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Being Poe

Sitting across from David Keltz is an eerie experience. We're occupying a table at Maestro's Café on Centre Street in Baltimore, the raucous squeal of a cappuccino machine punctuating our conversation. I'm having a hard time believing the man I'm looking at is not Edgar Allan Poe. His 19th-century moustache, his facial structure, the piercing eyes -- aside from his decidedly modern attire, Keltz is a dead ringer for Baltimore's sage of the macabre.

Keltz has been performing his one-man Poe act for almost ten years, across the U.S. and in Europe, appearing in everything from a Baltimore Ravens television commercial to a medical film about rabies. He gives roughly 200 performances a year, varying from 15-minute dramatic readings at schools and trade shows to elaborate 2-hour dramatizations. Being Poe is Keltz's full-time job. And it's a job he loves.

"I like to speak for him," Keltz says. "I'm delighted when people tell me they really feel like they met him."

His interest in Poe began, appropriately, when he read The Raven as a class assignment. He was 13, and the poem held him spellbound. "I remember looking at the door of my room that night, watching it get wider. I was afraid to sleep," he says, sipping his latté. "Poe's work stirred a passion for literature and awoke my intellectual curiosity." He spent the next three years reading all of Poe's works, and when a drama teacher gave him the opportunity to recite The Raven, he memorized it in its entirety.

He came to Charm City in the same manner as Poe: On a trip to New York, he stopped off in Baltimore to visit a friend -- and stayed. "I really came to like the town," he says. He visited the Poe House and Poe's grave at Westminster Hall, where he and his wife, attired in period costume, were married.

As an actor, he was inspired by the format of Hal Holbrook's performances as Mark Twain. Despite his fascination with Poe, Keltz originally began his career impersonating D.H. Lawrence and another Baltimore scribe, H.L. Mencken. "They didn't take off," he says. He found out that the Poe House was auditioning for the role of Poe, and he got the job. His fifteen minute stint was a success, and soon he began getting requests from schools asking him if he could do longer performances. "I began mining his letters and essays, finding sections which held a strong appeal to me," Keltz says. Before long, he was in great demand. He was performing, with dramatic intensity, Poe's classics: The Black Cat, The Cask of Amontillado, The Tell-Tale Heart, and The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar, often adding commentary and background to enhance the presentation.

He tailors each performance to his audience. "I once performed The Cask of Amontillado for an ultrasound convention," he says, smiling. "They told me their work concerned bones, and, in particular, the tibia and the cortica. When I performed, instead of saying the line:

I busied myself among the pile of bones… Throwing them aside, I soon uncovered a quantity of building stone and mortar.

I changed it to:

I busied myself among the pile of bones… Throwing them aside, I soon uncovered a quantity of tibia and cortica.

"They loved it," Keltz says with a laugh.

He also performed as a resurrected Poe at a clinical pathological conference at the University of Maryland. Dr. Michael Benitez was presented with a medical chart of a historical person, whose identity was kept from him. The victim had died under mysterious circumstances and the cause of death was uncertain. From the symptoms on the record, Dr. Benitez conjectured that the death resulted from rabies. Keltz then walked onstage, in costume and in character, and the audience went wild. The ensuing publicity about the novel theory of Poe's death was unexpected -- even The New York Times picked up on the story. Suddenly, David Keltz was in high demand.

The sheer quantity of material he has memorized is amazing -- he claims to have three hours of Poe's words stored in his head. Indeed, as we talk, he recites lines from poems, stories, essays, even personal letters. He does voluminous research to create a sense of verisimilitude and to make each audience member feel as if "they're going back in history to meet Poe for the first time."

"I try to show two major facets of his personality," Keltz explains. Many people now believe Poe suffered from bipolar disease (manic depression), including Kay Redfield Jamison, author of Touched With Fire: Manic Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament and an authority on bipolar disorder. "I bring a tremendously wide range of emotion to my performances, taking the audience on a roller coaster ride through the mind of the man."

Has anyone accused him of being overly obsessed with a dead man? "I'd call it a passion, rather than an obsession," he says. "He has always fascinated me."

I ask, cheekily, if David Keltz thinks he may have been Poe in a previous life. "There's obviously no way to prove it," he says, stroking his moustache. "But I do feel destined to do what I do. Maybe I can tap into the Akashic Records, I don't know. I stand there before each performance, and I tell myself I am Poe. After the performance, I sometimes have to shake it off -- in those breakthrough moments I feel as if the spirit of Poe is truly coming through me." He pauses. "When Poe scholars tell me they feel like they've met the man, then I am very pleased."

Does he ever feel the presence of Poe? Like a ghostly apparition from one of his stories?

"I once held a lock of his hair. I did feel a special connection -- like psychometry -- it's probably the closest I've ever come to meeting him, and it was absolutely thrilling." He gazes out the window into the busy Baltimore streets. "You know, I often visit spots where Poe was known to frequent -- a bookstore on Calvert Street (which coincidentally still houses a bookstore) and a spot on Lombard Street where he was found ill. There's nothing there but a parking meter now. Before each performance, I like to visit one of these spots. I bow to him there, like a martial artist bows to the sensei, and I like to think he smiles upon me."

The coffee shop where David and I sit is now packed with Peabody students, grabbing drinks between classes. David and I say goodbye. I close up my laptop and shake his hand, thanking him for his time. I doubt any of those backpack-toting students have the bizarre sensation of watching a long-dead literary legend as he says goodbye and walks out into the Baltimore streets, but I certainly do.

More info on Poe:

The Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore

A Poe Webliography

Edgar Allan Poe: His Life and Legacy, by Jeffrey Meyers.
Published by Cooper Square Press, NY. ISBN: 0-8154-1038-7