Spring is the maddest season as it’s the official beginning of planning for Poe Fest International: date has been set for the International Edgar Allan Poe Festival & Awards and “Death Weekend” is slated for October 8th & 9th, 2022. We begin to assemble our hale and light-hearted friends with the return of PAVERS FOR POE FEST Tour Ticket pre-sales! Poe Fest International is a FREE community festival, but additional tours and ticketed events abound. Support the Edgar Allan Poe House & Museum with an engraved paver in Poe Park, get first access to the official festival t-shirt and Bus Tours of Poe’s Baltimore! As ever, proceeds benefit The Edgar Allan Poe House & Museum in Baltimore.
Check out the new addition to this year’s festival poster as our program and festival events are inspired by the Virginia Poe Bicentennial, a most poetical year of events and exhibits to commemorate the 200th birthday of Edgar Allan Poe’s wife and muse.
But why wait to commemorate? Join us this month, April 19 at 7PM, at Westminster Hall & Burying Ground for POETESS. The Virginia Poe Bicentennial Discussion Series welcomes female-identifying poets from Baltimore & Richmond for a special National Poetry Month reading of Poe works and original poetry, plus presentations from the Poe Studies Association and The Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore. Read more about this and other Poe House events in the Poe Baltimore House Newsletter.
Virginia Poe was Edgar Allan Poe’s devoted wife (and first cousin.) Though widely believed to be the inspiration for Poe’s writing and recurring themes of dark beauty and doomed devotion, only one piece of writing from his wife survives: an acrostic Valentine to Edgar in 1846, less than a year before she would die at the age of 24. Listen to a special recording of Virginia’s own love words to her husband, then join us for a graveside chat with Dean Knight of the Poe Museum (Richmond) for a talk about the marriage of Edgar Allan Poe to Virginia, including Edgar’s proposal of marriage.
Debbie Phillips of Richmond, Virginia, is a freelance lecturer, tour guide, and living history interpreter. She enjoys bringing history to life for audiences of all ages, and has worked in public history for 15 years. Her living history repertoire ranges from mid-18th century through World War II, including several women from Edgar Allan Poe’s life. Debbie and her husband have two wonderful boys, and in what spare time she can find, she enjoys singing, acting, backpacking, camping, knitting, cooking, and reading.
Dean Knight is the Programs Coordinator at the Poe Museum in Richmond, Virginia, in charge of scheduling and delivering tours and programs for groups of all ages both on-site and virtually. He is a Standardized Patient at the Medical College of Virginia, portraying patients with a variety of psychiatric ailments for the education of medical and nursing students, which helps him better understand what a genius Poe was at portraying mental illness in literature. He is also a regional stage actor, having performed in over 40 mainstage productions throughout Central Virginia over the past 15 years.
This is the second in a series of monthly programs for the Virginia Poe Bicentennial released in 2022; follow us on social media to be alerted when events are happening! The Virginia Poe Bicentennial is presented by Poe Baltimore, Westminster Hall & Burying Ground, Maryland Women’s Heritage Center, the Poe Cottage at Fordham (Bronx, NYC,) with generous help and participation from Poe Studies Association, The Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore and The Poe Museum (Richmond.)
Meet Virginia, Edgar Allan Poe’s devoted wife (and first cousin.) Born August 15th, 1822, she died January 30th, 1847 and was buried in New York. Several years his junior, Virginia preceded her doomed husband in death. And yet here she lies in Baltimore, forevermore next to her darling Eddy at Westminster Hall & Burial Ground. Join us for a graveside chat at Westminster where we’ll share the history of this obscure-yet-important figure in Edgar Allan Poe’s family story and learn about why the Poes had such a hard time finding a permanent place to rest their bones.
This is the first of several monthly programs; follow us on social media to be alerted when events are happening! The Virginia Poe Bicentennial is presented by Poe Baltimore, Westminster Hall & Burying Ground, Maryland Women’s Heritage Center, the Poe Cottage at Fordham (Bronx, NYC,) with generous help and participation from Poe Studies Association, The Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore and The Poe Museum (Richmond.)
