Dead Poets Society of America

Poets' Grave #241: Lillian Hillbom Rogers, North Hampton, NH.
Epitaph (pictured) is one of my favorites. Below a short poem of hers:

First a howling blizzard woke us,
Then the rain came down to soak us,
And now before the eye can focus -
Crocus.

42 New Sets of Poets' Graves Photos Posted

I've just added 42 new sets to the most comprehensive collection of US Poets' Graves in the world.

Among the poets whose graves and/or houses I've posted are: Sexton, Wheatley, Whittier, Lucretia Davidson, Emerson, Hawthorne, Melville, Ogden Nash, Michael Wigglesworth, James Whitcomb Riley, Frost, Ginsberg, Kerouac, and more.

Dead Utopian Jewish Poet

Hanon Reznikov, a Dead Utopian Jewish Poet:

 

6 Jewish Poets for Palm Sunday

On Palm Sunday weekend, 2011, I visited about a dozen poets' graves from Whittier, in northern MASS, to Freneau, in Central Jersey. On Palm Sunday I spent an hour photographing the graves of six Jewish poets at Cedar Park Cemetery. Some of the photos are in the collection of Jewish Poets's Graves, and some iPhone videos are at the On the Road with Dedgar short video collection.

 

Keats' Afterlife: Stanley Plumly Book looks A+

I just read a review (and then bought on Amazon) the Stanley Plumly book:

Posthumous Keats: A Personal Biography

Looks like a great read, and it will arrive before I head to Greece and Rome, where I will scale the heights of Mount Parnassus and then skip across the sea to the graves of Keats,  Shelley, and Corso.

Summer Cemetery Camp

That is how one excited participant described the annual Association of Gravestone Studies conference.  Here in Granville, Ohio,there is a shot put, tennis, and soccer camp, but our group is the most excited...busing hither and thither to cemeteries in this part of Ohio and listening to professors, photographers, sculptors, and graveyard aficionadoes.

Being Dead Yet

Being Dead Yet
Originally uploaded by gravelight

Alfred Campbell's "Ode to Death"

Abolitionist and poet, Alfred Gibbs Campbell, wrote one of the most-unique and enjoyable poems on death I have read (and trust me, I have read a LOT)

Ode To Death

Blessed Death! thou op'st the door

To the Grand Forevermore!
Unto thee the task is given
To unbar the gates of Heaven!
Thou alone dost hold the keys
Of eternal harmonies!
Thou the secrets dost rehearse
Of the wondrous universe!
Thou art God's interpreter
Of the mysteries which stir
To its depths the human soul
Longing for its final goal!
Universal friend thou art,
Healing every broken heart!
Ultra Abolitionist,
Breaking chains as thou dost list!
Stern emancipator, thou
Layest petty despots low;
Breakest every captive's chain;

Soothest every sufferer's pain;

Driest every mourner's tears;
Quellest all our timorous fears;
Thou shalt fold the human race
In thy loving, dear embrace,
Opening to our failing eyes
Panoramas of the skies.
Fear shall not our bosoms stir,
Welcome! God's kind messenger!

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!

In Memory of "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed"

Dedgar and the gang -- we wuz very happy today to visit the grave of Elizabeth Reed, in Macon, GA, and to play some music and relax under the Magnolia trees.