Breaking literary news right in our own backyard: the Globe today published this article about how the city of Boston will rename a square at the south end of the Common for Edgar Allen Poe to celebrate his bicentennial. Apparently some Boston College students have begun a crusade to reclaim Poe for Boston, though while alive he did all he could to discount his Boston upbringing, of which he was “heartily ashamed.”

If this BC movement is successful, Poe will join the ranks of Emily Dickinson, e.e. cummings, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Dr. Seuss, just a few of the literary bigwigs that can reasonably be claimed by the city of Boston. None of the others seemed to mind admitting to it. So what do you think? Is it time to let bygones be bygones and have Poe reclaim his “rightful” place as a Bostonian? Or should we cede the glory to Richmond, New York, and Philadelphia and stick with the literati who actually liked it here?

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