Poe Toasting Day
Edgar Allan Poe’s Day • Orthodox Epiphany
Combining the Dark Beauty of Poe and Aged Cognac
About Poe Toasting Day
It’s midnight. Now we sit in a circle and by the light of flickering candles, pour a glass of cognac and raise it in solemn, gothic tribute to Edgar Allan Poe, patron saint of beautiful suffering and unspeakable longing. Poe Toasting Day, also called Edgar Allan Poe’s Day, is one of our designated Poetry Holidays, and arguably the most glamorous. The roses are blood-red, the drink is strong, and your out-of-office work email consists of one word: Nevermore. We take our cue from the mysterious Poe Toaster, an anonymous figure who, for decades, visited Poe’s grave on this day to leave behind three red roses and a bottle of cognac. We do the same, literally or metaphorically. Today is a celebration of rich language, long shadows portending doom, and stylish despair. Read “The Raven” aloud. Recite “Annabel Lee” to a mirror. Leave a rose on a stranger’s porch. Swoon and heave and stammer in the face of beauty. It’s the last mock-serious day before Carnival gets mock-silly.
Ways to observe
(A) Low effort
Read “The Raven” by candlelight. Bonus if you do the voices. Bonus-bonus if there’s actual thunder.
(B) Recommended
Recreate the Poe Toaster ritual: leave three red roses and a glass of cognac (or brandy, if you’re slumming it) in a quiet place. Then read aloud your favorite Poe story or poem with someone you love.
(C) High effort
Host a Midnight Poe Toast. Guests arrive in black. Each reads a stanza or passage, offers a toast to beauty and doom, then adds a red rose to a communal pile. Cognac flows. Emotions swirl. Everyone goes home transformed, or more confused than when they arrived.
Inspiration
High school ruins Poe for many. It’s not his fault. He’s a natural muse to the overwrought. Teenagers are already dramatic, already aching, already prone to obsessive declarations of love (and, just as quickly, despair). Poe enriches the uranium of teenage melodrama. It’s all a bit much. But come back to Poe in your forties, and he’s not a mirror; he’s a companionable entertainer. You’re no longer swept up in the delusions of his narrators. You’re old enough to admire the architecture of the madness. His language alone, setting aside the plot, can stop your breath. So while today begins with permission to be theatrical—candlelight, velvet, a glass of something brooding—it might well end in a reading nook, transfixed. Poe was never the problem. You just had to age into him.
Adornments
Watch
The Black Cat (1934)
A pre-Code horror gem. Horror icons Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff face off as morbid adversaries in an Art Deco crypt, outmaneuvering each other amid satanic rituals and haunted memories.
House of Usher (1960)
The first of Roger Corman’s celebrated Poe cycle, and still the gold standard of Poe on film. Vincent Price delivers a sinister turn as Roderick Usher, presiding over his family’s decaying mansion and dreadful secret. The film takes creative liberties but remains one of the most faithful Poe adaptations.
The Lighthouse (2019)
A modern descent into madness sparked by Poe’s final, unfinished story. Director Robert Eggers initially drew inspiration from Poe’s The Light-House, then crafted this hallucinatory tale of two lighthouse keepers losing grip on reality.
Read
The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe
In a plague-ravaged land, a callous prince and his courtiers revel behind abbey walls, hosting a grotesque masquerade while death stalks outside. The story’s imagery is sumptuous and macabre: blood-red windows, ebony clocks, and a silent, spectral figure at the feast.
Ligeia by Edgar Allan Poe
A darkly romantic tale of love stronger than death. The narrator’s first wife, the Lady Ligeia, is a raven-haired genius obsessed with overcoming mortality. After her tragic demise, he tries to start anew by marrying the fair-haired Rowena, but the past will not rest.
Lenore by Edgar Allan Poe
A poetic paean to a lost bride, and a toast to her soul’s immortal triumph.