Posts

To the River

Image
  Richmond is nicknamed the River City and the James River has always been an important part of daily life, especially in the summer. On any given weekend with a hot afternoon, college students, families, first dates and fishermen can be found lulling about the banks and in the waters of the James. From the time the city was known as Powhatan (birthplace of the native chief who would adopt his villages name and then in turn bestow it to the indigenous confederacy he built) the James has been a source of food, transportation and recreation. By the time of Poe’s childhood in the 1820s dozens of small fishing boats would be out on the water near the falls with cargo ships down at Rocketts Landing waiting for tobacco, coal and other goods to be taken down the river and shipped across the country. The industrialization that would cover the rivers banks (and pollute it for most of the 20 th century) was only just beginning to form. View of Rocketts Landing ca April 1865 Poe was an athle...
Post a Comment
Read more

Why Edgar A Poe

Image
When I was in 6 th grade, my English teacher gave the class a poetry assignment. Passing out a list of poets, we were to choose one and do a biographical presentation after reciting one of their poems from memory. I took the list home and my dad pointed to Edgar Allan Poe, saying that he was from Richmond and there was a museum all about him in the city. Thus was the impetus for my first trip to the Poe Museum at the prime age to become obsessed with such a figure as Poe. My 12 year old brain drank up the drama of his life, the horror of his short stories, the aching loss of his poetry. This love of Poe is why I am starting this project of going through all of his short stories and poems, as there are dozens I have yet to consume. Each week I will talk about a poem and a short story of Poe’s. Although to say he was from Richmond is a tad simplistic, but I think still correct. Poe was born in Boston to actor parents on January 19, 1809. By the time he was three his mother died at jus...
Post a Comment
Read more

History is Not Dates

Image
I have always loved history, ever since I was little. I tease my older brother that my origin story was when we were little and our mom was quizzing him for an upcoming test and one of the questions was "Who painted the Mona Lisa?". He at eight years old couldn't answer. My little four year old voice chimes in "Da Vinci!". I'm still chasing that high of dunking on my older brother. I never had a lull in my love of history as a good many people do. The dates presented in school never intimidated me, as I mainly looked for the stories. Everyone loves a good story and what is better than a good true story? I believe that dates come after understanding the foundation of the story. The reason I stuck with history is that I love discovering connections. Realizing that certain people were contemporaries like Edgar Allan Poe and Charles Dickens. Digging deeper and finding out that Poe's reputation as one of the harshest critiques of his era splashed onto Dickens...
Post a Comment
Read more

Martin Luther King Day 2026

Image
Welcome to the first post of Bullock Bits, where I plan to ramble about a little bit of this a little bit of that. I felt a good place to start would be Martin Luther King Jr Day. I have always had a complicated relationship with the idea of Dr King. I grew up near Richmond, Virginia the former capital of the Confederacy while sharing Dr King's birthday. I will admit that while knowing Dr King was someone to admire I enjoyed getting out of school every couple of years on my birthday. As I got older and began to learn more outside of what I was taught in school I began to understand how radicle his tactics were and how expansive his vision was. This past summer I was fortunate enough to go on a trip through part of the Civil Rights trail in the Deep South. The framing was around Dr Martin Luther King Jr, starting at his childhood home and his family's church of Ebenezer Baptist in Atlanta to spending the last day of the trip in Memphis at the Lorraine Motel where Dr King was ass...
Post a Comment
Read more