Naskah Pidato - It’s funny: Although one’s enjoyment of Menashe’s poems certainly can increase from the context he offers when publicly reading them, I think that—more perhaps than many contemporary poets—his tiny poems also stand up quite straight and strong on the page without any added context whatsoever. It is one of those things that prove him to be a truly great poet, I suppose.
Dr. Elizabeth Weber, associate professor of English, is one of four poets whose work has been chosen for display along the Indianapolis Cultural Trail, which is now under construction downtown.
Weber’s poem “City Generation” will be mounted at Poet’s Place, a site on Alabama Street near the Marsh supermarket that honors one of the trail’s early supporters. Weber, co-director of UIndy’s Kellogg Writers Series, also will receive a $1,000 honorarium.
The poems were selected from among 120 submissions for inclusion in the trail’s public art installation, Moving Forward by local architect Donna Sink. The three other poets’ works will be displayed on colorful new bus shelters that will be placed along the south side of Virginia Avenue between downtown and Fountain Square.
Weber teaches creative writing at UIndy, and her own poems and essays have been published in many magazines, anthologies and literary journals. She holds a master’s degree in Creative Writing from the University of Montana and a doctorate in English and Creative Writing from SUNY, Binghamton.
The text of her cultural trail poem follows.
City Generation
by Elizabeth Weber
This city loves me: even the stop lights
are concerned with my health.
The one at North and Alabama tells me, Wait!
when it turns red, and Go! when green,
not content to let me rely on my own eyes.
Usually I drive these streets and miss the aster
blooming between apartment buildings.
The killer whales hanging midair
on a building on the corner
of St. Clair and Delaware, miss
the way the Riley Towers loom
above me like Godzilla on a rampage.
Miss the human city where a man sits
on a bench with briefcase and O’Malia’s bag,
takes off his glasses and cleans them
with a gleaming white handkerchief,
a simple gesture that goes beyond young or old.
Everyday my young students in this city write
about my generation, your generation, about our generation
until my head swirls with generations
as in you generate I generate we generate
as in somebody generated this cornerstone
of the old Sears Roebuck Building
its date so faded all I can see is 19 something
erected by Samuel L somebody.
Around me new and old rise together,
mix and change into something
more than once was.
It is like what my father said to my son,
Things sure have changed
since I went to high school here sixty years ago
to which my son answered, Well, I sure hope so!
Always the hope of the young
and perhaps the old
because change is here everyday at the City Market
where pigeons still pester those eating at tables
as they did one hundred years ago,
where old men still sit and talk
and mothers still hold their babies
and ask policemen which way to City Hall.
Dr. Elizabeth Weber, associate professor of English, is one of four poets whose work has been chosen for display along the Indianapolis Cultural Trail, which is now under construction downtown.
Weber’s poem “City Generation” will be mounted at Poet’s Place, a site on Alabama Street near the Marsh supermarket that honors one of the trail’s early supporters. Weber, co-director of UIndy’s Kellogg Writers Series, also will receive a $1,000 honorarium.
The poems were selected from among 120 submissions for inclusion in the trail’s public art installation, Moving Forward by local architect Donna Sink. The three other poets’ works will be displayed on colorful new bus shelters that will be placed along the south side of Virginia Avenue between downtown and Fountain Square.
Weber teaches creative writing at UIndy, and her own poems and essays have been published in many magazines, anthologies and literary journals. She holds a master’s degree in Creative Writing from the University of Montana and a doctorate in English and Creative Writing from SUNY, Binghamton.
The text of her cultural trail poem follows.
City Generation
by Elizabeth Weber
This city loves me: even the stop lights
are concerned with my health.
The one at North and Alabama tells me, Wait!
when it turns red, and Go! when green,
not content to let me rely on my own eyes.
Usually I drive these streets and miss the aster
blooming between apartment buildings.
The killer whales hanging midair
on a building on the corner
of St. Clair and Delaware, miss
the way the Riley Towers loom
above me like Godzilla on a rampage.
Miss the human city where a man sits
on a bench with briefcase and O’Malia’s bag,
takes off his glasses and cleans them
with a gleaming white handkerchief,
a simple gesture that goes beyond young or old.
Everyday my young students in this city write
about my generation, your generation, about our generation
until my head swirls with generations
as in you generate I generate we generate
as in somebody generated this cornerstone
of the old Sears Roebuck Building
its date so faded all I can see is 19 something
erected by Samuel L somebody.
Around me new and old rise together,
mix and change into something
more than once was.
It is like what my father said to my son,
Things sure have changed
since I went to high school here sixty years ago
to which my son answered, Well, I sure hope so!
Always the hope of the young
and perhaps the old
because change is here everyday at the City Market
where pigeons still pester those eating at tables
as they did one hundred years ago,
where old men still sit and talk
and mothers still hold their babies
and ask policemen which way to City Hall.
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