Celebrate Creativity

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to Celebrate Poe - Episode 286 - Clinton and Collins: The Language of God Before we jump into this episode, I want to announce what is perhaps the most ambitious undertaking that Celebrate Poe has ever published - the 2024 Halloween episode - combining appropriate sound effects with Poe’s story.  This Halloween episode combines The Pit and the Pendulum with some observatio...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to Celebrate Poe - Episode 284 - Continuity and Progress.  This will mark the third and final episode - for now - dealing with President Obama - and I would like to look at Obama’s second Inaugural Address - a speech that covers a wide variety of issues - but first I want to make some comments regarding the speech in hope that they help clarify some of Obama’s ideas. But b...

Send us Fan Mail I have been going over the speeches of Barack Obama, and found some real jewels.  I started reading a speech given to Congress hesitant to use it in a podcast episode because it was almost 50 minutes long.  But by the end of the address, I knew that I had read a masterpiece. President Obama was offering a solution to the seemingly insurmountable problem of Health Care that was com...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to Celebrate Poe - this is episode 282 - Obama: Hope in Action You know, I have found that President Obama’s addresses seem to speak for themselves - there might be a temptation to add comments but Obama is arguably one of the greatest orators of our time, and his word choice, pacing, and delivery cause the listener to realize that you are in the presence of a master commu...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to Celebrate Poe - this is episode 281- Let Us Continue!   And just in case you are wondering, I am taking a break from episodes about Edgar Poe until election day, and devoting that time to great words from other notable Americans - especially in the political area. Now in the previous episodes, I looked at John Kennedy’s 1960 Inaugural Address - followed by an episode de...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to Celebrate Poe - Episode 280 -  The Power of Words: JFK and the Fight for Equality.   This episode continues an examination of some of the outstanding addresses given by great Americans - in this case Presidents of the United States who were deeply concerned about the United States and use their talents to affect positive change that resulted in a more perfect union - no...

Send us Fan Mail This podcast episode deals with President Kennedy’s 1960 Inaugural address.  On January 20, 1961, John Fitzgerald Kennedy (JFK), a Democrat from Massachusetts, was inaugurated as the 35th president of the United States. Taking office at the age of 43, he remains the youngest person in the history of the United States to be elected to that role.   Support the show Thank you for exp...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to Celebrate Poe - this is episode 278 - Whitman on Democracy - and This is the final episode - for now - about Walt Whitman. Walt Whitman wrote many lengthy poems about democracy - in fact I found a great poem about Democracy that would take almost two hours to read — but I am going to try and confine the poems in this episode to some of those on the shorter side - starti...

Send us Fan Mail It is generally agreed that O Captain, My Captain is Walt Whitman’s masterpiece.  But to understand this poem you need to look at the connections between Abraham Lincoln, Walt Whitman, and Whitman’s love, Peter Doyle. Support the show Thank you for experiencing Celebrate Creativity.

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to Celebrate Poe - Episode 276 - Beat! Beat! Drums! After three episodes on President Abraham Lincoln, I would like to delve into arguably America’s greatest poet - a man whose entire outlook on life was intertwined with this positive views of and strong belief in democracy - Walt Whitman.  Art historian Mary Berenson wrote, "You cannot really understand America witho...

Send us Fan Mail On the fourth day of March, 1865, the President of the United States stood on the east steps of the Capitol building in Washington, D.C. to deliver his second inaugural address. Now Four years earlier, Abraham Lincoln delivered his first inaugural address as disaster loomed. The divided nation had that sent him to the White House after the divided election of 1860 was slowly but s...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to Celebrate Poe - Episode 274 - A Two-Minute Masterpiece: The Gettysburg Address Explained This episode delves briefly into Edward Everett's two hour speech at Gettysburg prior to President Lincoln's two minute address, and breaks down Lincoln's words and concepts in his address. Support the show Thank you for experiencing Celebrate Creativity.

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to Celebrate Poe - Episode 273 - The Better Angels of Our Nature For the next three episodes, I would like to delve into three speeches by Abraham Lincoln - not only because of their excellence but because of how conditions in Lincoln’s time can be compared to many political challenges of today. Support the show Thank you for experiencing Celebrate Creativity.

