Former U.S. Rep. Glenn Poshard, a John A. Logan College trustee and former president of the Southern Illinois University system, reflects on how his childhood in the “Hill Country” of White County shaped his lifelong connection to poetry and public service. “Everybody where I grew up was broke. My family was very broke,” Poshard says, recalling his father, who “only had one arm” after it was “shot off in a hunting accident when he was 13 years old,” and his mother, who had “a third grade education, but a love of poetry” and insisted all five children “read and write and love poetry.”
Poshard describes arriving at a larger high school as a young student and feeling intimidated by “all the city kids,” then unexpectedly walking to the front of the room and reciting Edna St. Vincent Millay from memory: “World, world, I cannot hold thee close enough.” After a classmate mocked him, “Man, who is this corn pone?”, Poshard says teacher Emily Dixon pulled him aside and encouraged him to keep writing: “Glenn, I didn’t know you loved poetry,” and asked, “Would you share some of those poems with me?” “Miss Dixon made me feel like it was okay for a 13 or 14 year old boy to love poetry in 1960,” he says.
In the video, Poshard connects those memories to hunger and food insecurity across Southern Illinois, including “food deserts,” and reads from his poem “Hunger,” rooted in a childhood scene of his father bringing home government surplus food after a humiliating trip to the township supervisor: “What humiliation did you have to suffer this time to feed your kids?” Poshard said he has done more than 20 poetry readings and estimates they have raised more than $125,000 for area food pantries, though exact totals are difficult to track because donations went directly to pantries after the events.
Poshard also describes how he and his wife, Jo, began turning his poetry readings into a way to support pantries, saying she urged him to see whether people would show up and “maybe they’ll write a check to the local food pantry.” Jo Poshard leads the Poshard Foundation for Abused Children, which supports children and families across Southern Illinois.
Interview by Zoren Anako Mohamad Ali / The Volunteer. Video by Jaden Patterson and Ashton Fox / The Volunteer
