Edward G Pettit

In this week's Philadelphia City Paper, I have an editorial on why Philadelphia should adopt should adopt Edgar Allan Poe as the icon of the city. It's about time we retire Ben Franklin and Rocky Balboa (But I do love them both!). The CP slightly edited my piece, tightening up some of my sentences, but they dropped my closing call-to-arms, which I liked. Here's my unedited version of the entire piece:

Goodbye Rocky, Goodnight Ben

I recently watched the Brian DePalma movie Blow Out featuring John Travolta plowing his car through the Mummers in a Bicentennial-like parade in 1980 Philadelphia. DePalma’s Philly is like a ruined colonial capital, with reminders everywhere of Philly’s once lofty status as the Athens of America. Revolutionary costumed actors and faded signs celebrating our birth as a nation surround the edges of its scenes. And ever present is the face of Ben Franklin.

Franklin’s visage peers at the audience from murals on crumbling walls, statues and signage. When DePalma needed a symbol for the faded glory of Philly, Ben Franklin fit the bill. And it has always been thus. Ben is the icon of our town.

But Philly, it’s time for a change, time for a new icon to represent everything good and bad about our city. Time for a figure in whom we can see both our dreams and nightmares. It’s time for Philly to embrace it’s inner-Gothic self and celebrate Edgar Allan Poe.

I know that for the past 30 years a fictional boxer has replaced Ben Franklin as the city’s icon. Rocky Balboa has come to symbolize the underdog spirit of a city that never quits, that always fights to the last bell, win or lose. And I’ll always love Rocky as much as I love Ben. But it’s time for a change.

January 19, 2009 is the 200^th anniversary of Edgar Allan Poe’s birth. Poe, in case you hadn’t heard, wrote most of his greatest works while living in Philly. Poe’s genius flourished here. This city, in the early 1840s, was the crucible for his imagination. He may have briefly lived in other cities during his life. He may have died in Baltimore (while on his way back to Philly). But his writing career was set afire in a flaming channel of literature known as Philadelphia Gothic that you can still see in writers today.

We don’t need the literal bones of Edgar Allan Poe. We need to appropriate his legacy. For over a century Poe has been maligned as crazy, drug-addled, drunk, his macabre tales proof of a disordered mind. But the truth is that Poe was a dedicated professional writer, who created a substantial body of work that has had enormous influence on all of literature.

Poe invented the mystery/detective story, which has burgeoned into the largest of literary genres. Poe is also the forefather of both the horror and science fiction genres. Poe was the greatest American literary critic of his time. Poe was a poet whose verse would outlast the scribblings of most of his contemporaries.

Where does Poe accomplish all this? While living in Philadelphia. Philly, in all its tumbling mess of democracy, strife, toil and glory, is the kind of place where the greatest American writer needed to be, to hone his vision, to perfect his craft.

And Poe’s life had all those Rocky undertones, as well. Except Poe was real, not some fictional character. Poe battles poverty and adverse critical opinion in search of his own glory, always just out of reach. He never quite wins the fight. Then, after death, he is finally crowned the laurels due him in life. He triumphs after death.

Ben Franklin was a great icon for a time when we wanted to whitewash the past, see it in terms of all its possibility, but not its limitations. Franklin’s story is the buttoned-down version of the American Dream, complete with corny aphorisms. Don’t get me wrong, Franklin was brilliant and led an extraordinary life. But have you read his Autobiography lately? Not very inspiring for most people living in a 21^st Century city.

Poe is the creative genius for our time, unafraid to show the wicked along with the good. Willing to work hard and keep pursuing the dream, even when life kept knocking him down. Off-center, but firm in his conviction that his was the right way to look at the world. And in the end, he was right.

That’s why we still read him.

The Poe Bicentennial starts here. Don’t come to Philly for the Bell. You’ve seen a thousand pictures of it in your lifetime. Don’t come here for Ben. Read a book about him. Don’t come here for Rocky. Watch his movie. Come for Poe. He lived in Philly, wrote his greatest works in Philly and represents all that is inspiring and terrifying about not only Philadelphia, but about America.

Poe is ours and we want the world to come celebrate with us.