Man hopes to resurrect the work of dead poets
Source: Agencies |
November 2, 2009, Monday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
ON the big screen, the leader of the Dead Poets Society at an all-boys prep school was an inspirational teacher played by Robin Williams.
In real life, it's a balding amateur poet who drives around in his "Poemobile," visiting and documenting the graves of dead poets and calling attention to their works.
Walter Skold, founder of the Dead Poets Society of America, just finished a three-month road trip in which he visited the graves of 150 poets in 23 states. Skold boasts that he set a literary land speed record of 1.66 gpd (graves per day) over the course of his 24,140-kilometer journey.
While his graveside poetry readings - and occasional cemetery sleepovers - evoke the macabre, Skold insists his intentions are honorable.
"It's not really a morbid project but rather a way to honor our literary forebearers and to historically resurrect their works," Skold said.
His reports, which sometimes include offbeat tombstone art, are posted online; he encourages others to get out and find the graves of dead poets and to post their video and photos online.
Skold, 49, of Freeport, founded Dead Poets Society of America a year ago, leaving his job as a public school technology teacher to pursue his passions of poetry and photography. For his trip, he bought a used cargo van with a rack for cameras and supplies, shelves for books and a desk that, in a pinch, doubles as a bed.
Over the course of his 90-day journey, Skold visited the gravesites of giants of the poetry world including Robert Frost, Walt Whitman, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, as well as lesser-known poets like Dudley Randall, whose Broadside Press published many leading African-American writers.
He's making a film documentary called "Finding Frost: Digging Up America's Dead Poets." Next year, he hopes to scout out America's dead poets buried in Europe.
He was especially intrigued by poets who've been forgotten altogether. He calls them the "doubly dead" because they suffered a second death when their works were "slowly consigned to literary oblivion." Some of those include Madison Cawein, Eugene Fields, Virginia Boyle and Elizabeth Hollister Frost, he said.
"So many of these individual poets have such interesting stories and such interesting lives that I really feel it's a shame that they've been lost to our literary imagination or our literary history," he said.
In real life, it's a balding amateur poet who drives around in his "Poemobile," visiting and documenting the graves of dead poets and calling attention to their works.
Walter Skold, founder of the Dead Poets Society of America, just finished a three-month road trip in which he visited the graves of 150 poets in 23 states. Skold boasts that he set a literary land speed record of 1.66 gpd (graves per day) over the course of his 24,140-kilometer journey.
While his graveside poetry readings - and occasional cemetery sleepovers - evoke the macabre, Skold insists his intentions are honorable.
"It's not really a morbid project but rather a way to honor our literary forebearers and to historically resurrect their works," Skold said.
His reports, which sometimes include offbeat tombstone art, are posted online; he encourages others to get out and find the graves of dead poets and to post their video and photos online.
Skold, 49, of Freeport, founded Dead Poets Society of America a year ago, leaving his job as a public school technology teacher to pursue his passions of poetry and photography. For his trip, he bought a used cargo van with a rack for cameras and supplies, shelves for books and a desk that, in a pinch, doubles as a bed.
Over the course of his 90-day journey, Skold visited the gravesites of giants of the poetry world including Robert Frost, Walt Whitman, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, as well as lesser-known poets like Dudley Randall, whose Broadside Press published many leading African-American writers.
He's making a film documentary called "Finding Frost: Digging Up America's Dead Poets." Next year, he hopes to scout out America's dead poets buried in Europe.
He was especially intrigued by poets who've been forgotten altogether. He calls them the "doubly dead" because they suffered a second death when their works were "slowly consigned to literary oblivion." Some of those include Madison Cawein, Eugene Fields, Virginia Boyle and Elizabeth Hollister Frost, he said.
"So many of these individual poets have such interesting stories and such interesting lives that I really feel it's a shame that they've been lost to our literary imagination or our literary history," he said.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
