Just before ‘a screaming comes across the sky,’ somebody around the table at lunchtime in Little Rock says, “Can you believe we’re still here? How the heck did THAT happen?”
Outside the restaurant a grey crawling mist settles in on what was moments ago a sun baked August day. A slight chill seems to rise. Inside somebody takes a bite of an oyster Po Boy and says, “The Program ended what, 5 years ago? It was a freaking management development program. No one even does that anymore! What was it about us? Why did we stay in touch? Why do we even care? We work for a corporation. That’s like saying we work for a bushel full of data stored in a vault somewhere in Delaware or something. Why are we different?”
Where the street outside was normally a happy throng, it had now gone quiet.
“Ha! Why are we different? How much time you got! And the group around the table all laughed.
“Well, Chad made it home safe from Afghanistan. And so did all of his troops. And there is a birthday or two going on.” The glasses were raised around the table.
“That made us grateful. I’m not sure it made us different.”
And at that exact moment there was a piercing pop. As if the ear drum of the world had just been punctured. Around the table everyone froze. Then all eyes swept to the window.
Total darkness. Everything outside that small circle was gone. Vanished. The fingers of fear starting to rise. And then someone at that table said, “Wait.”
Another voice from the table. “Who’s here?”
And they all said their names.
“Who else?”
“We’re all of us. 25. All of us here in spirit.” All 25 were named.
“Who else?”
“A power greater than all of us. Unseen.”
Then another voice said, “Count us down Chad.”
He started the count at 10, drew a breath at 8 and someone said,
“All of us. At the table. The rest of the 25. All of our friends, our families, everyone we touch, everyone we pray for, all of us are here. Everybody’s here. And everybody’s welcome.”
He resumed counting and paused at 5. Someone at the table sang out, “We are here to take care of the vulnerable. That’s what we do.”
Someone else rang out with, “Blessed are the meek.”
The count resumed and at 2, someone shouted, “Because we know our strengths!”
And when Chad reached 1. The entire team rose in perfect unison, something they’d actually worked on before but never quite mastered. Moving from the table to the restaurants’ front door as if to do battle with the very heart of snarling darkness itself. Throwing open that door. They all stepped out into that trembling unknown. And as that whole group, the ones right there and the ones in spirit, as they all leapt out flinging their very souls into the darkness. . .
The street came alive in the blessed heat of an August in Little Rock. Everything was moving, was alive and singing.
And someone from the table said, “What were we talking about again?”
“Just take a vacation. Simple. Right? The Hamptons. The Cape. The Ocean. It’s August. Just go!”
That’s what the TV talking head expert bleats out when he’s asked, “What should people do about the roiling stock market?”
And then the host, God bless you Judy Woodruff, tries again. She asks him, “But what about normal everyday people? What should they think about all this? What should they do?”
Again the expert says “Relax. Take a vacation.”
He blathers on another minute or so. And then Judy, seeing that subtle hints will not work with this blow hard, ends it with, “And of course we need to remember how many of our viewers can’t afford to take a vacation.”
August is now the month when the wealth gap sticks out on the national consciousness like a red, raw pus filled sore.
So for those who don’t have a vacation. Those too busy finding work to have a vacation. . . .
I remember this morning walking west on Grace to get the newspaper. It’s early. A summer morning just a bundle of golden promise.
There he is.
It’s him. Walking west with the sun. The Tin Man.
Haven’t seen him in awhile. He’s obviously worked all night, though I have no clue just what the work could be. He is dressed in a faded silver tux. As if the circus just left town and he missed the train.
This is 6:30 in the morning. He is the color of tin. Walking down Grace. Even his skin is the color of tin. The only other color, a green plastic bottle of 7-Up that swings along in his left hand. Everything else is a grey, weary tin.
His eyes a silent story of a hard, hard night.
No vacation for him. But of course he does have a song. Because we all do.
So as I pass his downcast eyes, I hear from either my head or his:
When a man’s an empty kettle he should be on his mettle,
And yet I’m torn apart.
Just because I’m presumin’ that I could be kind-a-human,
If I only had heart.
I’d be tender – I’d be gentle and awful sentimental
Regarding Love and Art.
I’d be friends with the sparrows …
and the boys who shoots the arrows
If I only had a heart.
