my first love

written by wynsters the tigress

today, i want to talk about one my all time favorite authors: edgar allan poe. i discovered his work in the 7th grade, when my (very good looking) english teacher, whose vocabulary i wished to have and writing skills i yearned were mine, gave me a collection of his short stories. the first one that i read was 'the masque of the red death'. imagine how swiftly i fell in love with that story. a lover of language from the day i was born, his use of words to create imagery that was horrific, gory and painful completely enthralled my 7th grade mind. i read and re-read the story, looked up words that i had never previously seen and drank in his phrases -- hungry for complete understanding of what he was trying to convey to the reader. i felt grand in poe's description of the prince's masked ball, as if i too were one of his magnificent dames. i could nearly hear the sounds being played by his musicians and i shared in the nervousness of his guests every time the ebony clock announced that yet another hour had passed. i remember my heart skipping a beat when the strange guest first enters the hall -- dressed as the red death itself and i could already feel what was coming. it took me several readings (mind you, i was only 11!), but when i finally understood poe's message, it was an eye opener for me. there is no escaping our destinies, especially that which connects us all: death. at the end of each reading, i often found myself at odds. always an over thinker and an innate problem solver -- i couldn't fathom not being able to escape something like a disease...if the right precautions were taken. how could the red death just simply be allowed in by those who were so desperately trying to dodge it? eventually, i was introduced to the idea of symbolism and i had to learn to reshape some of my thoughts on destiny, and the way in which the universe works. every action leads to a reaction. the prince and his friends, in their arrogance, shut themselves off from the rest of the land when it was suffering the most. their lack of compassion would not go unpunished. it's a lesson that i learned well. that no matter our 'status' or 'class' in life, there are some things that affect us all equally -- more notably, death and disease. the way in which we deal with these matters is often just as important as the issues themselves. in thinking that we can control everything, as the prince and his revelers do in 'securing' themselves away in the castle, we instead create illusions that do not reflect the reality of a situation. [recently] i picked up an edgar allan poe reader that i remember i had bought at a garage sale, not too long ago, for about a dollar. it includes a genre of short stories by poe that i often forget that he dabbled in: humor. now, when we all think of edgar allan poe, i'm sure these words come to mind: dark, grim, horrific. but few know that he also wrote a series of humorous short stories -- that poke fun and are relatively lighter than his more famous work. this morning i read 'never bet the devil your head'. an interesting piece that is amusing right off the bat because of poe's obvious efforts at jamming a bit of moral advice down the reader's throat. our narrator is telling the story of his "poor" friend toby and his ultimate demise. the entire story is wrought with a single moral motif, explicitly stated by the narrator, contrary to what is typically poe's style. i will not bore you with the details of the plot, but i would definitely recommend reading this particular short story, as it shows the wide range of poe's writing skills. it made me laugh out loud in its absurdity. poe's ability to mock the idea of having an explicit moral agenda while still driving home a message is comparable to no contemporary author of my generation, which is the one sad thing about classics. they are truly beautiful in their scope and demonstrate an originality that can never truly be re-created or copied. sure, i'm read dozens of books from my time that are exceptional and truly unique, but what literary movement can i say that i witnessed firsthand? in short, edgar allan poe's work is something that i will always enjoy because it takes me back to a time when i first truly started to explore my intellectuality. his work reminds me of a time when i first started consciously thinking, and synthesizing the plethora of information that was the world around me. through his work, i can always revisit a time that hasn't been lost, but rather continues to serve as a guide for the direction that my thoughts and ideas take today.


"...i'm a brooklyn [girl], i may take some gettin' used to..."