University of Chicago Poem

From Alma Mater Vol. 1: Available Now!

*Chicago*

Inquiring minds want to know:
What is behind this city of wind, towers, and freight?
This freeway of sweat. The Ivy Terrace above Make.
Then the question shifts to who are behind it?
Is it the Michael Jordans? Champions who have defied time and gravity to unceasingly expand the earth with their flight? Is it weavers of words? Entertainers and messengers like Cooke, Kelly, West, and Winfrey? Is it pizza makers? The butchers and architects?
Is it Gangsters like Al Capone?
Or is it Maroons like Eliot Ness?

Maroons inside Gordon Center research, debate,
then prepare to create—
Just as knowledge grows more and more,
“So be human life enriched.”
It’s the reward of discovery, not the notoriety—
That makes the student rich.

As the leading institution of the Midwest,
It is our duty to share our wealth,
Found in this privileged soil of Chicago,
Knowledge uplifted to help the nation grow.

Each morning they rise from the ashes and disperse into the campus that works. A scavenger hunt for stats, facts, and artifacts—a measure that starts and closes at Cobb Gate. The quadrangle nests the informed and the learned, with questers who leave no gothic stone unturned. They feed at Hutch Commons on pieces and scraps adapting masked knowledge to a
Smart Museum of Art.
They occupy 400,000 square feet of science to reinvent and shape this city’s intellectual gem.
And like the Chi-Press & Eliot Ness—
This Jewel of the Midwest remains untouchable.

Follow ClydeAidoo.com for the many sample poems from Alma Mater Volumes 1 and 2 that will be posted beginning tomorrow and shared throughout this March Madness Season! And you can purchase Alma Mater Vol. 2: The Northeast, a poetic celebration of the top universities of the Northeast below.