By Anthony Stanford
Since 2020, I’ve had the distinct pleasure of serving as a Deputy Poet Laureate beside Aurora’s first Poet Laureate, Karen Fullett-Christensen, and fellow Deputy Poet Laureates Fermina Ponce, and Quentin Johnson.
Mayor Richard Irvin of Aurora installed the four of us a few weeks after COVID-19 cases arrived in the United States in January 2020. Looking back, I no longer wonder if it was mere coincidence or poetic justice that the words written by poets were there to help get us through the challenges of the insidious disease and its impact on people worldwide.
As it relates to artistic talent, Aurora has no limit.
Donna Zine, Mark Zellman, and Jo Fredell Higgins, represent a cadre of brilliant poets who have honed their craft and work at the very edge of their creativity to collaboratively get Aurorans through one of the bleakest periods for humankind in recent memory.
It’s essential to stop, reflect, and express gratitude for the opportunity to serve the community that welcomed my family almost 30 years ago when relocating from my hometown, Chicago. However, please make no mistake that Aurora is second to none in arts and culture.
Native Aurorans such as Leo Zarko, who, aside from having a large body of work that includes both poetry and an impressive collection of children’s books, is considered and appreciated as a source for Aurora’s often untold backstory. With a nod to the late, great Chicago news anchor, Harry Porterfield, Leo is definitely “someone you should know.”
Ultimately, I am taking this opportunity to say again that working and knowing these remarkably-gifted people is an honor I treasure. Now, I’ll go about doing what I do best: telling their stories.
Anthony Stanford, named the 2014 Outstanding African American of the Year by the Aurora African American Heritage Advisory Board, is an opinion columnist, a man of letters, urban sociologist, and author of the book, “Homophobia in the Black Church: How Faith, Politics and Politics and Fear Divide the Black Community.”