UIS professor bottles 'Thunder'

By Janee Mitchell - Feature Writer

In an artistically creative career that has spanned many years and taken many forms, UIS English Professor Marcellus Leonard recently added a new title: professionally distributed poet. Entitled “Shake the Thunder Down,” this collection covering over 30 years of work was published by Daybreak Press, the poetry imprint of Pitch-Black LLC.

Though Leonard has had two books self-published, this is his first professional project.

Even so, it might have remained unfulfilled were it not for the drive of Daybreak's David Pitchford, who, along with senior editor Daniel Blackston, make up the name of the publishing company. Pitchford and Leonard had come into contact through the artistic community of Springfield , with Pitchford becoming a student and graduate assistant under Leonard. A talented poet in his own right, Pitchford started his own press and came calling for work by his mentor. “He asked and I gave it to him,” said Leonard. “I was proud that he was asking for it.”

By Leonard's reckoning, he has been writing poems since the age of five, and this compellation of work reflects his personal experiences and dreams. With a sustained undergraduate academic effort beginning at the age of 41, Leonard had found outlets for his creativity but writing became his way to secure a more satisfying future for himself and his family after a career in retail.

Broad influences like spirituality, music, love, sex and race give him the impulse to write, as well as particular experiences like a sabbatical trip to Egypt that inspired one of his first books. It was highlighted by the tour guide, aware that he was a poet, asked him to recite something in front of a pyramid temple hieroglyphic and Leonard responding with “The Creation,” by James Weldon Johnson.

It was one of these impulses that inspired the poem and namesake of the collection, “Shake the Thunder Down.” While visiting a Shaker community in Kentucky , Leonard had gone off alone for a long walk following a stream, and came upon a beautiful secluded area. Contrary to the established celibacy practices of the English immigrant Shakers, Leonard felt he had found a spot where “someone, sometime, had made love.”

Pitchford and Leonard had spent some time going back and forth regarding a title for the 114-page work without success until agreeing on “Thunder,” while Pitchford's wife pitched in by supplying the cover art.

When not working on poems, novels or plays, Leonard is active with the Poets and Writers Literary Forum of Springfield, and by organizing and fusing dance, poetry, jazz and gospel performances. It is little surprise then that he is stepping down from the cable-access poetry show he has been producing and hosting for 14 years, and which he co-founded within a year of his arrival at UIS. “I am a little weary,” he admits.

Leonard will be making appearances in Urbana, St. Louis and the Springfield area in support of his book, and while he hopes to have “Shake the Thunder Down” available soon in the UIS bookstore, it can be currently found at www.daybreakpoetry.com.

UIS Students celebrate their first week

Freshmen Capital Scholars students listen attentively during the first Hall meeting in the LRH Great Room on Aug 18. During this hall meeting, students learned many of the things they will need to know about housing and Student Life.

UIS Students pose by the crib they assembled during the community service-a-thon. From left to right are Chris Wyant, Marty McCormack, Mike Mulaski and Rebecca Romberger.

Housing maintenance expert Jeff YOung instructs freshmen on how to unclog their porcelain friend, the toilet, during a hall meeting in the Lincoln Residence Hall Great Room on August 18th.

UIS professor bottles 'Thunder'

UIS students celebrate their first week