Picture me – a balcony. Above a voice sings low.
Wherefore art thou, Romeo?
I hear a beat….
How sweet.
Just to register emotion, jealousy – devotion,
And really feel the part.
I could stay young and chipper
and I’d lock it with a zipper,
If I only had a heart.
The great Jack Haley, the Tin Woodsman from the Wizard of Oz. That’s who’s singing.The brilliant songsmith Harold Arlen. That’s who wrote the song.
I wonder if that song could maybe be like The Tin Man’s vacation?
And with that question, Arlen’s song connects to another song. As songs can do.
The story that came before this next song hits first.
She was a secretary banging out tunes in the Brill Building in New York City. He was studying to be a pharmacist. One of their songs, “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?” was sold. She wrote the music. He wrote the lyrics. And when news of the sale went down, they rented a limo to drive them off to some new life. Soon after that they wrote this next song.
Surrounded by a half dozen Navy Seals, Senator Mitch McConnell and Rep. John Boehner opened their eyes in an underground tunnel at an undisclosed location below the streets of downtown Chicago.
Both men immediately started talking.
“How the hell. . .”
“Just where am I?”
“I am a United States Senator. . .”
And that was when the President of the United States, Barack Obama, strolled in dressed in wearing gym shoes, shorts and a grey sweat shirt dribbling a basketball.
The Navy Seals all saluted, the President returned the salute and McConnell huffed out. “Mister president, what in the world is. . .”
“Shut up Mitch.”
McConnell, like all bullies everywhere, immediately retreated and went quiet.
“Now Mitch, I tallk, you answer. Understand?”
“Well I. . .”
“You are nothing Mitch. Nothing. You’re a cheap piece of sleaze who hit it big playing a game. But you see Mitch the game is now over. I talk. You listen. So, question number one. And I hope this ain’t too hard for you. Mitch, what state do you come from?”
“Kentucky. But I . . .”
“What’s that race you have there Mitch? Never mind. I’ll answer. You are not the sharpest pitchfork in the stable, are you Mitch? The answer is the Kentucky Derby Mitch. And I’m thinking that next year? Come May? Or better yet, a week or so before May. When all your women are just about to go buy those silly ass hats? I’m thinking I might just snap my fingers and cancel ya’ll’s horse race. How you like that Mitch? Friends of yours loose any money Mitch?”
“But I. . .”
“Hmm,” said the President. How bout this?” He snapped his fingers and a Navy Seal handed him a piece of paper.” Mitch I got the names of the 10 people who own you. The ones that make it all possible for you to buy well. . .I don’t want to go into details. . .but lets just say the people who finance your ah present standard of living. Now what you say I just tell them to stop paying you?.”
“Mr. President. Sir. I thought you were all about compromise. Working together. How can you. . .”
“I was an idiot Mitch. I thought that I could make deals with you devils. I thought riding the middle, playing the center, I thought that was the right thing to do.”
“But it is Mr. President! It is!” John Boehner piped up.”
“Boner. And can I call you Boner? Wait. I’m the effing President. I can call you anything I want. Boner. You are that close to loosing your top 10 contributors and the entire Ohio State football season. IS that what you want Boner?”
“But sir I. . .”
“Too late for Sir, Boner. You too Mitch, game is over.”
“What do you want sir? How do we get out. . .what can we. . .”
“Stop babbling Mitch. And Boner? Stop crying. I’m going to give you a direction. You can call it an order if you want. I’m going to give you 4 fucking words boys. And they will be the words that will govern every single thing you do. Every tired, blowhard speech, every piece of legislation, every conversation you have with whatever handler at Fox News that has you on the phone barking orders today.
These will be the four words you will live by. And I am keeping it simple. Keeping it at four words. Because I know when you two get into the longer sentences things can get ah confusing for you. So are you ready boys?”
“Yes sir.”
“Then here are the four words that from now on will govern every single thing you do.
Blessed are the meek.
“You boys know who said that?”
“No sir,” said Boner.
“You sir?” said McConnell.
“No boys. Wrong. It wasn’t me. But that’s alright. I forgive you.
Just don’t ever forget those words. Because if that happens. And it probably will because evil never dies easy—-we three will be right back here again. And we’ll have to have another lesson. And next time? Next time I won’t bring the Navy Seals. Next time it will be just the three of us.
