My Sacred Places: Poe Sites in Baltimore

This is how it all began. When I was in secondary school, one of my favorite authors was Edgar A. Poe. Like so many young people, I was drawn to his larger-than-life plots. In graduate school, I studied Poe’s works. In the last year of my PhD work at IU, a friend in theater asked me if, for her graduate course in makeup, she could use prosthetics and grease paint to transform me into Walt Whitman, the subject of my dissertation. I consented. I had only to stand center stage in the auditorium while a judging panel evaluated the makeup under lights. The committee said that I looked so much like Whitman that I should consider performing a play about the poet. After completing my PhD in early American literature and taking a position at Northern Kentucky University, I began to research and write a script for a one-person play depicting Whitman and his works. I performed the two-act drama many times, but requests for the show were relatively sporadic. It was a chore to keep two hours of material memorized in between shows that were spaced a month or more apart. As I thoroughly enjoyed performing the part of an author, I decided that, to perform more often, I would choose a writer more popular than Whitman. I then composed a script for a play depicting the master of horror, Edgar A. Poe.

One of My Publicity Photos

Depicting Me in the Rôle of Edgar A. Poe

My play had no intermission. The enactment demanded prodigious energy. My purpose was to put before theatergoers an authentic Poe, not the Poe of popular culture. My Poe was neither a drug addict nor a drunk. My Poe was a writer’s writer. My Poe loved satire, had a towering sense of humor, screamed boo, winked, and smirked. My Poe changed costumes onstage to become the quirky narrators in “To Helen,” “Berenice,” and “The Raven.” My Poe quoted from his letters, essays, and reviews so as to give a nuanced depiction of the author. To change me into Poe meant a makeup process requiring between four and six hours. The style of makeup varied depending on whether the audience was close to me or far away, but the time it took to prepare Poe’s face remained the same.

My Sketch of Poe’s Raven

 

In the past forty years, eighteen actors have played the rôle of Poe on stage, according to writer Michael McGlasson. I offered a fully memorized and fully staged performance with an elaborate set. I gave over two hundred performances of my play A Dream Within a Dream during a dozen years. Thousands witnessed my drama. I last performed my play on Poe in 1994. Mine was not a costumed reading from a lectern—the form to which many Poe enactors resorted; rather, my performance was a ninety-minute, fully scripted show with a set and with a light and-sound technician.

“The Hour Glass of the Kings”

Illustration by Robert W. Satterfield

Page 1 of The Kentucky Post for Friday, December 10, 1915

For a Poe enactor, Baltimore is arguably the most important city in which to stand before the footlights. After all, Baltimore has Poe: his corpse, that is. Poe died in Baltimore on October 7^th in 1849 at the age of 40. Jeff Jerome of the Baltimore Poe Society named my play the authorized stage version of Poe’s life, and he brought my drama to Baltimore for performances on Poe’s birthday in 1988 and 1990. Both shows took place before standing-room only crowds in the deconsecrated church beside Poe’s grave. I was the performer in 1990 when Life Magazine secured an infrared photograph of the man who left cognac and roses on Poe’s grave. The photographer that Life hired took many pictures of my play, but none of them wound up in the magazine. After the performances, I led theater-goers in a toast to Poe beside his grave marker. What a thrilling experience that was! Anyone wishing to know more about Poe should visit the website of the Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore, and anyone wanting to read a complete account of my play can see “In Poe’s Skin” at Rhode’s Books from the HeartLand.

My Sacred Places: Angel Mounds

Each of us has visited places that we regard as sacred. Cathedrals, burial grounds, and monuments to soldiers fallen in the line of duty readily come to mind. When we broaden the definition of “sacred” to include any place inspiring our loftiest ideas and our highest respect, we have a host of consecrated locations. This series of blogs is dedicated to a few of my sacred places.

My India Ink Drawing of Woodland Mound,

Which I Made for Dr. Conard Carroll

When my brother and I were enrolled in one of many summer sessions at Indiana University, we decided to spend a Saturday at Angel Mounds. After AD 1000, a large settlement of Native Americans thrived beside the Ohio River; the impressive civilization lasted until 1450. The inhabitants farmed the area for miles around. The site boasted a dozen impressively large structures including various mounds and a palisade.

As it turned out, my brother and I had chosen a stiflingly hot day. At approximately 11:00 a.m., we parked our car and walked through a weedy field toward a reconstructed section of the palisade wall, which once had bastions at rhythmic intervals along the half circle that stretched from the river, around the village, and back to the river again. The sun beat down on our heads. We were standing on soil that crayfish loved. Every inch of ground was steamy. Even while standing still to read the markers interpreting the archaeological site, we felt sweat beading on our foreheads and dripping down our backs. We weren’t being baked; we were being boiled!

