The evolution of the praise poem “Gravitas” can be traced circuitously to a public reading. Two years after I’d transitioned out of my job as founding Executive Director of the Guild Complex -– a literary arts center in Chicago -– poet Julie Parson Nesbitt, my immediate successor, paired the renowned fiction writer Grace Paley and myself for a reading of prose and poetry at the Chicago Cultural Center. It was a memorable night, with Studs Terkel making our introductions.
Another Chicago luminary in the audience that night was Fred Fine -- one of my mentors. Born to Russian-Jewish immigrant parents in 1914, he was a labor organizer while still in his teens, an honored war hero, a leader of the Communist Party who was forced into the underground (he would eventually break with the CP), a rock concert promoter who brought the Beatles and Rolling Stones to Chicago, the first Commissioner of Cultural Affairs under Harold Washington (Chicago’s first African-American Mayor), and the defacto “Dean of Consciousness” (a title I made up) at Columbia College Chicago. As soon as the reading ended Fred grilled me about my literary influences and the challenges of writing political poetry. It was difficult to determine if he was commending or critiquing me. Probably both, but I left the Cultural Center trying to decipher the meaning of his words.
Two years later Fred passed away at the age of 89. Being an organizer, impresario and a lover of art and words, he had basically produced his memorial before passing away, leaving precise written instructions on everything from what music should be played, who would speak and for how long, and what artists would perform. I was shocked to learn that he had chosen me to be the resident poet at what could be described as his last “event.” With the revelation that he had charged me with poetry I now understood the gentle interrogation that had followed the reading. My mentor had been sizing me up -- poetically.
I had written and published praise poems before, but never at the request of the deceased. To be fair, as detailed as Fred had been in his instructions, he had not specified that I write a poem, let alone a praise poem, but that I would be responsible for the three-minute presentation of poetry at the memorial. Theoretically I could have put on my presenter’s hat and invited another poet to read. I could have read a poem from a famous Chicago poet, or recited one of his favorites. I quickly decided the best way to honor him in death would be through the creation of art in his name.
The decision to create a praise poem was uncomplicated, but dealing with death is always difficult for me. A poem about the execution of an Ethiopian revolutionary, whom I had spent months with as a young correspondent in Africa, took me ten years to finish. “Gravitas” would not and could not take that long, yet with the memorial seven weeks away, my ability to create on demand was to be seriously tested.