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to Celebrate Poe - this is episode 272  where I look at Frederick Douglass, and yes, a little about Edgar Allan Poe. Now while Poe and Douglass came from vastly different backgrounds with fascinating writing styles, they both share a mastery of suspense in their respective works. In this episode, I want to concentrate on Douglass’s ideas and writing style in addition to so...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to Celebrate Poe - My name is George Bartley, and this is episode 270 - Life, Liberty, and Happiness. The United States Declaration of Independence is an extremely important document in the history of the United States of America, and was ratified on July 4, 1776. It says that the Americans were no longer under British rule. Instead, the thirteen British colonies came toge...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to Celebrate Poe - My name is George Bartley - and this is episode 269 - Give Me Liberty. Presidential elections in the United States only occur once every four years, and it could be argued that 2024 is the most important Presidential election of our lives.  So after a great deal of thought and research, I decided to take a break from producing episodes about Poe, and tak...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to Celebrate Poe - Episode 269 - Marrying Your Cousin Many people believe that one of the most controversial subjects regarding Poe is the fact that he married his much younger cousin. Virginia Eliza Clemm. - I guess you could say that the relationship began as a familial bond. Poe first met Virginia when she was seven years old, and he was twenty. Over time, their relatio...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to Celebrate Poe - My name is George Bartley, and this is episode 266 - Poe’ First Story - Part Two After all the background of the previous episode, I’d like to devote this episode to the actual story of Metzengerstein.   After listening to this episode, you might like to go back and listen to Part One - even if you have already heard it - in fact the episode has some val...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to Celebrate Poe - My name is George Bartley, and this is episode 266 - Poe’ First Story - Part One Most Poe scholars seem to believe that Poe’s first published story was Metzengerstein. Metzengerstein was published by The Philadelphia Saturday Courier on the 14 JANUARY in 1832. So today I would like to look at some background information regarding the story, and read the...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to Celebrate Poe - this is Episode 265 - Celebrate Poe’s Most Important Episode Yet - This is the first episode of this podcast that is NOT Poecentric - an episode that a does not deal primarily with Poe or his writings - but a very personal account of my prostate cancer, the importance of early treatment,   as well as the prostate cancer experiences of many famous persona...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to Celebrate Poe - My name is George Bartley, and this is episode 264 - Baltimore, Part Two - and let me emphasize that this and the previous episode are about the time that Poe spent in Baltimore after he left West Point - his final days in Baltimore shortly before his earthly demise. Support the show Thank you for experiencing Celebrate Creativity.

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to Celebrate Poe - My name is George Bartley, and this is episode 263 - Baltimore, Part 1 - and let me emphasize that this and the following episode are about the time that Poe spent in Baltimore after he left West Point - not his final days in Baltimore shortly before his earthly demise. Support the show Thank you for experiencing Celebrate Creativity.

Send us Fan Mail MerchantWelcome to Celebrate Poe - Episode 262 - John Allan’s Death - In this episode I want to zero in on what I feel was one of the major influences on Poe’s work - John Allan.  Although - to my knowledge - he never directly encouraged his son to be a writer - I believe that Poe was highly influenced - in a negative way - by the frequent conflicts with the man who called himself...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to Celebrate Poe - episode 261 - The War of 1812 Revisited.   This is a look back at the highest rated - at least audience wise - podcast episode of Celebrate Poe so far - with almost 500 downloads. Now, historian Alan Taylor, the author of The Civil War of 1812: American Citizens, British Subjects, Irish Rebels, and Indian Allies, writes that America and Britain were inco...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to Celebrate Poe - this is episode 260 - the Wilmer Manuscript Collection. When you think of Edgar Allan Poe, what works come to mind?  Perhaps The Raven or Annabel Lee - or one of his many stories such as The Cask of Amontillado, The Tell-Tale Heart, Berenice, The Pit and the Pendulum,  The Murders in the Rue Morgue or the Wilmer Manuscript Collection - well, maybe not th...