Everyday routines often lead to certain ideas and thus to new transformations. While rearranging my bookshelf, I came across “The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe” and the wordplay ‘POEtry’ (POEsie in German) stuck in my mind. This initially developed into a short story in the style of Poe and subsequently into a “POEtry Slam.”

“POE Try A Dark Tale” is a “very short” short story developed from the titles of these nine Poe stories: The Tell-Tale Heart, The Cask of Amontillado, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Fall of the House Usher, Ligeia, William Wilson, The Premature Burial, Morella, and Hop-Frog. The aim was to capture the essential characteristics of Poe’s style, the build-up to the ultimately inevitable madness.

The title of this “picture text” can be read in two ways. On the one hand, it can be read as “POEtry: A Dark Tale,” and on the other as “POE: Try A Dark Tale”; in both cases with a clear focus on Poe.