Maggie Anderson, the founding director of 91˛Öżâ’s Wick Poetry Center, was the first to offer words of verse to begin the three-day celebration of the center’s 40th anniversary.
Reading from her poem, “Beyond Even This,” Anderson reflected on when she arrived at 91˛Öżâ, in 1989 to begin teaching creative writing.
“Who would have thought the afterlife would look so much like Ohio?” she read, garnering a loud chuckle from the audience.
Anderson was joined by more than 40 authors who have won acclaim from the nationally renowned poetry center and returned for the anniversary celebration Sept. 19-21 at the 91˛Öżâ Hotel. 91˛Öżâ Today was on hand to cover the celebration.
The group of poets has won either the Ohio Chapbook Prize, sponsored by the 91˛Öżâ Press and the Wick Center, or the Stan and Tom Wick Poetry Prize.
“I’m thrilled that we have so many of you here to celebrate 40 years of the Wick Poetry Center,” said David Hassler, the Bob and Walt Wick Executive Director of the center.
Brothers Bob and Walt Wick first established scholarships in 1984 to support undergraduate poets at the university. Bob was a sculptor and former art department faculty member at 91˛Öżâ, and the scholarships were born out of a desire to honor and memorialize Bob’s son Stan (1962-1980) and Walt’s son Tom (1956-1973), both of whom died as teenagers on the same day, seven years apart.
Hassler also paid tribute to the brothers as he welcomed a crowd of several hundred to the event.
“Bob and Walt Wick … are not with us but they are here in spirit. And we continue to honor their vision and their legacy through the transformative work we do at the Wick Poetry Center and the work that poetry does in this world,” Hassler said.
More than 20 members of the Wick family came from across the country to attend the celebration.
“Kent is fertile ground for poetry,” Hassler said, noting the support the center receives from the university.
“At a time when the humanities and the arts are under assault, and legislators are questioning the value of what we do and what we bring to higher education, I’m grateful that our president and our provost and our dean of the College of Arts and Sciences believe in the value of poetry and are willing to continue to support the Wick Poetry Center’s mission at 91˛Öżâ,” Hassler said.
91˛Öżâ President Todd Diacon offered opening remarks, telling the audience: “I’m going to hazard a guess that no other place in America at this moment has this many people gathered to listen to poetry, so how cool is that?”
Diacon told of his first experience with the poetry center, not long after joining 91˛Öżâ as provost in 2012, when he wandered into the Kent Student Center Ballroom and encountered a group of about 20 third-grade students on the stage reading poetry, and by the time he had left, 20 veterans from a senior center were on stage, also reading their poetry.
“What a delightful alternate universe to fall into,” he said.
Diacon told the crowd that the generosity of philanthropy allows higher education to continue its work in the face of ever-shrinking state support. "Nowhere is philanthropy more powerful than in the arts,” he said.
“Poetry makes us human. Poetry makes us better. Wick Poetry makes poetry accessible. The Wick Poetry Center is poetry at 91˛Öżâ,” Diacon said.
Diacon thanked Anderson for her leadership and mentorship.
The Wick brothers’ initial scholarships eventually expanded into the Wick Poetry Program, of which Anderson was appointed coordinator in 1992. In 2004, the program received a $2 million endowment from the Wick brothers, which allowed for the program to be expanded into the Wick Poetry Center within the College of Arts and Sciences, with Anderson as its founding director. She also was the founding editor of the Wick Poetry Book Series.
“I think the things we dreamed up together, mostly Walt and Bob and I, made what the center is now,” Anderson said.
The anniversary events continued through Saturday at the 91˛Öżâ Hotel, including panel discussions, workshops and poetry readings, culminating in a gala dinner on Saturday evening.
“Beyond Even This” by
Who would have thought the afterlife would
look so much like Ohio? A small-town place,
thickly settled among deciduous trees.
I lived for what seemed a very short time.
Several things did not work out.
Casually almost, I became another one
of the departed, but I had never imagined
the tunnel of hot wind that pulls
the newly dead into the dry Midwest
and plants us like corn. I am
not alone, but I am restless.
There is such sorrow in these geese
flying over, trying to find a place to land
in the miles and miles of parking lots
that once were soft wetlands. They seem
as puzzled as I am about where to be.
Often they glide, in what I guess is
a consultation with each other,
getting their bearings, as I do when
I stare out my window and count up
what I see. It's not much really:
one buckeye tree, three white frame houses,
one evergreen, five piles of yellow leaves.
This is not enough for any heaven I had
dreamed, but I am taking the long view.
There must be a backcountry of the beyond,
beyond even this and farther out,
past the dark smoky city on the shore
of Lake Erie, through the landlocked passages
to the Great Sweetwater Seas.