A small Illinois city has appointed its first poet laureate. He plans to use poetry to bring the community together.
This February the City of Galena set out to find its first poet laureate. The task was completed a couple of months later. Larissa Distler is the adult service librarian at the Galena Public Library. She said the library wants the poet to engage the community.
“And Ted had a lot of really great credentials," she said, "with his business and working with the community with a lot of different committees and things that you've been involved in in Galena. So, it seemed just like a perfect fit.”
Ted Williams owns The Haunted Galena Tour Company with his wife Robyn Davis. He’s a playwright, tour guide, director, and producer. And most recently, the added title of Galena Poet Laureate.
Williams started writing poetry about 30 years ago. He said he hasn’t kept his writings — instead he gives them as gifts to those around him.
One of the requirements of the poet laureate is to complete a legacy project. Williams is already planning on how to pull that together. The city’s bicentennial is coming up. William’s idea is to have the community write 200 pieces about Galena. Those poems will then be put into a celebratory book. He said he’s almost done with the marketing pieces.
“I will be visiting everybody from nursing homes to fire departments, to restaurants to, you know, to the schools, everyone,” he added. “And so, we'd hope to get everyone involved and with any luck we'll have what we need here in about six months.”
Williams said when he was first made aware of the position, he didn’t think he had the time to do it. He said against his better judgment, he decided to put his name in the hat.
“I was really lucky people really came in and supported me on it,” he said. “I was a little surprised. It gets me emotional that how much everybody just went, ‘Oh, that’s you,’ you know, so ‘I'm like, Oh, alright, that's good.’ So, and Robyn, my wife was 100% behind it, too.”
Williams said poetry is the focal point of all of his creative endeavors. He plays the guitar, writes songs. He shares that his plays are saturated with poetry. Williams calls poetry “the jazz of literature.”
Outside of collecting poems for the legacy project, Williams said he wants to get more people to not only write but share their works.
“My goal is to get people to bravely come forward," he said, "and say, 'You know what, I've written some poetry and I think it's pretty great. And it said something about me, there's no wrong answer. And here's mine,' and if we can do that, we're going break open some real gems.”
He said there are divisions in the city, and he also wants to erase the lines that divide them. One divide is the way the residents feel about the city’s attraction to tourists. Williams said some are excited about the economic benefits it brings.
“Other folks feel that our small-town way of life is threatened by it, you know,” he said. “So, the fact of the matter is, I think all of these things can be bought together if we stopped focusing on little micro niches of our own needs and breakout into a more community minded and, and broad spectrum of consideration for Galena.”
Williams plans on reaching out to other poet laureates in other cities and surrounding states to possibly do some collaborations.
Distler said Williams has met with different city organizations and boards but his first public performance as poet laureate was at this month’s Pride Picnic.
