Poe: Poems

by Edgar Allan Poe

Poe's poems have been memorized and recited by millions. Among his best-loved works are "The Raven" with its hypnotic chant of "nevermore, " and the sensuous and lyrical "Annabel Lee." This collection includes all of Poe's most popular rhymes.

Genres: Poetry, Classics, Literature, Horror, 19th Century, Nonfiction, American

256 pages, Hardcover

Published October 31, 1995

About the author

The name Poe brings to mind images of murderers and madmen, premature burials, and mysterious women who return from the dead. His works have been in print since 1827 and include such literary classics as The Tell-Tale Heart, The Raven, and The Fall of the House of Usher. This versatile writer’s oeuvre includes short stories, poetry, a novel, a textbook, a book of scientific theory, and hundreds of essays and book reviews. He is widely acknowledged as the inventor of the modern detective story and an innovator in the science fiction genre, but he made his living as America’s first great literary critic and theoretician. Poe’s reputation today rests primarily on his tales of terror as well as on his haunting lyric poetry.

Just as the bizarre characters in Poe’s stories have captured the public imagination so too has Poe himself. He is seen as a morbid, mysterious figure lurking in the shadows of moonlit cemeteries or crumbling castles. This is the Poe of legend. But much of what we know about Poe is wrong, the product of a biography written by one of his enemies in an attempt to defame the author’s name.

The real Poe was born to traveling actors in Boston on January 19, 1809. Edgar was the second of three children. His other brother William Henry Leonard Poe would also become a poet before his early death, and Poe’s sister Rosalie Poe would grow up to teach penmanship at a Richmond girls’ school. Within three years of Poe’s birth both of his parents had died, and he was taken in by the wealthy tobacco merchant John Allan and his wife Frances Valentine Allan in Richmond, Virginia while Poe’s siblings went to live with other families. Mr. Allan would rear Poe to be a businessman and a Virginia gentleman, but Poe had dreams of being a writer in emulation of his childhood hero the British poet Lord Byron. Early poetic verses found written in a young Poe’s handwriting on the backs of Allan’s ledger sheets reveal how little interest Poe had in the tobacco business.

For more information, please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_al...

Reviews

[Chloe · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've always loved Poe, I've read these poems many a time, but never in this specific little book. I can't say anything bad about it, though this did lack a few poems that I also love.

[Marlon Austin · Rating 3 out of 5]

some of these are excellent, some of them read like bad imitations of the excellent ones. the part at the end where he bullies Wordsworth is amusing and the philosophy of composition is a fun yet almost certainly fictional “behind-the-scenes” look at the making of the Raven. he describes the death of a beautiful woman as “the most poetical topic in the world” and it is not hard to see why, as a solid 50% of his poems are about this.
truly iconic tho

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

As with his stories, the poems never get old. But it is wonderful fun to listen to them recited by great actors and follow along with the text the first time, then just listen the second time and beyond. Another fun way to enjoy them is to search interpretations on You Tube as recitations -- many set to creepy music -- or songs. We are doing a selection of Poe stories and poems for our neighborhood book club next month. Excited!!!!

[JV]

Além de sua prosa bem sucedida, Edgar Allan Poe conseguiu para si fama por seus poemas memoráveis sobre temas perturbadores. Mais memorável e perturbador, contudo, foi recitar de cor The Raven, com entonação pueril, enquanto ninava minha filha - tendo exaurido meu estoque de cantigas, é claro. Foi mais ou menos assim:

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* 　 Daaaarkness theeeeere and nooooooooooothing moore!!　 *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

Five stars because reading Poe poetry takes me back to the days I was learning to love the language of poetry.

[Sharvri Sonawane · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was mainly intrigued by some of the lesser known poems, as I had mainly only read the classic ones, however as I sat down to analyse the others, I was quite disappointed as I came to the conclusion that not all of Poe’s works are as legendary as I thought. I say this not to discredit some of his truly great works, but rather to shine a light at some of the ones which are at a lesser standard. While his poems are rich in structure and wonderfully written, the message they try to convey slowly start to become the same, leaving many of them insipid. I have a suspicion that this may be due to his poor financial situation, as he forced himself to write more and more which lead to many of the poems not having the richness in moral (?)(if that makes sense). Nevertheless, Poe was truly a great poet, I simply wish more people were taught about the lesser works as well.

[Anna Petruk]

[David Sastre · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poe is always fantastic!

[Timothy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Poe wrote few poems, few of which are any good. His technical expertise is excellent but nearly all of his poems lack substance; they are like brass clockworks, shiny, complex, dazzling to look at, difficult to craft, but ultimately lifeless. I suspect Poe knew this too and that he was simply attempting to rectify his financial difficulties by pandering to the public taste by writing overblown poems and stories in a Gothic fashion. Those in doubt concerning this conjecture are advised to consult the short story "How to Write a Blackwood Article". If you are still in doubt after reading the suggested piece, you are probably an American and do not understand satire.

[Jenny Clark · Rating 4 out of 5]

I do enjoy Poe's poems, but some of them can be a bit overdramatic, though I suppose that was the point. Annabel Lee and The Raven are two of my favorite poems by him, and both are here. The second half, where he critiques poetry and its assumed forms was kinda interesting, as it shows his thoughts, but at the same time I was not all that interested in it.
This is a good primer for Poe, as it has many of his poems and it does include his probably best known one in The Raven.

[Christel Grady · Rating 4 out of 5]

Originally, I picked this up ofr the poetry...duh. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find excerpts of prose near the end of the book. My personal favorite, as a poet, was the excerpt from The Poetic Principle. And of course, who doesn't adore The Raven?! Of course, I keep hearing it narrated by Christopher Walken...

[Charles Junkin · Rating 4 out of 5]

At first I thought I would enjoy only the most recognizable poems, thinking the rest were probably not very good. However, I read a biography of Poe while I was reading this book of poems, and that information helped me to experience a much deeper level of the poems. The poems are very relatable since they speak to humanity’s universal issues of loss and grief and worry.

[Yeliz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Apart from the beautiful harmony of Poe's selected poems in this book, I particularly enjoyed how Poe himself depicts his writing process on The Raven etc. It was very satisfying to partly undersand how his poetry worked.

[Patrick Boshell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Honestly a good read that I could just touch on here or there whenever the need arose. A bit of love and romance blended with the expected dark and dismal atmosphere of poe. A win for poetry lovers and regular Joe's alike.

[Lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Raven
The Raven (read in Finnish)
Ulalume
Annabel Lee
Eulalie
Lenore
etc.

[Amber · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't like poetry, but I love Edgar Allan Poe. I read this book a million times in high school.

[Jessie Howard]

I received this as a birthday present when I was 17 and it is still one of my favorite books. I give it 5 stars. Now if I could actually figure out how to do that on here.

[Babs Brodie · Rating 5 out of 5]

read in the 4th grade-birthday present- and many times since. it is one of my favorite possessions.

[Kimana McCallum · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book 4 of 10 of Personal Halloween Reading Challenge.

[Andreia]

dnf'ing ~20% in

just can't get into poetry lmao, maybe i'll revisit in the future

[Scumbag Park · Rating 5 out of 5]

Five stars just for The Raven