Poe Walks Home Along Boylston Street

At the corner of Boylston and Charles Streets, a bronze Edgar Allan Poe strides south with his coat flying, an oversized raven lifting off beside him. Behind him an open trunk spills pages, and the paper trail runs into the sidewalk. The sculpture, Poe Returning to Boston by Stefanie Rocknak, was unveiled on October 5, 2014. Poe was born in Boston on January 19, 1809, to two traveling actors living on Carver Street, a short walk from here, and the statue has him heading that way. His relationship with the city was not warm. He mocked its literary establishment as "Frogpondians," after the pond on the Common behind him, for preferring poetry that preached. The statue was meant as a late reconciliation, and it has become one of the more unexpected small monuments in the city: a restless writer, caught mid-step, going home.