Agenda Text
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Honoring the life and work of Ifeanyi Menkiti.
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Official Text
WHEREAS: It has come to the attention of the Somerville City Council that a long-term resident and contributor to enhancing the quality of life in Somerville and Greater Boston, Professor Emeritus Ifeanyi Menkiti, passed away in Somerville on Father’s Day, the 16th of June; and
WHEREAS: Ifeanyi, a Nigerian-American who arrived on these shores, fresh out of high school, hoping to improve his lot in life - as the verse proclaims on the Statue of Liberty, “From her beacon-hand / Glows world-wide welcome” - by studying in college, and who went on to achieve signal success in academe, both as a student and as a Professor, and who then shared his personal good fortune with many individuals and organizations, and thus came to serve our community as an unassuming, yet benevolent, model of what America hopes for from all of her immigrant children; and
WHEREAS: Ifeanyi had served with distinction as a Professor of Philosophy at Wellesley College for 41 years, earning the College’s top teaching award, the Pinanski Prize for Excellence in Teaching, in 1996, before retiring in 2014; and
WHEREAS: Ifeanyi benevolently used his savings as a Professor to rescue the Grolier Poetry Book Shop, 6 Plympton Street, Harvard Square, from being closed, the Grolier being the oldest continuous poetry shop in the Western Hemisphere, having been opened in 1927; and
WHEREAS: The Grolier has been patronized over the years by a truly extraordinary range of poets, both local and international, counting as repeat visitors such historical luminaries as Conrad Aiken, Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Bly, e e cummings, T.S. Eliot, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Seamus Heaney, Robert Lowell, Gail Mazur, Marianne Moore, Frank O’Hara, Sylvia Plath, and Kathleen Spivack, and repeatedly hosting readings by such contemporary New England and national leaders in poetry as Peter Balakian, Frank Bidart, Martha Collins, David Ferry, Louise Glück, Jorie Graham, Fanny Howe, George Kalogeris, Robert Pinsky, Anne Sexton, Lloyd Schwartz, and Tino Villanueva; and
WHEREAS: Ifeanyi created Grolier Poetry Press to disseminate the works of both established and emerging poets; and
WHEREAS: Ifeanyi created the Grolier Poetry Foundation and Forums Trust, so as to carry on these vital poetic works well beyond his own lifetime; and
WHEREAS: Ifeanyi’s civic contributions also included a decade’s service on the Board of Trustees of the Mount Auburn Hospital, plus service on the Board of the Cambridge Arts Council (particularly helping the Board to launch the Cambridge River Festival), service on the Board of Revels, and service on the Board of the Greater Boston Youth Pro Musica; and
WHEREAS: Ifeanyi served as a leading lay member of St. Paul’s Roman Catholic Church, Harvard Square, for many decades; and
WHEREAS: Ifeanyi took his Harvard Ph. D. Dissertation under world-renowned Professor John Rawls, and applied it to numerous conferences and publications abroad, practicing precisely what he taught at Wellesley as he addressed readers and audiences around the world - namely: “And I have called out to you, / Children of an undivided earth, / That you join your hands together / And be of one accord before a common soil” - his four books of poetry, published between 1971 (Affirmations) and 2007 (Before a Common Soil), will spread that message of an “undivided earth” for generations to come; and
WHEREAS: The Igbo people of eastern Nigeria acknowledged Ifeanyi as an “Nze na Ozo,” that is, as one of the most important Igbo leaders in the world when it comes to communal judgment and spiritual guidance, so that, as an Ozo, Ifeanyi was empowered to adjudicate communal quarrels, thus affording him one of the great pleasures of his life: serving as a practitioner of Conflict Transformation, a skill which all of our communities could use; and
WHEREAS: As Ifeanyi’s widow, Carol, and four children and five grandchildren mourn his passing, yet resolve to carry on his work; NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT
RESOLVED: That in the wake of Ifeanyi’s passing, the Somerville City Council joins the Harvard Square Business Association (to which Ifeanyi was a publicly esteemed contributor) in conveying its condolences to Carol and all the Menkiti family, accompanied by this formal note in honor of Ifeanyi’s Life and Work; AND BE IT FURTHER
RESOLVED: That the Somerville City Clerk be and hereby is requested to forward a suitably engrossed copy of this Resolution to Carol Menkiti on behalf of the entire City Council.