And you do not want that to happen. So once again boys. Tell me the four words.
“Blessed are the meek.”
“Good start boys. Good start.
But we have a long, long way to go. A long long way before you boys learn what it means to respect.”
Pay no attention to the man screaming into the hot August night wind on the gritty streets of Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood.
Can’t make out what he’s saying? Ignore that man. He’s crazy.
Pay attention to the fact that you are in an ancient Spanish castle.
It’s designed to put you inside an ancient Spanish castle. The Aragon Ballroom. First stop on President Obama’s 50th birthday fund raiser slash birthday tour.
Inside the Aragon Ballroom, where the President rolled up his sleeves and stoked the fires of the crowd last night, if you were to look up, you’d see the twinkling elegant stars in the elegant courtyard of a grand Spanish castle.
That grand Spanish castle was the vision of Andrew and William Karzas when they opened their Aragon Ballroom, in the shadow of the El Train, on Lawrence Avenue at Winthrop St. on a hot July night in 1926.
The Karzas Brothers knew exactly what they were doing. Their $2 million dollar palace was 4 stories high. Patterned Spanish style brickwork, terra cotta design for the exterior. Two stately promenades lined with opulent draperies and hung with oil paintings flanked the room and connected a Grand Salon on one end and three stages on the other. A maple dance floor built on a cushion of felt and cork accommodated 5,000. Access to the dance floor was on the plushest carpeting of the day. And the staircase sported statues of two giant plaster dragons to guard all who passed.
Building on the success of their south side Trianon Ballroom; the Aragon was more than a dance hall. It was a social statement; communicating that the earlier saloon-like dance halls that populated the rough and raw streets of Chicago, could now give way to a new standard in refinement. In short, Chicago was no longer a rough and wild frontier town. And truth told, it was, like the Trianon, a social statement colored by the fact that inside it’s walls, all were not welcome.
Architectural racism.
No one said that. No one could prove it. It can be argued. But it wasn’t. We can be subtle about our sins here Chicago.
While the south side clubs of Bronzeville were blending African American spirituals and blues into what would become jazz, led by the likes of King Oliver and his young friend Louis Armstrong; the more “refined tones” of popular white orchestras whose names have been lost in the mists of musical history would be the ones drifting out on to Lawrence Avenue from the stately Aragon Ballroom.
The orchestras of Freddy Martin, Wayne King and Dick Jurgens were Aragon regulars. And all had large followings at the time. Familiar names?
Nope.
This is the haunted ghost of a building where the President began last night’s celebration. Inside on the Karzas Brothers stage. While outside, right across from Uptown’s Peoples Church, that street man kept screaming. A silent scream. No one really heard him.
And the hot August night went on.
At its peak, the Aragon was bringing in 18,000 people a week. And that didn’t include all the concerts broadcast across the Midwest by radio station WGN.
Through the 1920’s, 30’s and 40’s, the management’s style of keeping true to that vision of “refinement” kept the crowds coming. Crowds of the “right” kind of people.
Floorwalkers stopped anyone who tried to jitterbug or any of the other wilder dances that grew popular through the years.
This was a time when all public dancing was considered by many to be evil. And the grand opulence of the Aragon helped change that view. The Aragon didn’t just have slower paced music. It had chaperones.
But time, and television, took its toll.
A 1955 fire started next door and did serious damage. And the era was over. William Karzas sold the building for less than it cost him to build.
For a brief stint, the next owners tried ice-skating. Then in 1966, the “Discothèque” craze shimmied in from New York and the Aragon became “The Cheetah Club.” After that died, there was a brief try at returning the Aragon to it’s former Big Band Glory. But that fizzled too.
Then came rock and roll. The Grateful Dead, Jethro Tull, The Allman Brothers and even blues legend BB King played the Aragon.
But as the economics of rock and roll changed, moving to stadiums, the boom rock and roll years gave way to the Aragon’s latest new life as a center of Hispanic entertainment. Current owners Viva Entertainment now open up the venue for corporate and private parties. And, on occasion, English speaking acts, including the legendary Bob Dylan, will appear at The Aragon.
And of course, now the President.
