Description:
You can find Mr. Yee is in the Garden when you leave the NE Medical T station. It is a tall slab of granite with the poem engraved into it and it sits on the corner of the sidewalk right outside the entrance to the underground station. The monument is in good condition, and it is easy to read.
About the Author:
Marea Gordett teaches in the English department of Tufts University. She also teaches writing in the School of Engineering at MIT. Her book of poems, Freeze Tag, was published by Wesleyan University Press in 1984. She has been awarded a Pushcart Prize and the "Discovery"/The Nation Award. - Taken from http://www.pshares.org/issues/article.cfm?prmarticleid=3254.
NOTE** Based on this profile I checked both Tuft's and MIT's websites, trying to find Gordett, but neither school had her listed as faculty.
Response:
The positioning of the monument is pretty good. Unlike some of the other monuments I have seen, it is in a place where it can be noticed quite easily right on the sidewalk, so that a passerby would initially recognize that it is there. However, the granite rock with plain engraving is the same as on the others, which does not help the text stand out from the surroundings. While I was there, nobody else paid any attention to the monument.
The poem about Mr. Yee seems to be about older Chinese man that has immigrated to America. It has a nice nostalgia about it that brings home the bittersweet feeling of the immigrant who misses his homeland but has a better life here. It was well placed since the NE Medical has a large Asian population. The poem stands as a reminder of the past and the memories and history that each immigrant has of their homeland. My reaction to this monument was positive in an overall sense.
by Caleb Farrell