We had come to see the mounds, and we were going to see them, no matter how sweltering the day might be! We went from one to the next, surveying each in its torrid splendor. Not a breath of air cooled our perspiring faces. All was breezeless and scorching. We were the only visitors to the park. Others were wiser. Others were enjoying themselves in air-conditioned rooms somewhere. We trudged from a platform mound to a conical mound. We could have wrung the moisture from our shirts.

We found appealing the thought of climbing above the tropical bottom land, so we scaled the cone before us. We dragged our feet through tangled grasses, our tendons pulling hard as we scrambled up the steep embankment. When we reached the top, we sat down to drain. The view was spectacular. The turquoise haze of southern Indiana lay above the land bordered by motionless trees. The great river lay beyond with scarcely a trace of movement as if it were a lake instead.

For a long time, neither of us spoke. I felt that we were becoming one with nature.

Just then, with a sarcasm that only my brother can wield, he jeered, “It probably took them a long time to make this mound. I bet they wish they could have had our modern earth-moving equipment. With a good bulldozer, they could have scraped this mound together in less than a day.”

Out of nowhere, a furious wind suddenly crashed against us. We took one look at each other, jumped to our feet, and dashed pall-mall down the slope, nearly falling several times in our rush toward the level plain. Once we regained our breath, I said, rather accusingly, “They didn’t like that very much!” Contritely, my brother said, “No. That stirred up something we had no right to disturb.”

Neither of us felt safe. We abruptly concluded our visit by striding back to our vehicle. Since that day so long ago, we have journeyed to many prehistoric sites in Ohio, and, needing no reminder, we have kept a respectful attitude throughout our trips.       

My Friend Kiko (Last Installment in This Series)

Kiko chose my house. He had visited my neighbor’s home and had considered living there, but, ultimately, he preferred my place. On a spectacular spring morning, I held open the kitchen door while the orange and white cat padded confidently inside.

Kiko, Who Remained a Kitten Throughout a Long Life

Kiko was grown but still kittenish. He had a positive outlook toward everything, except moving, as I later discovered. He felt reassured that he had made the right decision in selecting me as his “owner.” He played and purred, purred and played, all day long, and, in the evenings, he snuggled in my lap for a snooze while I watched the news.

Whenever he stood by the kitchen door, I let him out. Whenever he wanted back in, he waited patiently on the small porch beyond the doorway until I chanced to see him there.

Kiko was a fierce hunter of snakes. Even though he was a small cat, he scaled my tall privacy fence each day and prowled the neighborhood searching for garter snakes. Whenever he caught one, he brought it back to my fenced yard. With the dead snake drooping from his mouth, he shinnied and clawed his way to the top of the boards. Then he always confronted a problem. As he squeezed through the gap between the arrow-shaped tops of two boards and sprang to the ground, the snake caught in the gap and slipped from his jaws. He looked up at his prize, pondered ways to retrieve it, stared to one side in puzzlement, and shook his head. Forgetting the loss of the snake, he skipped merrily onto the porch and tarried there. When I graciously opened the door and he strode into my house, I checked the fence, and—sure enough!—a deceased serpent festooned it! My duty was to dispose of the reptile before the neighbors saw it and wondered why I had draped it over the top of my fence.

Kiko was easy to care for and great fun! In return, he gave his fullest affection. How many times when I was sad did he spring to my lap and cheer me? How many days when I was busy did he startle me by skittering across the hardwood floor in a wild dash that made me laugh? He was my steadfast companion and friend.

My Oil Pastel Drawing of Kiko in a Wicker Chair

When I moved to a different house far away, Kiko reacted in a manner that I could never have predicted. When I set him on the floor of our new home, he trembled with fear. I turned to other tasks. I thought that he simply needed time to explore and to adjust on his own. After an hour or two, I could not find him.

I searched high and low, but there was no sign of Kiko. That night, I could hardly sleep. I racked my brain trying to think of a place where he could be hiding.

The next morning, I bent over the washing machine to check the connections and noticed a hole through the underside of the cabinets above the dryer. Aha! I opened the doors, and there was Kiko curled into a small ball inside the cabinet! When I removed him, he purred.

After spending his first night in a cabinet above the dryer, Kiko accepted his new home and never returned to the hiding place. He was his happy-go-lucky self again.

The only difference of opinion that he and I ever had was over whether he should be given a bath. I tried … once! My scratches healed after about a week.

Kiko lived a long life. Toward the end, his kidneys began to fail. I delayed euthanasia for as long as I felt I could in good conscience, but the end had to come. I cried a lot when I buried Kiko with his favorite toys.