People may have more ties to poetry than they know. Not just from classrooms, but maybe a fondness for Carl Sandburg’s lines “little cat feet” or “city of the big shoulders,” or someone with a quick recall of limericks.

Personally, as an adolescent I realized the small-town neighbor whose sidewalks I cleared of snow was an award-winning poet credited with writing the familiar tongue-twisting verse:

Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear.

Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair.

Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn’t fuzzy, was he?

In metro Peoria, the connections seem to be growing for reading, reciting or hearing poetry — homegrown or classic, soothing, stimulating or provocative.

Bradley University professor Kevin Stein was Illinois’ fourth poet laureate from 2003 to 2017, and Bradley hosted acclaimed poet Adrienne Su last month. The Contemporary Art Center in recent weeks featured “Whisper & Shout” headliners Kaiserrific, Rill Spill and Arrie Lane; Lit on Fire each month draws people to share verse at its monthly open mics; and the Peoria Poetry Club, founded in 1941, continues its activities.

Whispering, shouting

At “Whisper & Shout,” the material at the twice-monthly gathering runs the gamut, says Contemporary Art Center Executive Director William Butler.

“Sometimes poetry is very sweet, intimate and quiet,” he says. “Other times it is loud and maybe even hard to bear, because the content is so disturbing or brash.

“Any style poetry or literary recitation is welcome, preferably works that the poet has created themselves,” continues Butler, who since the event was conceived 17 years ago has resisted straying from poems and their creators.

Words matter.

“One could go to open mics all over and see unfunny comedians, hear mediocre singers, and endure all kinds of other poor content,” he adds.

Scheduling special guests from throughout the country, many from Chicago and St. Louis, “W&S” often has crowds of 80 to 100 people, “attracting largely an African-American audience,” Butler says, but a cross-section of the community in race, age, gender, etc.

The format seems informal, but it’s structured. Poets sign in to participate and a DJ shares music for about half an hour before Ryan Lowry, a former DJ who started emceeing in 2014, begins the evening and calls up the poets, one at a time, to read one work, usually spoken-word free verse.

At a recent visit, the audience was attentive and responsive, quietly sharing food they brought from Rhythm Kitchen downstairs and BYOB beverages if preferable to available sodas and water.

Most “W&S” wordsmiths are locals, with featured poets offering material around 9:30 for 15 minutes to half an hour, and the night ends about 10. About a dozen readers together ignited an air of community, sharing time and place, space and thoughts about love and romance, fear and hate, from polite, serene recitations to fragile fevered drama. Two standouts were “Shawny D’Artist” and “Someone Named Sam.”

The former, reciting from memory, shared a delightful, crude tenderness and wistful wishes, delivered with understated passion and expressive insights. The latter, a regular at the CAC, was in whiteface and captivated the crowd with emotive performance art, therapeutic and light.

The whole night was less a slam than a slap — on the back more than on the cheek.

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Poet’s society

Some 30 miles away, 86-year-old George Tanner, an award-winning poet, retired educator and longtime member of the Peoria Poetry Club, recalls taking part in poetry readings at a Bradley poetry slam, at OLLI get-togethers on campus, and at Peoria Public Library events as well as the club’s monthly meetings at the Illinois Prairie Public Library in Germantown Hills. It’s had “ups and downs,” especially during COVID and its aftermath, but its dozens of members have “bounced back,” he says. “We’re getting new members. I’m impressed with them.

“I’m pleased with what’s going on,” he says, conceding that he bounces between satisfaction and disappointment.

“In this Trump era, with ICE and all that, I think, ‘Hey! When are the poets going to show up’?”

Tanner does. At a club challenge to write a four-line piece using “robin,” he penned a poem alluding to Jeffrey Epstein:

“Isle of Birds of Prey at Play”

girl robin lured there by eagles of fancy feathers

a fledging, a chance to preen with a famous flock

her price, with sacrifice of red breast and tiny tail

and yet, still, big birds are able to hide in the file.

This winter Tanner greeted a club visitor in his 20s who afterward told Tanner that when he walked in he thought it was “an old-folks home,” but was surprised to find common ground.

“He told me, ‘I’m somewhat of a romantic and activist,’ and I said, ‘Most of us old guys are, too.’ He said, ‘You’ve motivated me,’ which was the best thing I’d heard in a while.”

Lighting it up

On West Main Street, at 7 p.m.
on the third Wednesday of the month, Lit On Fire for 11 years has had a forum held in the adjacent My Writing Shed space.

“It’s going strong,” says Jessica Stephenson. “People read original pieces or read a favorite selection. It can be personal, confessional, raw.”

Originally Stephenson also produced a 16-page ’zine with art and short fiction to accompany “Lit On Fire Open Mic Night,” but even without that the event has “built a solid audience. We have long-time regular attendees, a good crowd. It tends to lean younger, with some LGBTQ folks but it spans generations, at least early 20s to 50s, all enjoying each other.”

Finally, then, enjoying other people may be as important as the insights, emotions and word play that are the attraction.