Welcome to Poetically Yours. This segment highlights poets from northern Illinois. Today’s episode features Carol Obertubbesing.
Obertubbesing grew up in Union City, New Jersey and saw the New York skyline every day of her life until she left. In 1969, she became part of the first coed class at Princeton University. She said that was the defining event of her life.
The Princeton Alumni Weekly published an article she wrote about her experience as one of the first women to attend Princeton. She returned to Princeton almost every year for reunions and other events and now serves as Regional Vice President for the Class of 1973. In 2019, she organized a national conference held in Chicago to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of Undergraduate Coeducation at Princeton. Last year, the University gave her the Distinguished Service to Princeton Award.
Obertubbesing has served on the Board of the Woodstock Folk Festival since 1993 and has organized the festival’s virtual performances for the past two years.
She’s worked in public TV and radio. She was the director of Outreach at WGBH, and at PBS she was the associate director of the Elementary and Secondary Service. She said she is an avid listener of public radio. This poem is called “Poem for Cicada.”
[1970 - Princeton, New Jersey]
Cicada, you came to me in the sunshine of my youth
The year the world trembled and flared
The year I too emerged and fell deeply in love
The year when a “doctored” Dylan immortalized you in song.
[1987 - Princeton, New Jersey]
Cicada, you returned in my prime
Career growing, the world opening, love maturing
Yet still staggering, seeking
Trying to learn where I belong.
[2004 - Princeton, New Jersey]
Cicada, you came in the heat of June
Back where I first encountered you - and love
Your orange and black wings mirroring my Tiger colors
In a paradise where we seek to learn right from wrong.
[2021 - Princeton, New Jersey - Virtual]
Cicada, you come now when all the world has changed
Uncertainty consumes me, but love leads me
We are weak
But your song is so strong.
(2024 - Woodstock, Illinois)
Cicada, I await your return
I admire your song and your desire to mate
Such energy amid such transience
An encouragement for us to sing and love.
[2038 - Somewhere]
Cicada, how do I find my way up here?
Where will I be in 17 years?
You have lived, mated, and left the next generation
Why do you sleep so long?
[Every day - Everywhere]
Cicada, before you disappear again
Teach us your patience, your passion, your pushing upward
How you go underground and then burst forth
Showing us again the power of your song
By Carol Obertubbesing; ©2021
Written for Brood X during their 2021 emergence and as they prepare to go underground for 17 years; revised 2024 for emergence of Broods XIII and XIX in Illinois.
(Cicada sounds captured by Austin Cliffe.)
