Gov. Pritzker Announces New Illinois Poet Laureate

Celebration of Illinois arts also marks the creation of the Illinois Creative Caucus and 60th anniversary of Illinois Arts Council

SPRINGFIELD- Governor JB Pritzker, alongside the Illinois Arts Council (IAC), Illinois Humanities and the Poetry Foundation, will announce Mark Turcotte as the newest Illinois Poet Laureate. Turcotte, a member of the Turtle Mountain Band Anishinaabe, is a published poet and author who currently serves as Poet-in-Residence at DePaul University. The announcement also commemorates the term of outgoing Poet Laureate Angela Jackson, who has served in the role since 2020 as the fifth Illinois Poet Laureate. April represents National Poetry Month.

“Mark Turcotte’s work reflects the complex and beautiful landscape of both our state and the country as a whole through his unique perspective as a Native writer who has lived across the US but has found a home here in Illinois,” said Governor JB Pritzker. “I congratulate him on his appointment as the sixth Illinois Poet Laureate and also extend my gratitude to outgoing Poet Laureate Angela Jackson on her years of service in this role.”

"Congratulations to Mark Turcotte for being named our newest Illinois Poet Laureate and to our outgoing Laureate Angela Jackson. Illinois has a long tradition of supporting the work of artists and in these uncertain times, we often look to art to bridge divides and renew our shared sense of humanity,” said Lt. Governor Juliana Stratton. “I look forward to the ways Mark's poetry will create space for reflection, inspire hope, and draw us closer to one another."

“I want to express my sincere appreciation to Angela Jackson for her years of service as Poet Laureate and welcome Mark Turcotte to the extraordinary group of poets who have held the role,” said First Lady MK Pritzker. “I’m looking forward to the inspiration and innovation that Mark will bring to the job and the incredible art that will come of it.”

The announcement is the highlight of a celebration of Illinois Arts and Culture that also recognizes the 60th anniversary of the Illinois Arts Council and includes the announcement of the newly formed Illinois Creative Caucus, a bipartisan convening of Illinois legislators who will identify, promote, and pass legislation and appropriations that strengthen our state’s creative economy. Caucus members will receive briefings on current policy issues affecting the arts and creative sector, deep dives into best practices from across the state and nation, and presentations on research and findings about the Illinois creative economy and workforce. Members will also be invited to join site visits, convenings, and other events in Springfield and throughout the state.

Convened by Arts Alliance Illinois, the Illinois Creative Caucus is proudly co-chaired by:

• Rep. Sharon Chung (D-Bloomington)
• Rep. Norine Hammond (R-Macomb)
• Rep. Barbara Hernandez (D-Aurora)
• Sen. David Koehler (D-Peoria)
• Sen. Mike Simmons (D-Chicago)
• Sen. Jil Tracy (R-Quincy)

Turcotte spent his earliest years on North Dakota's Turtle Mountain Chippewa Reservation and in the migrant camps of the western United States. Later, he grew up in and around Lansing, Michigan. After arriving in Chicago in the spring of 1993, Turcotte rediscovered his love of words and writing and quickly established himself as a unique voice in the city’s thriving poetry scene. Turcotte is author of the books, The Feathered Heart; Songs of Our Ancestors; a chapbook, Road Noise; a bilingual collection, Le Chant de la Route; and Exploding Chippewas (Northwestern University Press). ​ His work has appeared in many national and international literary journals. In 2008 he completed an MFA in Creative Writing at Western Michigan University. Since 2009, he has been Senior Lecturer and Distinguished-Writer-In-Residence in the English Department at DePaul University.

Angela Jackson, the outgoing Poet Laureate, is an award-winning poet, novelist, and playwright who has published three chapbooks and four volumes of poetry, in addition to appearing in numerous journals and anthologies. In recognition of her selection of as Illinois' Poet Laurate, the Illinois State Senate passed SR142, celebrating November 25, 2021 as Angela Jackson Day.

"In celebration of Poetry Month, this announcement signifies a momentous occasion as the Illinois Arts Council (IAC) commemorates 60 years of cultivating a strong, creative, and interconnected Illinois through the arts," said IAC Executive Director, Joshua Davis-Ruperto. "In that spirit, we look forward to working with Mark Turcotte whose unique voice will resonate with Illinoisans, inspiring conversations and fostering access to poetry throughout our diverse state.”

"Illinois has long been a home to voices that challenge, inspire, and unite us," said Gabrielle Lyon, Executive Director of Illinois Humanities. "The historic appointment of Mark Turcotte as our next Illinois Poet Laureate extends a powerful tradition. Poetry is an invitation to all of us to connect more deeply with one another within and across our diverse experiences. Illinois Humanities is thrilled to serve as the home base for Mark's work in this new chapter and look forward to the partnership ahead."

