N is for Nevermore

I have been a fan of Edgar Allan Poe and Gothic literature since I first read The Raven as a child.  I think if I tried hard enough I could recite it, although I haven't read it in more than 20 years.  Here's the first stanza: 

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
" 'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door;
Only this, and nothing more."

I got really excited when I found the words to the poem and read them again for this post.  It's so cool to me that he wrote this sinister stuff and got so perfectly into the heads of people going at least a little crazy in 1845.

I loved Poe so much as a teen that I recited and gave a way-too-long literary criticism on The Conqueror Worm in 10th grade Honors English, a poem I'm sure few of you have ever heard of.  I thought it was cool because it was so dark and strange with images I thought no one else could ever imagine.  No one, including the teacher, was anywhere as excited about it as me.

Below is one of the more interesting stanzas:

But see, amid the mimic rout,
A crawling shape intrude!
A blood-red thing that writhes from out
The scenic solitude!
It writhes!—it writhes!—with mortal pangs
The mimes become its food,
And seraphs sob at vermin fangs
In human gore imbued.

I probably need to blame my dad for my love of Poe.  We watched each and every movie adaptation of Poe stories more than once.  I can't wait for P day - P is definitely for Poe and Vincent Price....