Illinois State Poetry Society

To join ISPS through June, , please fill out our Membership Form and mail it with a check for $15.00. You don't have to be an Illinois resident to join ISPS, but you do need to be an ISPS member to have your poems posted in this Web site.

Please note: Most ISPS meetings have been held in the western suburbs of Chicago in the past. A new ISPS group is now meeting in the northern suburbs. The northern suburban meetings will be on the months between the meetings of the western suburban group. Members may attend either the Northbrook meetings or the Lemont meetings or both.

ISPS News Bulletins

From the President, May 2008

by John Quinn, ISPS President

Gabriel Garcia Marquez said, in his classic book Love in the Time of Cholera, "...there was no one with more common sense, no stonecutter more obstinate, no manager more lucid or dangerous, than a poet."

I think he is right. A poet has a way of looking at the world that is different from most. He or she is a lot like stand-up comedians or preachers, in that they see "things" and are able to move "things" to different contexts: a tiger becomes the spirit of death; an etherized patient is unable to make the decisions that life demands.

Summer is an opportunity to find these similes and metaphors in nature. The physics of a bumblebee's flight is different than the poetry of that flight. The physics dictates that the bumblebee flies from point "A" to point "B". The scientist is encumbered by time, place and the limitations found in "things".

That is not true of poetry. The flight of the bumblebee does not need a starting point or a destination in the imagination of the poet. It needs only a meaning. The poet needs to examine the "things" he or she can see or hear or smell to find a truth that may be uncomfortable or unattainable about the world around us. And new truths make the poet "dangerous."

john quinn
quinn70@comcast.net

"Last Sunday" Reading To Be Held on May 25

The Illinois State Poetry Society and the Westmont Area Friends of the Arts welcome you to a poetry reading on Sunday, May 25 at Brewed Awakening, 19 W. Quincy, Westmont (just off Cass Avenue, across from the Westmont Train Station). Robert Klein Engler and Tom Moran will be the featured poets at the event. There will be music at noon, with poetry from 12:30-2:00 p.m. Everyone is welcome.

Robert Klein Engler lives in Oak Park, Illinois and sometimes New Orleans. He is the current president of NewTown Writers in Chicago. Many of Robert's poems and stories are set in the Crescent City. "Justin the Pirate" is available in the Harrington Gay Men's Fiction Quarterly; "Red Beans and Rice" is online at the Drunken Boat; and "The Approach to Pilottown" is at Blithe House Quarterly. His long poem, "The Accomplishment of Metaphor and the Necessity of Suffering," set partially in New Orleans, is published by Headwaters Press, Medusa, New York, 2004. He has received an Illinois Arts Council award for his "Three Poems for Kabbalah." If you google his name, you may find his work on the Internet. Visit him on the web at RobertKleinEngler.com.

Tom Moran is a local Westmont poet. His chapbook "New Buds" will soon be available. Along with Wilda Morris, he has conducted the annual poetry workshop for children at the Westmont Public Library. He is working on his second chapbook.

Open Mic for Musicians and Poets in Plano

There will be an open mic for musicians and poets at Saxbys Coffee on Route 34 on the west side of Plano next to the Wal-Mart Super Center on the 4th Tuesday of each month (beginning August 22) from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.

ISPS Readings at Sacred Heart Convent in Lisle

ISPS poets are invited to participate in a poetry reading for the residents of the assisted care unit at Sacred Heart Convent in Lisle (just east of the intersection of Maple and Yackley) at 10 a.m. on the first Saturday of each month. Bring short, cheerful poems. Residents are also encouraged to write and read poems. Please call Mardelle for updates and changes a few days before any of the poetry readings.

Evanston Open Mic at "Cafe Express"

ISPS member James L. Corcoran announces that everyone is invited to join in an open mic event in Evanston at Cafe Express (N) on Dempster St. 1/2 block west of Chicago Ave. the 3rd Saturday of every month, beginning at 7 p.m. Sign-up begins one-half hour before showtime, and please notify the MC. CALL AHEAD! 847-864-1868

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