It’s become a familiar routine, the President coming home. Every few months. The throbbing train of black military helicopters taking off from O’Hare, skimming the treetops, barreling along above our house to Soldier Field on the lake. Then a caravan of black SUV’s. This time into our neighborhood. To the Aragon. Last time I was in there, I believe it was to see The Marshall Tucker Band. All of whom are probably in rock and roll retirement homes. I remember beer was involved.
But the silent screams of that street guy outside last night, they weren’t there. Back then he wasn’t screaming.
Which is why I kept listening to what he was screaming, as I stood outside with him on the sidewalk while the President had his party under the twinkling electric Spanish stars inside. I kept listening till I finally heard what he was screaming.
“Mr. President, the way to do what’s right is NOT to split the difference between good and evil.”
That’s what I heard the man scream. I had to listen carefully. Had to think about it. Because it sounds simple, but it’s not. So I listened harder. And I heard it again.
“Mr. President, the way to do what’s right is NOT to split the difference between good and evil.”
And after he screamed it one more time, I looked around to see if anyone else had heard. To see if anyone else understood.
We were in the corner at the end of the bar. McMurphy’s Place. A place you really don’t want to find. So lets just say it’s off of Van Buren somewhere. 100 degree heat outside so the air conditioner was blasting. Snake with his usual. Canadian and seven. Lotsa ice. Hunched over at the dark end of the bar near the back, talking into his glass like it was some kinda microphone.
“So this David Brooks guy, he’s a priest, right?”
“No Snake. He’s the reasonable, level headed voice of the conservatives. He’s America’s leading conservative intellectual.”
Snake did a Danny Thomas at that. The booze sputtering out his nose. McMurphy with a bar rag. Saying nothing. Just wiping.
“Well the two guys talking to him, they kept smiling. Kept calling him Father Brooks.”
“Now, tell me again where you saw this?”
“I was down on the campus. University of Chicago. Checking out some uh computer labs or something. It was a building without a sign, so I walked in. Heard this yelling. Peeked around the side of the door and there they were.”
“Snake, what do you know about computer labs.”
“I know how to count, Roger. And I know how to follow instructions for ah, certain unnamed people who are always looking for business deals that require ah very little capital investment.”
“Capital investment? Geez, you were on a college campus, Snake.”
Snake beamed. His narrow eyes shone bright.
“So,” I asked him. Tell me what you saw?”
“This David Brooks guy. He was sitting in the front row of a deserted classroom. Sitting at the little desk. And these two older guys, couldn’t make out their faces because there was all sorts of shadows in there, they were walking back and forth, pacing in front of him.”
“These guys have names?”
“”Every time one would talk to the other, they’d use the same name. They’d say, ‘Thank you Mister K. Or My pleasure Mister K.’ And it was like that wasn’t even their real names. They just called each other that. Maybe it was that Kafka guy you talked about once?’
“No, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t him. But what were they talking about with David Brooks? What were they saying?”
They were all excited about something he wrote. Called it the July 14th Masterpiece.”
“I saw the column. Didn’t read it too carefully. Assumed it was the usual. ‘Open with reason. Tell both sides. Then get to the point—which is always the same: the rich people win. The poor people lose.’
“Oh,” Snake shook his head no. “It was more than that. These two bosses was all excited. They were telling this David Brooks something like, ‘this piece is the biggest piece of intellectual masturbation they had ever seen.’ That’s it. I remember now. Cause I remember them saying intellectual masturbation and I wasn’t sure how that could be much fun.”
“What else did they say?”
“Well, after the masturbation part, I don’t remember all of it. But it was something about all the budget deficit fighting going on right now. And what the two bosses were all excited about was that this Brooks guy wrote something saying that the battle of the budget was really about a battle against cheating death. About keeping people alive longer. And how that’s where all the health care money went. Keeping people alive longer. And how if we didn’t have to do that we wouldn’t have a budget problem.”
“No way. They did not say that. That’s crap.”
“Oh, they knew it was crap. That’s why the two boss men were so excited! They said that the way David Brooks dressed it up and made it looked so pretty with his 800 words was just worth a million dollars!”
“Yeah, so David Brooks gets to be the one to lead us to the decision as to who dies when?”
