Distilled Lives: Volume 6
Anthology of the Illinois State Poetry Society
Co-Editors: Wilda Morris and Susan T. Moss
62 Contributing Poets ~ 124 Poems ~ 114 pages
Price: $12.00
Publisher: Kindle Direct Publishing
ISBN: 9798370997181
To Order: Amazon.com


ABOUT THE BOOK:


An image of the Big Bluestem graces the cover of the Illinois State Poetry Society’s latest anthology: Distilled Lives, Volume 6. The plant was named the Official Illinois State Prairie Grass in 1989. This is fitting in that the poems written by Society members mirror the Bluestem in its enduring beauty and usefulness to the land on which it grows. Plant yourself in the soil of its pages; allow its poems to enrich your life.


ADVANCE PRAISE:
 

Sixty-two poets lift off the pages of this anthology with poems vast and varied in content, style and message. While reading these poems, I have let “man’s art melding with nature’s beauty” catch my eye, as Kathy Cotton suggests. Fresh and genuine voices challenge and describe the diversity of human experience. Candance Armstrong, in the opening poem, asks, “How can I carry on? How can I not?” and indeed! How can (the reader) not carry on and continue to turn the pages? Later we learn we will “emerge with the buds” (Melissa Huff) and we ask the question “if only” (Wilda Morris) because we kneel and pray, and that there is “a message for us if we pay attention.” (Susan T. Moss) There is most definitely a message in Distilled Lives. It reveals the power of writing in community. This is more than a collection of poems. The reader cannot help but be changed by this collective force and the poems published here. It serves as a powerful tool and testament to poetry that belongs on every poet’s coffee table. Don’t tuck it away on a bookshelf. I invite you to continue to read it and cherish each word, as I have.
–Julie Cummings, 34th President, National Federation of State Poetry Societies

The Illinois State Poetry Society’s newest anthology, Distilled Lives (the sixth in a distinguished line, if you’re into collecting and counting) is, like the state itself, a rich and diversified chorus of voices captured in verse. The 62 poets featured in this volume explore a variety of terrains and tableaux, from the Ganges River in India to quaint village cafes in Europe, from boisterous bistros in Chicago to the fertile farmlands of Illinois, in language as expansive as space and as intimate as a heartbeat. The best poetry not only satisfies our expectations but bursts them, too, and many of these poems fulfill Robert Frost’s dictum to “begin in delight and end in wisdom.” Co-editors Susan Moss and Wilda Morris have succeeded in collecting a compendium of work, in forms ranging from sonnets to haiku to free verse, that distills the essence of what modern poetry is all about these days. This is a book to savor in sips, much like a fine wine, carefully considering the themes and variants offered within–until the ISPS graces us with a seventh collection sometime in the future. Enjoy.
–Mike Orlock, Poet Laureate of Door Country, Wisconsin


ABOUT THE EDITORS:


Wilda Morris serves as Workshop Chair of Poets and Patrons of Chicago, is a past President of both the Illinois State Poetry Society and Poets and Patrons, has published in numerous anthologies, webzines, and print publications. She has won awards for formal and free verse and haiku. She is the author of two books of poetry, Szechwan Shrimp and Fortune Cookies: Poems from a Chinese Restaurant (RWG Press) and Pequod Poems: Gamming with Moby-Dick (Kelsay Books). Her third book, At Goat Hollow and other Poems, is scheduled for publication this spring. Her poetry blog at wildamorris.blogspot.com features a monthly poetry contest.

Susan T. Moss has served seven terms as president of Illinois State Poetry Society, is the treasurer of Poets Club of Chicago and a member of The P2 Collective and Poets and Patrons. She has two published chapbooks, Keep Moving ‘til The Music Stops (Lily Pool Press) and In From The Dark (Antrim House) as well as a recent full-length book entitled Mapping A Life (Antrim House). Susan’s poetry has appeared in many anthologies and several magazines, and she has read her work on WLUW-FM, WDCB-FM and Highland Park cable television’s “Poetry Today.”


FROM THE BOOK:


The Tortoise and the Race

                    from the African fable, for our ancestors
by Angela Jackson, Poet Laureate of Illinois

Carrying memory on our backs
we inched along from one lifetime
to eternity, stopping along the way
to make music or a meal
–a mess of greens or blues–

Following tracks of tenderness and hope
is enough–Show me the way–
I am a tortoise in a race, opposing the slick, the swift.
We come from people who tamed fields,
plucked cotton bolls, guitar strings, felled trees,
and became trees who spread out wide,
then picked up roots and rooves
and carried them with all they’d come to know of living
in a reign of terror, neglect, and profane promise,
wounded spins and tobacco spit on faces,

carrying all this, profound migration, on our backs
what we made here in
this America, in heavy labor, slow, wise,
and carried it too on our backs
from Deep South and before to Chicago and others,
then carried this brave umbrella all these years,
beautiful and glorious.
It takes courage to stick a neck out.

We are tortoises inching forward, persistent
against sly, slick, wicked and the world.
Now all our voices, pressing presences, reach out
from under these rooves of memory,
protection and pride, goodness
and strength and a rainbow trunk-cover
over backbone.
There too our own faith above us with a pot
of gold secreted inside our hearts.
Carrying love above all. We will win this race.


 


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