OBAMA IS THE CURE
Wade Hampton
Wade Hampton fs '91 is a struggling artist-designer-writer-musician-filmmaker based in Wichita. Currently, he is painting his first body of work in two years and making his first feature film, "Bleeding Wichita," which he is writing, directing and starring in.
TEMPLE TOWER
Jon Harris
"Sacred place is my subject," says artist Jon Harris fs '70. "My paintings are mandalas for contemplation.
The two-fold purpose of my art is a reflection of my spiritual growth and aspiration, and to express a spirituality that is universal." In the early 1970s when he was a graduate student at Wichita State, he served as a resident artists at Wichita's Century II Performing Arts & Convention Center, which was completed in 1969 and where many of his early bold geometric abstracts still hang.
A Harris wall mural runs the length of the entrance into Century II's Mary Jane Teall Theater — setting a vibrant tone for theater-goers. Harris lives, and paints, in San Francisco.
Red Dragon and a Sad Thumping Noise
Do not be afraid
when you hear the sad thumping
somewhere near the heart
of the world —
it murmurs to the red dragon
who waits to devour us
because we are young
and insane
and because we have forgotten
the best of our dreams.
There are no places left
to take; no jungles
or mountains
or what we thought the endless
and unknown depths of the ocean.
The bones of ships and men
mingle. Ribs and masts
and skulls —
and the fish glide by.
Most of what we have done
has been needless.
The birds fly through the air
in sorrow, destroying
the sky behind them.
It does not take much to destroy.
Someone takes out the plan
of an ancient war.
It looks good.
— Ann Menebroker
From Wichita State’s 1974 Mikrokosmos
The author of some 18 books of poetry, Ann Menebroker is widely published in magazines, journals and anthologies. Mikrokosmos, WSU’s literary magazine, has been published annually since 1958. Copies of Mikrokosmos can be purchased for $5 each (upon availability) by contacting Mikrokosmos, Dept. of English, Box 14, Wichita State University, Wichita, KS 67260-0014; (316) 978-3514.
