“The plan was as simple as it was daring. [James Whitcomb] Riley would fashion a knock-off of Edgar Allan Poe and pawn it to the reading public as a recently found, unpublished work by the dead poet. When the piece received critical praise, Riley’s case would be made. Riley’s 'Leonainie' appeared on August 2, 1877, in the Dispatch, a Kokomo, Indiana, newspaper edited by a man in on the hoax. It was printed under the heading: ‘A Hitherto Unpublished Poem of the Late Lamented Edgar Allan Poe.’ To provide cover, one of Riley’s ex-medicine-show-Iocal-sign-painter pals, Will Ethell, found a facsimile of Poe’s 'The Bells’ and, approximating Poe’s handwriting as best he could, set out to copy Riley’s 'Leonainie’ onto the flyleaf of an old Ainsworth dictionary. If anyone asked to see the original, the Ainsworth would then be trotted out as evidence. Here’s Riley’s faux-Poe:
'Leonainie-Angels named her;
And they took the light
Of the laughing stars and framed her
In a smile of white;
And they made her hair of gloomy
Midnight, and her eyes of bloomy
Moonshine, and they brought her to me
In the solemn night.-
In a solemn night of summer,
When my heart of gloom
Blossomed up to greet the comer
Like a rose in bloom;
All forebodings that distressed me
I forgot as Joy caressed me-
(Lying Joy! that caught and pressed me
In the arms of doom!).
Only spake the little lisper
In the Angel-tongue;
Yet I, listening, heard her whisper,-
"Songs are only sung
Here below that they may grieve you-
Tales but told to deceive you,-
So must Leonainie leave you
While her love is young.
Then God smiled and it was morning.
Matchless and supreme
Heaven’s glory seemed adorning
Earth with its esteem:
Every heart but mine seemed gifted
With the voice of prayer, and lifted
Where my Leonainie drifted
From me like a dream.’
…A slew of national newspapers swept up the story, notably including the New York World, Tribune, and Post. Some were enticed, others merely wary. But the poem instigated enough literary ruckus to arouse well-known Poe biographer William F. Gill of Boston, who petitioned to review the original and verify its authenticity. Gill suggested his depositing a large sum at a Boston bank as security so the Ainsworth containing the poem—a forgery just completed by Riley’s pal Ethell—might be shipped to him for study.“ —Poetry’s Afterlife
"If the Beowulf manuscript had been destroyed in the fire, all we would know of it would be the forty lines Wanley cited in his catalogue of 1705 and his brief and misleading summary..." (via @lilithsaintcrow.com)
“POEM
I fear an alias abandoned
At birth awaits to name me
After life, an ID I must
Assume again, a prior self.
Migraine angel whose crimes
Include the nail ordeal of hands
And the toe torment of feet.
When a chessboard meets
A crossroads face to face,
Is their contest foregone, lost
The sinuous routes we win?
Uncloaked by the light heaven’s
Decryption sends to none,
I come coven to your command.”
—Bill Knott
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