What phrase is inscribed on Lovecraft's 1977 fan-erected headstone?

What phrase is inscribed on Lovecraft's 1977 fan-erected headstone? “I AM PROVIDENCE.”

H. P. Lovecraft was buried in Swan Point Cemetery in Providence, Rhode Island, after his death on March 15, 1937. His original burial marker was the Phillips family monument, which also listed his parents. The more familiar individual headstone was added decades later by fans in 1977.

The inscription connects Lovecraft inseparably with Providence, the city where he spent much of his life and which strongly shaped his fictional New England settings. “I Am Providence” comes from one of his personal letters, rather than from a story or poem. That distinction matters: the phrase is an autobiographical quotation, not the title of a Lovecraft work.

A common mix-up is assuming that the inscription refers to Arkham, the fictional Massachusetts town appearing throughout the Cthulhu Mythos. Arkham is central to his fiction, but Providence is the real city commemorated on the fan-erected stone.