*On a night quite unenchanting, when the rain was downward slanting,
I awakened to the ranting of the man I catch mice for.
Tipsy and a bit unshaven, in a tone I found quite craven,
Poe was talking to a raven perched above the chamber door.
“Raven’s very tasty,” thought I, as I tiptoed o’er the floor,
“There is nothing I like more.”

Soft upon the rug I treaded, calm and careful as I headed
*Towards his roost atop that dreaded bust of Pallas I deplore.
While the bard and birdie chattered, I made sure that nothing clattered,
Creaked, or snapped, or fell, or shattered, as I crossed the corridor;
For his house is crammed with trinkets, curios and weird decor -
Bric-a-brac and junk galore.

Still the Raven never fluttered, standing stock-still as he uttered,
*In a voice that shrieked and sputtered, his two cents’ worth – “Nevermore.”
*While this dirge the birdbrain kept up, oh, so silently I crept up,
Then I crouched and quickly leapt up, pouncing on the feathered bore.
Soon he was a heap of plumage, and a little blood and gore
Only this and not much more.

“Oooh!” my pickled poet cried out, “Pussycat, it’s time I dried out!
Never sat I in my hideout talking to a bird before;
How I’ve wallowed in self-pity, while my gallant, valiant kitty
Put an end to that damned ditty”, then I heard him start to snore.
Back atop the door I clambered, eyed that statue I abhor,
Jumped – and smashed it on the floor.

1. The poem itself – I always had mixed feelings for The Raven. In middle school, we spent about 3 weeks studying just that poem, so I got kind of tired of it. I love the humor in this poem and how it closely follows the original.
2. Line 1 – It follows a similar rhyme scheme to The Raven by Poe.
3. Line 8 – The bust of Pallas was a symbol for Wisdom in the original. In this, it symbolizes the crazy and weird hallucinations Poe is feeling.
4. Line 14 – “Nevermore.” The classic line from The Raven shows more bluntly how this parody is related to the original, and is just from a different perspective on the same story.
5. Line 15 and 16 – I like these two lines because of their internal and external rhyme schemes. They are very fun to read aloud. (you know you want to!)
6. Line 18 – “It’s time I dried out!” In the original, the narrator was drinking Absinthe and it made him hallucinate. He sees that he needs to stop drinking.
7. Last line – The cat smashes the statue and the reader feels like Poe won’t have crazy dreams like this again. I like this ending much better than the original ending because it has a more closed resolution. And no one liked that statue anyway.
8. Animals – I like cats much more than Ravens. The cat in this poem sounds adventurous and daring, and that is much better than a squawking raven. In Poe’s The Raven, the raven symbolizes a bird that can only say one thing without thinking. The cat in this poem has the ability to think and also has the ability to abhor the statue, which means it has feelings, unlike the raven.