“The Poetry Foundation applauds Governor and First Lady Pritzker and Illinois Arts Council Chair Nora Daley for keeping the state’s cultural legacy of celebrating poetry alive in announcing the next Illinois Poet Laureate. The program is one of the most impactful ways to engage Illinoisans with poetry and empowers poets to share the many ways poems can foster hope, bring solace, and help us share joy,” said Poetry Foundation president and CEO, Michelle T. Boone. “We thank outgoing Poet Laureate Angela Jackson for her prolific contributions and service through poetry. We congratulate and look forward to welcoming and supporting Mark Turcotte as the next Illinois Poet Laureate.”

“For the first time in Illinois, we have a caucus that brings together legislative champions of the arts to shape policies, programs, and investments that will drive our creative economy and enrich the lives of every Illinoisan. With the leadership of our inaugural co-chairs, we are building a stronger, more connected, and more creative state,” said Arts Alliance Illinois Executive Director Claire Rice.

Dear Fellow Illinoisians, 

The Holidays are upon us and America is in a mixed mood. Perhaps we find ourselves in a time as described by W.B. Yeats in 1919’s “Second Coming” “And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,/Slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?” Who knows. 

Some of us got more than we bargained for. Some of us got more than we hoped for. Some of us got nothing. More than ever we need poetry. Poetry has the power to heal and seal wounds. Poetry has power to speak in whispers that cross canyons of differences and touch hearts of the willing. Poetry does not have all the answers, but it turns us to the truth of our shared humanity. As Poet Laureate Gwendolyn Brooks said in “Infirm” “Everybody here/is infirm.” 

I had a cousin named Willie Mae whom I loved dearly. She was pretty like a Black Dolly Parton. She appeared in several of my poems because she made such an impression on me. I think you’ll recognize Mrs. Willie Mae Allen Kyles as someone you know in this must need be season of good will toward all. Now I’ll share a funny poem. 

The Resolution

Willie was drinking Mist and mixing batter 

and mistook the Mist for milk. 

Didn’t intend to make so happy a cake 

but that was a pleasurable mistake 

of which we partook with sliding smiles. 

It was too late to turn back 

After one and one-half pounds of butter 

after a half-dozen eggs devoted to what 

was to come in coconut 

and chocolate pecan. 

This was our lesson for the New Year: 

Be devoted to delight, be bringer 

of good cheer, stir as right as you 

might, and turn away from no 

ingenious serendipity, discard no sleight 

of hand, and do the sweetest you can, 

Angela Jackson 

May the coming year find you healthy and happy.  

Angela Jackson 
Poet Laureate of Illinois 

All May Enter

All may enter the realm of the poem. Poetry belongs to each of us, wealthy, super rich, middle class, working class, and poor. I think the shut out --- middle class, working class and poor have a storehouse of poems yet to be heard. We are each rich with the beauty and purpose of words, if written words are available to us and we let their potential in. Literacy is a vital component of the power of poetry. It is a vital component of the people's power. But poetry may be oral as were the first poems. Chants and ritual words sung as the tribe gathered. Poetry is the language of the heart, brain, body and soul. It moves as the spirit moves us --- in rhythms, definite and distinct.

"Poetry is life distilled," wrote legendary Poet Laureate Gwendolyn Brooks (Il 1968 – 2000). In the realm of each poem, we find contained the nucleus of life itself, some truth that otherwise eluded us, but pulses in our daily lives, behind our eyes, on the edge of a smile or frown, laughter or weeping. Sometimes there is a word-picture that catches our breath and inspires us, an image that makes us see a-new, a cunning turn of language that makes us want to speak in tongues.

Poetry becomes more popular in times of turmoil and social upheaval, such as today. The motto of the Civil Rights Movement was "transforming hearts and minds." What better way than through poetry? "We Shall Overcome" is a poem sung. People need poems to speak the powerful currents of ideas that impel us forward to push against the gray walls of the past. Poet Denise Levertov in her poem "Jacob's Ladder" describes a man struggling up a ladder when "Wings brush past him./ The poem ascends." When we speak as poets, we are truest to our humanity and we assume a sacred task. We ascend as angels ascend. We put on our wings. Brown, White, Asian, Black we ascend as angels ascend.

Haki Madhubuti writes "Poetry has a way of attaching itself to strangers." Yes, for inside the poem we are not strangers long, for poems speak intimately and immediately, one heart to one heart even in a crowd listening to loud mesmerizing Spoken Word poetry. Alan Shapiro writes, "reading poetry is an act of love." We pour ourselves into the words and their meanings and music. They pour themselves into us as we read. We become lovers and healers as well. Some poets shape poems from their dreams. Poems come out of their dreams. And we give these dreams to a world that needs more " dreams and dreamers, songs and singers of songs," if I may borrow from Langston Hughes.

