In life, Edgar Allan Poe only made it to his 40th birthday.
But this weekend, The Poe Museum is celebrating the author’s 207th birthday with a 13-hour party billed as the “world’s largest Poe birthday celebration.”
The Poe Museum has been celebrating Poe’s birthday since 2002. But marking the famous author’s birthday is an enduring Richmond tradition.
“Richmond has been celebrating Poe’s birthday since the 1930s,” said Chris Semtner, the museum’s curator. “They called it ‘Poe Memorial Week,’ and they’d have displays in the windows at Thalhimers and Miller & Rhoads. They’d show furniture from Poe’s house and dioramas of ravens. They’d really let their imagination run wild.”
Last year, 900 people turned out at The Poe Museum to celebrate the master of the macabre’s birthday.
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“We’re competing with Philadelphia and Baltimore” for the title of “biggest Poe birthday bash,” Semtner said. Richmond gets bragging rights as the biggest because of the length of the museum’s birthday blowout.
“We go 13 straight hours. We have something planned every hour. We have walking tours and performances. We’ll have an interview with Poe himself. And a first meeting between Poe’s mother and his fiancée, which will be kind of awkward, as Poe’s mother died when he was 2,” Semtner said.
The event kicks off with a costumed interpreter dressed as Poe’s fiancée, Elmira Shelton, offering a walking tour of Church Hill. Another interpreter dressed as Poe’s mother, who died at age 24 and is buried at St. John’s Episcopal Church, will give a walking tour of Shockoe Bottom later in the afternoon.
“We really want to celebrate Poe as a Richmonder. This is the city he called home,” Semtner said.
Born in Boston, Poe was raised in Richmond by John and Frances Allan. Although he moved to Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York City for work, Poe lived in Richmond longer than any other place, according to Semtner.
The museum has a room-sized diorama that shows the buildings where Poe lived and worked while in Richmond. The diorama, as well as all the buildings and exhibits at the museum, will be open for the party.
There also will be musical performances, arts and crafts, readings of Poe’s work and an award for Poe-inspired writing throughout the day.
Margot MacDonald, a one-woman live looper, will be coming from the D.C. area.
“She loops her own voice and creates this atmospheric sound. People love it,” Semtner said.
The museum will be showing “Extraordinary Tales,” an animated anthology of five Poe stories told in very different styles. The movie offers several interesting takes on classic Poe tales, such as a Bela Lugosi-narrated version of “The Tell-Tale Heart.”
There also will be a screening of the silent version of “The Fall of the House of Usher,” accompanied by a performance from The Embalmers.
“The movie is very expressionist and eerie. It really fits with The Embalmers’ rockabilly, surfer style of music,” Semtner said.
All the performances will be held in a heated tent.
Visitors also can check out Poe’s artifacts, such as his vest, his walking stick, his chair and bed.
At a curator’s corner, Semtner will show Poe artifacts that can’t be displayed year-round.
“We’ll have a little bit of everything, from performances to film to a birthday cake with Poe’s face on it. Everybody always wants the piece of cake with Poe’s eye or ear or mustache on it,” Semtner said.
The event wraps up with a midnight champagne toast in the Poe Shrine.
To Poe, as they say, forevermore.
(804) 649-6151
Twitter: @collcurran
