Nameless, here? Not evermore

Born in Boston 200 years ago, Poe long had been overlooked as a native son because of his rancorous relationship with the city and its writers. But after an aggressive campaign by a devoted band of Poe enthusiasts, city officials agreed to pay tribute to the "master of the macabre" by renaming the corner of Boylston and Charles streets, across from Boston Common.

"Together again, at last," exclaimed Paul Lewis, a Poe scholar at Boston College who led the charge to honor the 19th-century author.

At the dedication ceremony, under sunny skies that seemed ill-suited for a tribute to the famously morbid writer, Lewis said the square would "celebrate the city's connection to Poe." He urged those who might harbor bitterness over Poe's hostility toward the city he derided as a provincial "Frogpondium" to let bygones be bygones.

"To these unforgiving folk I say: 'Wow, you really, really know how to hold a grudge,' " he quipped.

Despite his "literary war" against Massachusetts writers such as Lowell and Longfellow, Poe expressed a desire near the end of his life to be buried in Boston, Lewis said. His grave in Baltimore, the city with which he is most closely identified, draws thousands of visitors each year, including a mystery man who leaves roses and a bottle of cognac to mark Poe's birthday.

The bicentennial of Poe's birth on Jan. 19, 1809, has sparked a resurgence of interest in his life and writings. Baltimore, in conjunction with the Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum, is commemorating with a yearlong festival dubbed "Nevermore 2009." The Poe Museum in Richmond, Va., is doing likewise, with "Poe Revealed."

Baltimore and Richmond lay competing claims to Poe's legacy - along with New York and Philadelphia, cities the itinerant poet also called home - with each convinced it is the rightful heir.

"Richmond is the city he claims," Chris Semtner, curator of the Poe Museum in Richmond, said decisively, before striking a more conciliatory tone. "But Poe didn't belong to one city. He really belonged to the world."

Poe entered the world on Carver Street in Boston, where the State Transportation Building now stands. But his parents, who were traveling actors, soon left town. They both died before he turned 3, and Poe went to live with a foster family in Richmond.

The young man returned to Boston after dropping out of the University of Virginia, and, after enlisting in the Army, was briefly stationed at Castle Island, an experience believed to be an inspiration for his story "The Cask of Amontillado." In 1827, his first published work, an anonymous collection of poems called "Tamerlane," was signed "By a Bostonian."

Though he soon left the city, Poe returned to Boston again in 1848, a year before his death, and tried to commit suicide by swallowing a large quantity of an opiate.

Despite the connections, Poe's Boston roots are little known, probably because of the quarrel he had with the city and its literary elite. He derided Transcendentalists such as Emerson and Thoreau, calling their writing "obscurity for obscurity's sake," and once wrote that he was "heartily ashamed" of his Boston roots. He sometimes claimed Richmond or Baltimore as his hometown.

Before the square, nods to his local connection included plaques on Boylston Street, right beside the new square, and Fayette Street. Both are putative markers for his birthplace, but Poe specialists believe those are misplaced. Historic maps of Boston indicate the Poe Square named yesterday is not the first. A nearby intersection bore his name, according to one 1928 map, though the name in that incarnation was misspelled.

Mayor Thomas M. Menino, acknowledging that Poe and Boston had a "somewhat rocky relationship," said reconciliation was overdue.

"It's time to stake our claim to a major part of Poe's legacy," he said. "Time for the raven to join ducklings and swans on our list of favorite birds."

Poe was skilled, Menino allowed, at crafting "anti-Boston zingers" such as, "Their hotels are bad. Their pumpkin pies are delicious. Their poetry is not so good."

"Tough stuff," he said.

The city's poet laureate, Sam Cornish, praised Poe's "broad, universal voice" before reading the Poe poem "Alone."

"And all I lov'd, I loved alone," he said in a deep, commanding voice.

Lewis, who will curate a Poe exhibit at the Boston Public Library later this year, said he hopes to decorate the newly christened square with a statue of Poe and other public art. Maybe even a "Tell-Tale Heart" under the bricks at the newly dubbed square, he suggested, only half in jest. "I'm just saying it's a possibility," he said.