Dead Poets Society of America

Sleeping in the Shadow of Sarah Jewett

Dedgar and I found ourselves tired after a two-week filming spree, so I took a short detour to South Berwick, ME.. where we parked right next to the beautiful Sarah Orne Jewett House, and slept for 4 hours.

Then I gathered a lovely bouquet of small flowers from her garden and used them to make tombstone art at her grave nearbye. Had an amazing 3 hour photo shoot with Sarah and fam and flowers. Some of the best photos I've taken on my journeys.

That's Poesome Dude!

That's Poesome Dude is a new public photo album on Flickr. Feel free to post any photos you have that are related to Edgar Allan Poe.

 

Daniel Hoffman, Helen McKenna-Uff and Dedgar at the Poe House in Philadelphia. May 26, 2011. Bob Dylan has taken a friend to the Poe House; so should you!

The Great Boston Poetry Marathon of 2010 Announced

This Columbus Day sail the ocean of poetic imagination as Dedgar The Poemobile leads a sunrise to sunset reading of over 40 poets at five major locations. Celebrate Dead Poets Remembrance Day in style, by joining the caravan for the whole day, starting at 6:15, in Gloucester, or meeting for a reading at Beverly, Salem, Boston Commons, Mt. Auburn Cemetery, or Author's Ridge.

This historic journey to the graves of so many sung and unsung poets is the longest poetry marathon in the history of Mt. Parnassus. We are looking for a reader for each of our 44 poets being read.

(Nearly) Dead Poet Guy

A little over a year ago several different poet friends, independently of each other, began to call me the "Dead Poet Guy." So I figured that was a pretty good moniker to use.

Last Monday, while traveling through New Jersey, and not far from the grave of the poet Henry Van Dyke, in Princeton, I almost became the Really Dead Dead Poet Guy. After waking up with chest pains I drove to the Princeton hospital and a few days later I had stents in both of my coronary arteries. Had I not gotten to the hospital for treatment I would have been just another dead poet from New Jersey!

As it is, I'm sitting at my sister's house under a big tree, watching mother birds get worms and what not for their babes in the bird feeders, and going out for 4th of July festivities tonight.

Van Dyke wrote the words to the famous hymn, "Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee."

Dedgar Meets Gioia

Dedgar had the distinct pleasure to meet and greet poet, scholar and teacher, Dana Gioia. Gioia is also the former Chairman of the National Endowment of the Arts. Pictures will be forthcoming of the artwork he left on Dedgar. It was only fitting, as Gioia did a dissertation on Poe at Stanford.

In 2007 Gioia gave the commencement speech at Stanford

Bayard Taylor : #201

Had a lovely early-morning visit to the grave of Bayard Taylor this morning, on the last day of the amazing West Chester University Poetry Conference. His tombstone is actually a remarkable sculpture, unlike any poet's grave I have ever seen. (I will upload pictures soon).

Taylor grew up on a Quaker farm and on my ride back to West Chester I meandered through the Pennsylvania countryside and could imagine life as young Bayard knew it. I saw many lush farms and old, Revolutionary-era stone houses.

Now I'm in Ocean Grove, New Jersey, with four of my 5 children, and my sister, for a few days on the Jersey Shore (were I was born). Walt Whitman wrote a poem about the ocean while at  Ocean Grove one summer. Stephen Crane's father was a Methodist pastor/preacher who was very involved in the Methodist Camp Meeting town of Ocean Grove. A house associated with Crane is still standing in Asbury Park, the town directly north of here, and Dedgar and I are going to try and track it down.

200th Grave Reached!

After more than 2 years of a long, strange and wonderful journey (living on deds, Vitamin B, and caffeine), I found my 200th poet's grave yesterday-- in New Jersey, of all places. YAHOO and Praise the Lord!

it was raining, I was tired, but the life and poetry of Afred Gibbs Campbell seemed to be calling from the grave, and I just happened to drive into the entrance to a Party Store. So.....sometime around 5 PM, in ye olde Presbyterian graveyard in Mercerville, we had a happy deadday party, complete with Carvel ice cream, a top hat, shiny red beads, candles and a party popper that shot confetti into the grey, rainy sky.

Then, as the clock struck six, and the lovely old hymns came melodiously flowing from the weather-beaten steeple, we sent up to Alred  a ballon saying "Welcome Home" It was a great way to celebrate a Grand Finale to roughly 20,000 miles of good times and good friends in search of the graves of America's poets (those buried East of the Mississippi)

I would like to thank all of those fabulous people I met along the way who made dead poets come alive by your readings, and for showing me that poetry lives through your lives.

What's next? Well, since you asked....if you don't mind funding it I will lead you next summer  on a one month journey through Ireland, England, France, Italy, Poland and Austria to visit the graves of American poets buried abroad. (See, the map is already done)

A Six Grave Day!

Dedgar has been gravehoping again....this time from Maine to Jack Kerouac, to Rachel Field and Robert Johnson, both in Stockbridge, MA, then to Edna St. Vincent Millay and her mother, Cora, and finally to Anthony Hecht, who is buried in the Bard College cemetery.

What a beautiful day! Can see why people like the Millay's would move to the Berkshires. Must say that Anthony Hecht's grave was the nicest and most interesting, though it isn't fair to compare it with Millay's, as hers is unique.

Up in the morning at 5:30 to go to the grave of the poet you all know, but don't know. I'll give you a hint: he wrote a book about Christmas that has become perhaps the most-translated book in publishing history, at least in the children's book category. I would be VERY surprised if anyone guesses correctly!

Historic Grand Tour Report Now Online

The initial report of the historic Dead Poets Grand Tour 2010 is now online.

It chronicles all the places visited and the names of the poets read. From the Report: 

"We started on Shakespeare’s birthday, in Portland, Maine, the 23^rd of April, and we ended with a bang 6,500 miles later at the first Boston Poetry Marathon, May 25th. During those 34 days, and with the cooperation of 13 current and former State Poets Laureate, we held a Dead Poets Bash in 19 different States and visited 43 cemeteries!

The Grand Tour map can be accessed at the top left corner of the Dead Poets Society of America blog:  http://deadpoets.typepad.com/dpsablog/  

The other readings and interviews we held at poets’ graves and houses were really great as well, including the Lorine Niedecker home, the Carl Sandburg home, the E.L. Masters home, the Sidney Lanier house, The Virginia Military Institute, The Poe Museum, the Longfellow House and the Woodberry Poetry Room, at Harvard.

All totaled we visited the graves of 75 American poets, and heard the amazing poetry of over 100 American poets read. Dedgar and the crew kept up a pace of just over 191.18 miles per day and 2 poets’ graves per day!

Home, Sweet Home

Dedgar is parked under a pine tree, wondering where the next big Dead Poets Bash is going to be....I have enjoyed the breezes on the Maine coast and sight of the tides and gulls and lobster boats bobbing up and down. I've almost had three relatively good nights sleep in a row. Not plotting a course for the next cemetery when I get in the car is weird. It feels good to rest my bones, but I am not that eager for rest that I wish to rest my bones as much as the dead poets whose graves we have visited in the last 34 days!