You've entered the literary province of "Bread & Steel," muscle and muse and song of twenty-first century Illinois. The title embodies this gathering of Illinois poets as eclectic and electric as the state itself. Both geographically and culturally, Illinois lies at the center of volatile forces. This vast state offers a blend of the sophisticated and the rough-hewn, the rural and the urban, the industrial and the agricultural. Illinois is both bread basket and Shakespearean theater. It's both factory floor and blues club. It is the American Legion post and the Art Institute. It is citizens of every hue and color and ethnicity, a plethora of languages and customs and homelands given way in favor of this new home, this shared place of "Bread & Steel." Contributors reflect this mix of culture and aesthetics. Just as importantly, they exhibit a broad spectrum of experience ranging from established poets to those just emerging in the art form. In this way these voices represent the actual terrain of Illinois poetry, not simply a map of its most familiar names. Future volumes of "Bread & Steel" will offer listeners a similar blend of styles as well as an assortment of established and new voices.
