The Collins Poetry Residency is established in honor of the Richard Collins family and their contributions to and encouragement of poets and poetry in the Iowa/Illinois Quad Cities and the Upper Mississippi River Valley. The residency supports community-based poetry and a regional poet who resides in the six-county Quad City area (Rock Island, Henry, Mercer, Scott, Clinton, Muscatine).

2010 Poet-in-Residence is Salvatore Marici of Port Byron

Monday, October 4, 2010

Joanne Wiklund: Spring Stream

Joanne Wiklund has been a journalist for more than 30 years, a columnist for The Argus, Moline, Ill, a public speaker, and a writing teacher. She has edited weekly newspapers and has worked as a correspondent, reporter and librarian. She published a bimonthly magazine about the Mississippi River from 1993-1995. Her poetry has received awards in local competitions. Joanne lives in the Northwestern corner of Illinois. Her poem takes you on a journey through a Midwest farm landscape in spring.

Spring Stream

Sunlight sparkles through yellow willows,
as a stream slips through freshly plowed
fields of black dirt,
turned over, waiting for seed.

The stream wanders through grassy pastures,
fallen trees blocking its path.
it sneaks under or cascades over
dark rotting wood