A Pop Life

Poe’s Mysterious Visitor is absent this year

It looks like Poe’s mysterious grave side visitor is absent this year. Every year since 1949 on Poe’s Birthday, January 19th, an unknown person leaves three roses and half a bottle of cognac. However, this year no one came.

I first heard about this tradition in my middle school English class and my mind began to swirl with ideas about who it could be. When I came across this story this morning, it brought back my haunted feelings.

Fox news (an ever so reliable news source; can you taste my sarcasm?) claimed in a 2007 article click here to read that they found the identity of the visitor but I have my doubts. If it was so credible, why didn’t more news organizations report it as well?

I used to imagine the visitor being a lonely woman who was so moved by Poe’s works she fell in torturous love with him and her yearly gifts are love tokens. Now I feel like it’s a fellow alcoholic who understands Poe’s disease since the unknown visitor shares the disease as well. The roses are for his three favorite works by Poe. I imagine his favorites to be, “Cask of Amontillado,” “The tell tale heart, ” and of course “The Raven.” The absence of the visitor indicates that the man finally succumbed to the ravages of alcoholism.

My imagination aside, I hold out hope that someone can continue the tradition. I can only dream the true identity of the person is revealed one of these days.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 19th, 2010 at 11:27 am. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.