“Well yeah. And he even made THAT sound reasonable. He said something about how we weren’t gonna leave people with Alzheimer’s disease wondering out on a hill. And the boss guys, they LOVED that.”
“So David Brooks makes a connection between budget talks and death. Everybody gets lost in the intellectual fairyland wonder of the academy. We cut back care for the elderly. And the money goes to more coal power plants or corporate subsidies or whatever those two Mister K guys want”
“Well, I ain’t exactly sure of what you just said. But yeah, I think that was it. Way I saw it though was more like the 3 man teams that work State Street and Navy Pier crowds. It ain’t all that hard. 2 guys make a scene. Start yelling. Then the third guy slips in and starts lifting everybody’s wallet.’
“And David Brooks gets to help us all decide when everyone should die.”
Snake shrugged his shoulders. Looked up from his drink. And he said, ‘Yeah, that’s pretty much it. So, you buying this next round or what?’
Last time I saw old President Obama? It was right around the fourth of July. I don’t remember the year. Get to be my age and, well I’m not sure if its that I don’t remember things like what year it was, or if I just don’t care. But I do remember it was hot. Baking hot summer. Now this was a long, long time after his years running things had passed. And no one could understand why he’d spend so much time in Chicago. Gets hot here. And it also gets pretty cold.
If I had me a house in Hawaii like he does? Not sure if I’d spend all my days here.
Aw who am I kiddin. Yes I would. Home is home.
For me? It’s the Lathrop Homes. Right here on the river. Right where I am telling you this story this very second.
Now I am old enough to remember when the river was a sewer. Old Man Emanuel. He’s been the Mayor now long as I can remember. He changed that. Now we got two places to go. We got the Lake, of course. And we got the river. And if you would have told me back then that kids would be swimming in the river, that there’d be fish you could eat from that river, that there’d be boats come slicing through that water like some sort of July 4th parade, if you would have told me that years ago? I would have called you crazy.
But here I am. Right out back of my place in Lathrop. Now Lathrop, that I knew about. That was not a surprise. Kind of a secret everybody knew. Place was called a housing project. Back when Riverview, the big amusement park used to be cooking and crawling with lights and crowds and a tunnel of love and a parachute drop and a million people every summer, back then, people mostly shied away from Lathrop, which was right next door to Riverview.
Lot of people didn’t know that the very same men who designed all the fancy places on Lake Shore Drive, designed Lathrop. That Jens Jensen, best damn landscape architect that ever lived, that he made sure anybody who lived here had a garden, had trees. Fact is that 18% of the land here is open space. So Lathrop was like a piece of gold that nobody polished for a long, long time.
But that changed. Now I live here and I love it.
Old President Obama, he looked like he loved coming through here too. Course he was surrounded by about a million grandkids. All of them helping with the wheel chair. Helping him roll in through the grass where I was sitting. Where we were all sitting. My neighbors. Me. Lovin the summer.
So the little Obama parade got him on that boat. I read that he really loved that boat. Nothing made him smile like being out on that boat going up and down the river.
I wasn’t always smiling during those eight years he was in charge. Didn’t like a whole lotta things he did. Didn’t like the company he kept. Didn’t like it when it seemed he’d never fight back.
I wasn’t workin then. After 20 years working, I could not get a job to save my life. Everybody I knew—it was the same for lots of us. And the folks who had jobs? Most times they were just whatever they could get. I think that’s why it took so long for things to get better. All these people doing things they just weren’t very good at. That’ll get to you after awhile.
But it changed. Eventually it changed. And things got better. Round that time I started to write. And I never stopped. Then finally after doing that for about 10,000 hours, someone started paying me for it.
And I been fine ever since.
Old Mr. Obama? I guess what he did, well, I guess what happened cause of him is that people started thinking differently about things.
People started thinking that the way to make things better for everybody wasn’t just to make some folks richer.
People started thinking that everybody really did have a right to be healthy.
That when some folks went hungry, we all went hungry.
That anybody should be able to marry anybody they wanted. That one sounds like the easiest. Most obvious. Not sure if I remember this right, but I think it even took Mr. Obama a while to figure that one out.
All in all though, he did good.
So I got to say it’s kind of an honor to sit here in my chair on the banks of this green and growing river and watch this parade.
