Issue date: 2/20/09 Section: News

Poetry author Janice Harrington autographs a copy of her children's book "The Chicken-Chasing Queen of Lamar County" following her poetry reading in the Black Box Theater of the Doudna Fine Arts Center on Thursday. (Erin Matheny/The Daily Eastern News)

The death of Osiris Johnson's father on the streets motivated him to write the poem "I Just Wanna Elevate." Johnson recited his emotional poem during Janice Harrington's poetry reading Thursday night in the Black Box Theater of the Doudna Fines Arts Center.

"The poem is about my life, actually," said Johnson, a freshman psychology major. "I felt like I had to get that message out. It was 100 percent true. Poetry is something I want to go into, and I am interested in the field."

Harrington, a poet who grew up in Alabama, pulled Johnson onto the stage after she completed reading some of her works. Johnson, who has previously performed at Open Mic Night and So You Think You Can Rap, had mentioned a poem he had written and Harrington wanted him to share it.

During Harrington's reading, she shared a poem about the red dirt of Alabama and a poem about the process of drying apples for fried apple pie with lines about "spreading and smoothing pats of apple-y flesh" and "only dried apples in a bounty sack."

When Harrington noticed the audience looking drowsy, she did a group exercise with Langston Hughes' poem "Tambourines to the glory of God" to wake up the audience. Other poems she read were "June Bug," "A Colored Woman Cannot Sing" and "If She Had Lived."

All these poems, with the exception of Hughes' poem, were from Harrington's poetry book "Even the Hollow My Body Made Is Gone." Harrington won the A. Poulin Jr. Poetry Prize and the Kate Tufts Discovery Award for the book. Her poem "If She Had Lived" was about a family member who was born deformed, looked like a goat and died an early death.

Harrington's book also features a series of poems about nursing homes called "Bed Checks," "Wind," "Protest" and "Starch," of which Harrington recited "Protest" at the reading.

She is working on a series of poems about Horace Pippin, a folk artist from the 1930s and 1940s, at the moment. Poetry became a part of Harrington's life in her later years. Harrington began writing when she was a librarian. She said writing when she was a librarian was easier than writing now, as an assistant professor of creative writing at the University of Illinois in Champaign.

"At the library, it was a labor of love, and I went at my own pace," she said. "Now I have to focus on my tenure and can feel the pressure of the economy."

Harrington has always loved poetry, like "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" and "The Rainbow is Enough."

"I think language is powerful," she said.

Harrington said writing a poem is a long process.

"I re-write and re-write," she said. "I'll work on a poem and re-polish it 40 or 50 drafts. Then, I wait until I have cold eyes and a cold heart towards the poem and come back to it."

She said over time, she does about 100 or more drafts of a poem.

Harrington said she thought she recently started writing, but realized she has been writing since she was a child. She said she started publishing her work as an adult because she wanted to share it.

"You reach a point where you want to share your work," Harrington said. "I wanted to share my family's stories."

Harrington said, for the most part, all the poems in her book are about her family.

Tim Engles, English professor and the one responsible for bringing Harrington to campus, said he thought the audience was responsive after she woke everyone up with the impromptu Hughes poem.

"It had great success for a poetry reading," he said.

Harrington was brought for the "New and Emerging Artists Series" along with African-American Heritage Month.


Heather Holm can be reached at 581-7942 or haholm@eiu.edu.

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