When the Elma Stuckey Poetry Board decided to sponsor an annual undergraduate poetry award, they chose Columbia College Chicago’s poetry program—the first of its kind in the country—as the one to support.
The Elma Stuckey Poetry Award was established in 2005 in honor of the poet Elma Stuckey, author of The Big Gate (1976) and The Collected Poems of Elma Stuckey (1987). The award is presented by the English department to two distinguished undergraduate Poetry majors. In this inaugural year, the second-place prize went to B.J. Soloy for his poem, “Nearing Heliopolis.” Here, we present this year’s Elma Stuckey Poetry Award winner Donna Pecore’s poem, “Come with Me,” accompanied by drawings by current Fine Art major R. Scott Whipkey.
By Donna Pecore ('07) / Drawings by R. Scott Whipkey ('07)
Bumper to bumper grey grease stained road rides past exhaust framed skyline, heading north, heading to freedom as the traffic thins, as the suburbs blurb, as the line between now and then thins. The sky turning from charcoal tinted whites to light bright sky blue with wisps of white floating by as my destination nears, just past the state line. Grey geese slice the sky in formation, a physical punctuation pointing in my intended direction. Past a low slung redwood house, attached garage, and prefabricated barn, into the field, I park in line, enter the dark woods, following a line of candle lights, that light the path that leads to a hollow, where I hear "hullo, welcome," and "a ho, where you been, how are you, what took you so long," and so forth. It is as if I fell back into the womb, the warm comfort of my friends, more than friends, but family, more than an extended family, but my spiritual family. We gossip, we share and compare, we comfort, we forgive, and we pray for ourselves and each other, and more than anything else we celebrate. Surrounded by trees, and insects, an occasional bird breaks the line of leaves, there flies a red tailed hawk, that's good luck, forget civilization exists, after awhile the world's circumference contains only this hollow, goodbye Columbus. I don't know anything, but here in this circle I find everything. Do not cross the line between the fire and the pit. Sacred circle I look inside, it's dark in there, is any one home, is anyone in there? This is the place to find that out. This is the place to remember. This is the place through the smoke and the steam that you share, that you care, that you dare, to breathe, to be someone, to become, to belong, to be healed, to be free, to be one, to be. This is the place.
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Donna Pecore, (’07), a senior Poetry major and native Chicagoan. Pecore tells us: “I will give you a me who found poetry at Weeds, a Chicago tavern where diversity is celebrated and so is life, where I heard words that sang to me their siren song and entered my heart until I was obsessed to put pen to paper. In my late forties I decided to sharpen my pencil, along with my mind . . . and found another passion, a passion for learning.”
R. Scott Whipkey (’07) is a senior B.F.A. candidate in the Art + Design department. A painter and printmaker, he has received numerous awards, grants, and scholarships, including a 2005 Albert P. Weisman scholarship. His work is derived from his perceptions of growing up in Rockford, Illinois and describing this new “western land.” Whipkey’s work may be seen in April at Columbia’s A + D Gallery. All drawings are pencil on paper, 2006.
