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Edgar Allan Poe’s 205th birthday this coming Jan. 19 will be marked at a Boston College event, “The Poe Statue Project: Public Art, Creativity, Politics, and the Law,” that will celebrate the city of his birth and provide an overview of the successful public art initiative to commemorate his ties to Boston.
The legendary author’s birthday observance, which will take place at 3 p.m. in Devlin 101, will feature Professor of English Paul Lewis — who chairs The Edgar Allan Poe Foundation of Boston [www.bostonpoe.org] — award-winning sculptor Stefanie Rocknak, Boston Art Commission Director Karin Goodfellow, and Boston arts lawyer Andrew D. Epstein discussing the challenges of the public art process and the place of Poe in the city’s rich literary heritage.
With the support of Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, the Poe Foundation has in recent years worked with the Boston Art Commission on the creation of a sculpture that will permanently commemorate Poe’s connection to the city. Born here in 1809, Poe returned to Boston in 1827 and published some of his most important works here, including Tamerlane and Other Poems, “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “Hop-Frog.”
Rocknak was chosen to design the life-size bronze sculpture, “Poe Returning to Boston,” which she describes as depicting Poe “just off the train, walking south towards his place of birth. With a trunk full of ideas — and worldwide success — he is finally coming home.”
Now in the final phase of fundraising, organizers hope to install the Rocknak sculpture in Poe Square, a plaza opposite the entrance to Boston Common at the corner of Boylston and Charles streets, this coming year.
“Poe deserves this tribute,” according to Lewis, “not despite, but because, he quarreled with Boston-based writers of his time, whom he called ‘Frogpondians’ and ‘so-called transcendentalists.’ By resisting then-fashionable didacticism and promoting literature for its own sake, Poe became a foundational figure in the development of popular culture.”
For details on the Jan. 19 event or the Poe project, contact Paul Lewis at paul.lewis@bc.edu or ext.2-3710.