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UIS program to feature two St. Louis poets

April 14, 2005

SPRINGFIELD - Poets! Poets! Poets!, part of the Speakers Series at the University of Illinois at Springfield, will feature St. Louis area poets Aaron Belz and Brian Jackson from 7 to 11 p.m., Friday, April 22, in the Student Center, located in the Student Life Building on the UIS campus. The evening will also feature an open mic session. The program is free and open to the public.

Belz’s poems have appeared in such publications as Boston Review, Fence, The Canary, Jacket, and McSweeney’s and are included in the anthology March Hares: The Best Poems from Fine Madness, 1982-2002. Currently the featured Verse Press Younger American Poet, he lives in St. Louis where he teaches English and creative writing at Westminster Christian Academy and curates the online publication Readings @ The Contemporary (http://belz.net/readings).

Springfield’s Friends of Lincoln Library presented Jackson with its Writer of the Year Award in 2001 for a collection of short stories. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate studying modern and contemporary poetry at St. Louis University, where his dissertation examines the effects of Impressionism, Cubism, and Surrealism on the poetry of Ezra Pound and his followers.

UIS sponsors of the event are the Speakers’ Bureau, Advocates for Academics, Inter-Club Council Board, and Student Activities Committee.

For more information, contact Marcellus Leonard, UIS associate professor of English, by e-mail at mleon1@uis or by phone at 206-7452.