Right now. As I write this. His family all around him, they are helping him on the boat. 3 or 4 of them going with. Just to make sure he’s OK as he goes floating down the river. I see he’s got a book in his hands. He’s still doing about 4 things at the same time. Reading, listening, talking, watching.
And they’re turning on some music for him to take down that river. Joe Williams. I’ll be damned. Looks like he remembered Joe Williams. Man does have taste. Nobody sang a song like Joe Williams. I read where “Here’s to Life” is one of ole President Obama’s favorites. Mine too.
I wish everybody could hear Joe Williams sing that song.
We’ll be hearing it right here on the banks of the Chicago River as the boat gets ready to sail. But it sure would be good if everybody could hear it.
Maybe if I write about it, everybody will.
Boats getting ready. Everybody’s waving. Lots a smiling. Lots of laughing. Happy 4th a July they’re singing out. Waving some more and look! Look at that!
Old President Obama. He looked right up here where I am sitting and he waved and he smiled right at me!
It will come years from now. Long after the family home, seen here, is gone. A few years after the former Governor’s prison sentence has begun. One of the Blagojevich daughters will be running down the soccer field, glance over at the sidelines and just for a split second imagine that her Dad is watching too.
No one can really plumb the depths of another’s heart. So judging whether Rod Blagojevich really believes he did something wrong is perhaps better left to amateur psychologists or fools. Blagojevich was convicted. Definitively. Prosecutors can take a victory lap. The parsing of the process on how that happened can chatter on. Blame can be tossed. And the collective shame of an electorate who twice put him in power can raise its head for a moment. And then quickly retreat into the protective community conversation on the weather or parades of questions like “How about them Cubs? Them White Sox?”
But in a few years there will be a prom. And a Blagojevich daughter, dressed and ready and beautiful will just for a second search the room for her Dad. And he’ll be gone.
Ten miles due south of the yellow brick East Ravenswood home where the two Blagojevich kids spent the first years of their lives, there will be another round of picture taking for the prom going on. And there will be no Dad in that room either.
And of course what’s happening in that fatherless room on the South or West side of Chicago, or of any city or town anywhere, won’t be news.
There will be no screaming headlines proclaiming “THE WORLD IS NOT FAIR!”
But if you looked hard at that circle of picture taking surrounding that nameless young woman, ravishingly beautiful in her new prom dress, perhaps you’d see traces of connections back to the Blagojevich daughter. In Patti Blagojevich’s living room you’d see surrounding her prom queen daughter . . . .
A Mother of absolute steel. Raised in the neighborhoods of politics and summer festivals and alleys and neighborhoods and tough enough to come out swinging at any fight imaginable. You’d see her sister. Deborah Mell. Also in the family business of politics. As principled as the day is long. But more than anything, the cool Aunt to those girls. The one who fills in the colors of the girl’s high times and laughing parties. Mom taking care of every day. An Aunt who can be like a trampoline of dreams.
And standing quietly behind his two daughters, you’d see the rock of the neighborhood, the Blagojevich girl’s grandfather, Alderman Richard Mell. As quietly proud of what he helped hold together here in this room of picture taking and girls giggling —no, he’s even more proud of what’s happening in this room—then of anything he did to leave his Ward better than when he found it.
As the picture taking session ends and the car pulls up to whisk the young Blagojevich daughter off to new worlds of her own grown up dreams and trials, she’ll have a moment of recognition of all the other people filling that room, lots of them who she didn’t even know 5 or 6 years ago when her Dad had to go away.
Her Dad. She’ll miss him. A brief second in her swirling exit outside to her awaiting chariot parked under the green trees of June on a Chicago street. She’ll think, she’ll remember, because this is how she was brought up, she’ll remember; my Dad loves me.
Today. As a soft, grey rain swept clean the sleepy streets of Chicago’s early morning rhythm, the Poetry Foundation prepared for the housewarming party to its brand new home.
After almost a century of being a renter, Poetry Magazine, and the umbrella organization, The Poetry Foundation can now throw open the doors to it’s sweeping 22,000 square foot building, and say to the world, ‘We own our own home.’
Designed by Chicago architect John Ronan, the building does what poetry does, provides a place to think and speak and reflect on the world differently.
