Show Me the Place, 74

“Show me the place.”

Duke Senior in As You Like It (2.1)

74: Baltimore, Maryland; Edgar Allan Poe House; July 2002

A simple structure built of brick

Where (1830s*) Poe had stayed,

And it was there he first displayed

Those talents that have made him stick

With countless readers—here, abroad.

He showed the darkness in the heart;

He crafted poems—purest art;

He showed the terror of the odd.

The place still stands in Baltimore—

He wrote those works we still admire—

Those works of which we’ll never tire—

We love that bird—that “Nevermore!”

*1832–35