The Bells, and Other Poems

Poe understood something about sound that most poets never grasp, that rhythm and rhyme can wound. This collection gathers his most haunting verses, poems where language itself becomes music, where every jingle and toll in "The Bells" traces the arc from joy to grief, from wedding cheer to funeral knell. Here too is "Annabel Lee," his masterpiece of mourning, a love poem written for a dead wife that manages to be both devastating and strangely beautiful. And of course "The Raven," whose relentless "nevermore" has haunted readers for nearly two centuries. But the collection offers deeper pleasures: the Arabian exoticism of "Al Aaraaf," the gothic splendor of "The City in the Sea," the phantom palace of "The Haunted Palace." These are poems about losing things, the beloved, the self, God, meaning, and finding only music in the loss. For readers who don't mind a little darkness in their poetry, this is essential American verse.