Of course, writing about Poetry is akin to dancing about architecture. There is an element of absurdity in even attempting such a thing. So one can first turn to facts. But then reciting facts about poetry can easily fade into the steady stream of background noise that populates so much of the inboxes of our souls. Like for example: The building houses a performance area, a 35,000 volume library and an exhibition gallery. Quick show of hands. How many read that last sentence and thought “So?”
Scores of words will be devoted to the money angle on this story. By last count, there were 32 poets across the world that actually had a lot of money. But the Poetry Foundation has a whole lot of money. Supplied by an heiress to the Eli Lilly drug fortune.
And finally, there’s the fact that there are a few famous poets. Garrison Keillor and Billy Collins will be here soon to headline the dedication ceremonies.
And all those facts are well and good. Fodder for the tired old arguments about all the ways that art and commerce should get along with each other.
But it’s when you leave the city rhythms and wander into the garden of Poetry’s new home that the real story starts to unfold. You’ve come early to the ceremony. Your search is for the voices that will not be giving speeches today. The spirits who have come back to see what we’ve done with the world they’ve left behind. You start listening. You listen harder then you ever imagined you could listen. And as the blurry images of poetry’s real history start to take shape on the benches in the garden that surrounds you, there is first a quiet woman pouring over some numbers on a piece of paper. Studying them intently. Harriet Monroe. Founded the magazine in 1912. Touching the tip of her pencil to her tongue. ‘If I get 100 people to dedicate $50 a year for the first 5 years . . .’ and she ends up getting 108 people.
That first issue—the one in the picture. Look at who was featured. Ezra Pound. He’s here today too. Sitting on his bench in the garden, marveling at the height of the buildings surrounding this oasis of calm and center of curiosity.
That man in the business suit, holding a small jar that he places on the bench beside him. Wallace Stevens. Poetry Magazine contributor and Vice President of Claims for Hartford Insurance. Both. And that a combination like that exists in one person is a marvel.
But the wild prairie fire soul clearing his throat on the bench behind you, Carl Sandberg, has no time for guys in suits, as he starts to sing out:
“Hog Butcher for the World,
Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
Player with Railroads and the Nation’s Freight Handler;
Stormy, husky, brawling,
City of the Big Shoulders:
They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I
have seen your painted women under the gas lamps
luring the farm boys.
And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it
is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to
kill again.
And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the
faces of women and children I have seen the marks
of wanton hunger.
And having answered so I turn once more to those who
sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer
and say to them:
Come and show me another city with lifted head singing
so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.
Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on
job, here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the
little soft cities . . . .”
Sandburg, interrupted then by the wild eyed Nelson Algren who had just wandered in late, looks up from the bench to his picture at the typewriter at the top of this page right here, shrugs, and cries out, “This is a home? Maybe now I can be loved in my home. Like when I said,
“The Pottawattomies were much too square.
They left nothing behind but their dirty river.
While we shall leave, for remembrance, one rusty iron heart.
The city’s rusty heart that hold’s both the hustler and the square.
Take them both and holds them there.
For keeps and a single day.
And as Algren roars, crying out for his home, I look around a filling in all the benches in the garden, I see a virtual parade of poetic giants: T.S. Eliot, Langston Hughes, James Merrill, Gwendolyn Brooks.
All of them having filled the pages of Poetry Magazine.
I pull a copy of the magazine out of my back-pack, just to have it in my hands. It arrives at my house each month. Always a surprise, because money does not arrive at my house every month. But the magazine does. And I devour that magazine like a meal wrapped in gratitude.
The garden is almost full now. I remember this from the poet Steven Orlen:
“Now everything is real;
There is a beginning and an ending.
The end is like a dream in which
You’ve found friends who understand.”
From inside the building, Poetry Magazine’s Chris Wiman, the Editor, and Don Share, the Senior Editor, wander out into the garden, at a distance their talk is animated. They’re laughing.
In that laughter, echoes of Wiman’s poem “Given a God More Playful,” one of my favorites.
The rain lets up as the spirits all come to attention. Sitting up straighter on their benches. Harriet Monroe gives a slight nod.
The poet Check Stetson once wrote “Poetry is a short memory overload, do it right and the imagery floods the senses.”
In the Poetry Garden in Chicago, surrounded by the spirits who built the soul of this building, every sense is alive, ready, waiting, challenging.
