Edgar Allan Poe finally getting proper funeral By BEN NUCKOLS, Associated
Press Writer Ben Nuckols, Associated Press Writer Tue Oct 6, 1:08 pm ET

BALTIMORE – For Edgar Allan Poe, 2009 has been a better year than 1849.
After dozens of events in several cities to mark the 200th anniversary of
his birth, he's about to get the grand funeral that a writer of his stature
should have received when he died.

One hundred sixty years ago, the beleaguered, impoverished Poe was found,
delirious and in distress outside a Baltimore tavern. He was never coherent
enough to explain what had befallen him since leaving Richmond, Va., a week
earlier. He spent four days in a hospital before he died at age 40.

Poe's cousin, Neilson Poe, never announced his death publicly. Fewer than 10
people attended the hasty funeral for one of the 19th century's greatest
writers. And the injustices piled on. Poe's tombstone was destroyed before
it could be installed, when a train derailed and crashed into a
stonecutter's yard. Rufus Griswold, a Poe enemy, published a libelous
obituary that damaged Poe's reputation for decades.

But on Sunday, Poe's funeral will get an elaborate do-over, with two
services expected to draw about 350 people each — the most a former church
next to his grave can hold. Actors portraying Poe's contemporaries and other
long-dead writers and artists will pay their respects, reading eulogies
adapted from their writings about Poe.

"We are following the proper etiquette for funerals. We want to make it as
realistic as possible," said Jeff Jerome, curator of the Poe House and
Museum.

Advance tickets are sold out, although Jerome will make some seats available
at the door to ensure packed houses. Fans are traveling from as far away as
Vietnam.

The funeral is arguably the splashiest of a year's worth of events honoring
the 200th anniversary of Poe's birth. Along with Baltimore — where he spent
some of his leanest years in the mid-1830s — Poe lived in or has strong
connections to Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Richmond.

With the funeral angle covered, the Edgar Allan Poe Museum in Richmond
staged a re-enactment last weekend of his death. Those with a more academic
interest in Poe can attend the Poe Studies Association's annual conference
from Thursday through Sunday in Philadelphia.

Visitors in Baltimore for the funeral can enjoy a new exhibit at the Baltimore
Museum of Art, "Edgar Allan Poe: A Baltimore Icon," which includes chilling
illustrations to "The Raven" by Edouard Manet.

Baltimore has a decided advantage over the other cities that lay claim to
Poe, notes BMA director Doreen Bolger. "We have the body," she said.

This week, that's true in more ways than one. Jerome said he's gotten calls
from people who thought he was going to exhume Poe's remains and rebury
them.

"When they dug up Poe's body in 1875 to move it, it was mostly skeletal
remains," Jerome said. "I've seen remains of people who've been in the
ground since that time period, and there's hardly anything left."

Instead, Jerome commissioned local special-effects artist Eric Supensky to
create an eerily lifelike — or deathlike — mock-up of Poe's corpse.

"I got chills," Jerome said Monday upon seeing the body for the first time.
"This is going to freak people out."

The body will lie in state for 12 hours Wednesday at the Poe House, a tiny
rowhome in a gritty section of west Baltimore. Visitors are invited to pay
their respects.

Following the viewing will be an all-night vigil at Poe's grave at
Westminster Burying Ground. Anyone who attends will have the opportunity to
deliver a tribute.

On Sunday morning, a horse-drawn carriage will transport the replica of
Poe's body from his former home to the graveyard for the funeral.

Actor John Astin, best known as Gomez Addams on TV's "The Addams Family,"
will serve as master of ceremonies.

"It's sort of a way of saying, 'Well, Eddie, your first funeral wasn't a
very good one, but we're going to try to make it up to you, because we have
so much respect for you,'" said Astin, who toured as Poe for years in a
one-man show.

The service won't be a total lovefest, however. The first eulogy will come
from none other than Griswold.

"People are asking me, 'Jeff, why are you inviting him? He hated Poe!'"
Jerome said. "The reason is, most of these people defended Poe in response
to what he said about Poe's life, so we can't have this service without
having old Rufus sitting in the front row, spewing forth his hatred."

Eulogies will follow from actors portraying, among others, Sarah Helen
Whitman, a minor poet whom Poe courted after his wife's death, and Walt
Whitman, who attended the dedication of Poe's new gravestone in 1875 but
didn't feel well enough to speak. Writers and artists influenced by Poe,
including Arthur Conan Doyle and Alfred Hitchcock, will also be represented.


Jerome expects to cry — one reason he won't be speaking. Even his rivals are
impressed with the scale of the tribute.

"Annoyed as I am with Baltimore sometimes, I have to give them credit," said
Philadelphia-based Poe scholar Edward Pettit, who argues his city was of
greater importance to Poe's life and literary career. "Baltimore has done an
awful lot to maintain the legacy of Poe over the last 100-some years."

___


-- 
Jon Kukla
www.JonKukla.com
Online interview : http://www.virginiavoice.org/celebrity.html

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