wailing offscreen* Well, that ends our interview. Thank you so much for tuning in. We'll be back at some point in the future with another episode of Interview with a Dead Author. Thank you. Yes. Have a wonderful day.

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