Dead Love: Shukabo and Poe and Ravens, O My!

Posted by on Jan 28, 2011 in Rants and Raves | 3 comments

Is it an elegiac paryclausithryron (an ancient Greek and Roman poetic form featuring the shut-out lover)? In a way it is, and it certainly elevated Edgar Allan Poe to pop star status back in the middle of the 19th Century, just as a hit song would do today. But E.A. never made much money from The Raven and it didn’t save him from a short life of poverty.

Depressing and inspiring. I love the penultimate verse. I’m pairing it with a beautiful poem by 18th Century haiku poet, Shukabo.

The Raven (excerpt)

`Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!’ I shrieked upstarting –
`Get thee back into the tempest and the Night’s Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken! – quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!’
Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.’

—Edgar Allan Poe


Ware o yobu ka
meido mo shimo no
asagarasu

Is it me the raven calls
from this world of shades
this frosty morning?

—Shukabo

—Erin Orison, DEAD LOVE/the Daily Slice

  • Anonymous

    Erin – this post is amazing! You’ve interwoven two literary cultures into a singularity that is positively magical. You are an inspiration – power to The Daily Slice and to you! Is there more Shukabo and Poe in the Daily Slice calendar? Hope so. Thanks!

  • Lovely! I’m an EA fan from childhood. And I learned a new word today.

  • Is the word Poe?