Jeannette Cooperman Interviews New St. Louis Poet Laureate, Jane Ellen Ibur

At St. Louis Magazine, Cooperman shines the spotlight on the city's new poet laureate, who "isn’t big on ponderous, pompous readings or self-congratulation." Ibur, in Cooperman's estimation, would rather "take people who’ve shied away from poetry their whole lives and open them up to its magic." Picking up there: 

Jane Ellen Ibur founded the Community Arts Training Institute, focusing on art’s power to change the world, and Poets and Writers Ink, to pull talent from young writers. Her own work has appeared in 60-plus anthologies and her two books, Both Wings Flappin’, Still Not Flyin’ and The Little Mrs./Misses, in which we hear from Mrs. Noah, taking inventory on the ark two weeks out, and Mrs. Adam, who has a Cheerio in one hand and a watermelon tucked under her arm: “I’m supposed to pass this fruit/ through that hole? For taking/ a bite from an apple? Jesus Christ,/ you call that Justice?”

You learned that you had breast cancer the day after you were named poet laureate. Do you mind talking about it? I actually feel like women don’t talk about it enough. I was diagnosed in October 2018, the day after my 50-year high school reunion, and I had found out the last day of the reunion that I was going to be poet laureate. Both other poet laureates had been ill and died—I thought, “Do I even want to do this?!” and then I just plowed right ahead.

And here you are. How do you see your new role? To be an ambassador of poetry. To take poetry to some unexpected places. St. Louis is a divided city, but it’s not only black and white. I have a list of people I think have been ignored: East Indian people in St. Louis. Latino people. Bosnians. I want to work with elder black women in Old North, another invisible community, and with the LGBT communities. Can poetry heal the divisions? I don’t know. When veterans read, veterans come to hear it. I want to break out of that. I want everybody to hear each other’s poetry. I want people to cross lines they hadn’t crossed before.

Continue reading at St. Louis Magazine.