Titanic Poetry, Music & Stories

Many great accounts of the fateful night of April 14th and 15th of 1912 have been told about the sinking of the RMS Titanic. Over the past one hundred and two years, the stories of the people and the disaster have been explained in art, movies, books, music and verse. This book begins with an original poem I have written to commemorate the ship’s first, last and only voyage and the heroics demonstrated by some of those souls on board, some who survived and others who did not.Other wonderful and historic poems from the years immediately following the disaster are included here along with musical tributes, some of which can be linked to hear historic renditions on ebooks and computers. Some of the poems are famous, while others were penned by unknown poets. Newspapers of the day found that they received unsolicited poems by the hundreds on a daily basis - so many that the editor of the New York Times penned an editorial declaring many to be unworthy. The editorial concluded with a harsh admonition to its readers that simply because one had pen and paper didn’t anoint them with the talent of a poet. Newspapers of today tend to be considerably friendlier to their declining readerships.What all those who wrote the poems of the Titanic shared in common was the desire of those authors to express shock, despair and sorrow in all the depths of human emotion. In addition, the very best attributes of character, heroics and courage were described in verse and song as exhibited or even imagined to have been displayed by the valiant on board the Titanic. Included here are two original poems penned by me along with my favorite story about the hero dog of the Titanic, Rigel, which I tell to visitors at the Titanic Museums in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee and Branson, Missouri, where I hope to see you when you visit. – Ken Rossignol