“It was a miracle of rare device: / A sunny Pleasure-Dome with caves of ice!” —Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “Kubla Khan”
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But last month at a luncheon at the Arts Club Barr unveiled plans for a $21.5 million facility, already under construction at the southwest corner of Dearborn and Superior, introducing it as the “end of an odyssey” and as a metaphor for poetry itself, revealing itself “line by line.” Designed by Chicago architect John Ronan—celebrated for his brightly striped Gary Comer Youth Center at 7200 S. Ingleside—the new home for poetry might also be a metaphor for the foundation. Seen from the front, the 22,000-square-foot, two-story structure will offer a view into a tree-graced courtyard that will be dramatically lit at night. But from other angles, caged behind a metal screen-wall, it’ll be an inscrutable black block.
“Specifically, among other numerous management matters,” Minarik wrote, “I believe the Foundation in apparent contravention of its own adopted policy regarding the employment of ‘disqualified parties’ has allowed the president, a voting Trustee, to employ his wife to manage a significant program of the Foundation. His wife has publicly acknowledged that she is not qualified for the position.”
Princeton professor Danielle Allen and audit committee member Nicole Williams also resigned from the board in 2007; their resignation letters, citing issues with governance and management, are included among the documents presented to Madigan.
