Baltimore poet Tracy Dimond reads the work of Ada Limon — Dandelion Insomnia — in 26 degrees on the morning of 12.31.25 at the grave of Edgar Allan Poe. Listening on the right is host and storyteller Rafael Alvarez.
Enrica Jang, director of Poe Baltimore, shares upcoming expansion plans for the fabled Poe House on Amity Street.
Longtime Alvarez co-conspirator Tyrone Crawley reads Poe’s “A Dream Within a Dream.” On far right is Scott Burkholder, a Baltimore ambassador of the arts.
Truth & Tea
– by Margo Christie
Part I: “Opa”
He lived in chief engineer’s quarters
a seaman’s cap, a mistress, and a union card
for props. He traveled the world, wide
Brought green ware from India, wafer-thin
porcelain teacups painted with sinister
looking men, that he gifted to his bride
My mother would keep them long after he died
They gazed down at us from their cabinet positions
Uneasy, we sat and ate
It felt like Mom was tempting fate
keeping these guys around so long
after even the cabinet was gone
Part II: “Oma”
She survived in a narrow brick rowhouse
surrounded by her brood and a handful
of strangers – No husband around
What would she care for cups on a shelf?
when what she wanted was a ticket
out of town. Tacoma, State of Washington
was her one true home, and she was young
as it was far, when her sailing man came around
to turn her world crazy, upside-down
so much, she could no longer fathom the miles
between dirty harbor, smoke-choked sky
and her mountains, the evergreen trees, so high!
She didn’t navigate her course with ease
like her husband—No.
She drank herself into disease
Seems she did, at last, find use for the cups
her daughter seemed content to gaze upon
History of Poetry in Baltimore / 1945 to the present 