...
.....
DPSA Looking for Gravediggers This Halloween
October 23 -- While Americans are getting ready to feed the collective sweet tooth and indulge their fears about the land of the dead this Halloween, one Maine poet is looking for help in digging up dead poets.
“We’re looking for gravediggers this Halloween season who will help us dig up the dirt on our dead poets,” said Walter Skold, the founder of the Dead Poets Society of America (DPSA).
“Sunday, Nov. 1 is All Saints Day, when people in many countries visit the graves of their loved ones,” points out Skold, “So this is a perfect time to seek out and document the graves of our forgotten poets.”
To help people find the gravesites of 150 poets, the DPSA has compiled 3 online maps for the Western, Southern, and Eastern regions of the US, and they are inviting the public to submit both photos and videos taken at the graves.
Local poets are encouraged to gather in groups, at a poet's grave if possible, and to have a "Dead Poets Bash" by reading poetry from dead poets in their State.
Pictures can be posted on the DPSA Flickr Collection, or sent by e-mail, and videos can be either posted online by the authors or sent on a DVC/CD to the DPSA office in Maine.
“Too many excellent poets are buried in our national literary imagination, so we are developing archives of poetry readings at the graves of our forgotten poets,” he said. “And what better time than All-Hallow’s Eve is there for us to remember our dead poets together.”
This new effort of inviting the public to document more gravesites of “lost” poets is an outgrowth of the Society’s 2009 Grand Tour last summer, when Skold traveled 15,000 miles to document the graves of 150 poets in 90 days.
“It was a great acheivement and tpilgrimage,” says Skold. “But I also realized it will take a collaborative effort to finish this historical and artistic project.”
“It really isn’t a morbid project,” says Skold, “But rather a way to honor our literary fore bearers and to historically resurrect their works.”
For more information about the Dead Poets Society of America and about how to find and submit documentation of gravesites, please visit the Help Page.
Pictures can be e-mailed to picsvids@deadpoes.org and CD and DVD's of pictures and videos can be sent to: The Dead Poets Society of America, Box 102, Freeport, Maine 04032
Watch the Video "Poetry of the Dead" about a poetry reading at John Updike's grave Read the article from the Reading Eagle June 10 --Man taking cross-country trek to document burial sites of U.S. poets stops by John Updike's family plot in Plowville.
Make Tombstone Art!
(Curious? Click)
"Have you hugged a poet today?"