"Poetry is life distilled," as Brooks said, and we drink it and are revived and enabled to live our own lives with keener insights, more robust passion, and tender compassion and courage. Wherever we live --- in city, town, countryside, rural area, we are revived by the power of poetry. All of us in Illinois and beyond restored in the realm of the poem.

I am honored and excited to follow Illinois esteemed Poet Laureates Howard Austin, Carl Sandburg, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Kevin Stein. Illinois has a rich poetic history and promises more truth and beauty, brimming with life. In the realm of the poem, all are welcome. 

Angela Jackson to Serve as Fifth Illinois Poet Laureate

Acclaimed Chicago Southside Native to Fill Position Left Vacant Since 2017

First Lady MK Pritzker today announced the selection of Angela Jackson as the next Poet Laureate for the State of Illinois. Jackson is the fifth Illinoisan to hold the title, an honorary position selected by a committee of experts and subsequently appointed by the Governor.

Jackson is an accomplished and award-winning poet, novelist, and playwright, who has published three chapbooks and four volumes of poetry. As Illinois’ next poet laureate, Jackson will work to promote poetry at the state and national level and had a poem published in today’s New York Times to celebrate Thanksgiving. She will join only four other esteemed poets who have previously held this coveted title. The first Illinois Poet Laureate, Howard B. Austin, was named in 1936. The three other poets who have held the title are Carl Sandburg (1962-67), Gwendolyn Brooks (1968-2000), and Kevin Stein (2003-2017). In June, Gov. Pritzker posthumously named John Prine an honorary Poet Laureate.

“Illinois has a proud history of poets who have given us reason for hope in dark times, offered poignant insight into our own humanity and delivered profound social critiques, and as I considered the nominees to be our next Poet Laureate, all of these qualities were important in making the final choice,” said First Lady MK Pritzker, Honorary Chair and Final Judge of the 2020 Illinois Poet Laureate Search Committee. “Members of the committee nominated astounding talents from our state, and I’m grateful for their work. After spending countless hours reviewing all the nominees’ works, I’m confident that Angela Jackson will continue to be a bright shining light of wisdom, inspiration and connection as she promotes the power of poetry.”

“I am honored and excited to have been selected to serve as Illinois Poet Laureate,” said Angela Jackson. “Legendary Poet Laureate Gwendolyn Brooks said, ‘Poetry is life distilled.’ I hope to bring to Illinoisans poetry that they can relate to, be lifted by, and find their lives illuminated in. Poems bring us to ourselves and poems bring us together.”

In June, the Governor and First Lady Pritzker announced the formation of the 2020 Illinois Poet Laureate Search Committee to fill the position that has been vacant since late 2017. The committee, comprised of poets, writers, and academics from across the state, reviewed nominations submitted by the public and recommended three finalists to be the state’s next Poet Laureate.

“Illinois has a proud history of influential poets and I’m proud to continue this tradition by formally appointing our state’s next Poet Laureate,” said Governor JB Pritzker. “Angela Jackson is an acclaimed poet and writer and her expansive breadth of work has already inspired so many. I know her words will have a profound impact on the residents of our state as well as the next generation of aspiring poets.”

“Angela Jackson’s poems dwell in fervid topographies of family and myth, heart and tongue,” said previous Illinois Poet Laureate Kevin Stein. “Her lines bristle with the melody of conversation and soulful blues, her voice unwaveringly human.”

Jackson was born in Greenville, Mississippi and raised on Chicago’s Southside and educated at Northwestern University and the University of Chicago. She was a 20-year member of the Organization of Black American Culture (OBAC) Writers Workshop, succeeding the late Hoyt W. Fuller as its Chair.

Of Angela’s volumes, Dark Legs and Silk Kisses: The Beatitudes of the Spinners was awarded the Carl Sandburg Award and the Chicago Sun-Times/Friends of Literature Book of the Year Award. And All These Roads Be Luminous: Poems Selected and New was nominated for the National Book Award. It Seems Like a Mighty Long Time was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, the Pen/Open Book Award, a finalist for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, and a finalist for the Milt Kessler Poetry Prize.

Jackson has received the Shelley Memorial Award of the Poetry Society of America, a Pushcart Prize, the Illinois Center for the Book Heritage Award, the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame Fuller Award, and the Literary Hall of Fame for Writers of African Descent from Chicago State University. In additional to her poetry, Jackson’s novels and plays have also been widely recognized and she has received two American Book Awards.