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Sangamon’s Laureate: John Knoepfle’s prayer against famine

by David Pitchford
Introduction by Théa Chesley

From a letter written in nomination of John Knoepfle as Illinois’ Poet Laureate:

I have known John Knoepfle, ... for nearly twenty years. In 1980 I moved from Chicago to Springfield, a year after completing a Master's degree in the Program for Writers at the University of Illinois at Chicago, at which Michael Anania had been my thesis advisor, respected mentor and dear friend. His advice to me upon learning of my intended move downstate was "you have to meet John Knoepfle. Find him and get to know him. … In the years since, as I came to know John and his work from his books, his readings, and the impact his sagacity, moral values and gentle humor have had on so many others, I regard him as an Illinois treasure.”

Poets & Writers Literary Forum took upon itself the audacity this most recent spring to bestow a much-deserved award on John Knoepfle: Sangamon’s Laureate. Why? Because of John’s lifetime of writing and teaching, and for extensive publication. An honor as great as a Laureateship isn’t earned by one deed, one word, a single poem – not even by a single volume of poems; it is earned over a distinguished career.

The question now remains, “what honor shall we offer Sangamon’s Laureate for the best work of his distinguished career?” Said work is his latest publication prayer against famine & other irish poems, BkMk Press, U MO-KC, 2004. For reasons (one must assume them ‘irish’ reasons) of casting a vote for the independent markets, John’s agents have managed to make available his new book from Springfield’s Chapter One bookstore in the Fairhills Mall and in the UIS bookstore (you won’t find it at the commercial-imperialist establishments).

Local scholars should write a savvy bio and thesis on John while he’s still around to help (we hope that’ll be another few decades, of course). Meanwhile, prayer is a good place to begin. Not because it is blatantly academic, but precisely because it is not. Prayer against famine is a masterpiece worthy of scholarly attention, but it is first and foremost a work of love for the people of this world – whether Irish or merely human – and part of a great poetic/humanistic legacy from a man whose genius is understated to the point of seeming simplicity.

How does one speak of the things john speaks of in these lines and refrain from seeming bitter? How attend the stricken sans fury at the strikers? Great wisdom and deep understanding? Perhaps what john says of Scott Joplin answers best:

the man taking his own measure

everyones measure

The writer takes himself into a world riddled with injustice, looks deep into the pools of humanity and discovers the image of his own face on both the oppressor and the oppressed. Because he is Irish, all his prayers are. Because he is human, all he sees is. Because blame is the end of responsibility, john chooses his road less traveled. He is a poet wise enough to see the universal in the specific, and one talented enough to convey this to his reader.

One reading “skibbereen the famine pit” cannot unaffected remain; and yet john pleads no mercy, choosing instead to allow his auditor whatever reaction is natural. The poet reports something he wishes remembered. In these lines, he generously does what he is able to recognize “ten thousand / tumbled in one grave here / so many nameless bones.” Perhaps in this, his heart can “reach to the bottom of the world” to commemorate those particular dead.

Pages later, in reading “justina,” one finds another poem posing as a local logue with a lesson that cinches a knot in a thread back to Ireland. In essence, after so many images of this sort, It Happened Here becomes It Happens Everywhere. Again, john leaves it to the reader to decide what feelings to have and what actions to take. But he refuses their ignorance by showing them a world the royal empires have tried to deny throughout history, and especially in modern history. As he writes it, “it was only the poor / were driven to the margins.” Deliberately and astutely, john refuses to point out the obvious truth in his lines, that there are vastly more poor than rich the world over. In this way, john acts as agent of the “maker of the wheel” to fulfill his own request in the title poem, “cleanse our eyes oh god.” Cleanse our eyes is precisely what john does with his verse.

But as much as john’s verse points out the poignancies of social injustice, his prayers offer hope. While allowing that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, john uses the image of his purloined peacock feather to demonstrate something else. What that something else is, john allows the reader to determine. “Peacock feather” tells more story than twenty-four lines should be able to encompass. In this poem, john bemoans the fact that someone stole the object from his wall, and not merely the object but “stole something of my [john’s] life as well.” He commemorates the object as well as the incident, but in so doing seems to fill any space in his life that could be missing with the story and poem of its passing. This is poetry. This is what it does and how it works. A poem is the commemoration of everything in life, the iou we put where the thing should be. And john knoepfle’s currency is worth far more than the paper on which it is printed.

Is life worth more than the currency of verse? Let the reader decide. To make an informed decision, research good sources. I recommend Sangamon’s Laureate as a great primary source.