VLA 2006 Annual Meeting

This year's annual meeting of the Vachel Lindsay Association will be held Sunday, November 12 at noon at the PAC Restaurant at the University of Illinois at Springfield. Brunch will be served and the featured speaker will be Lee Gurga, author of Haiku: A Poet's Guide.

Mr. Gurga was the winner of the Haiku Society of America's Best Book of Criticism, 2004. He is a former editor of Modern Haiku, the longest-running journal of Haiku and Haiku studies in English. He is current editor of Modern Haiku Press. He recently received the 2006 Cultural Award from the Japan-America Society of Chicago. He is a former member of the VLA Board of Directors.

Lindsay subject of conference session in Springfield

Springfield, Illinois - On October 13, 2006, a session of the IHPA's 8th annual Conference on Illinois History was devoted to Vachel Lindsay and it was my honor to present a paper at the session. My paper discussed the newly-discovered Lindsay annotations on Cram and Lindsay's utopian vision for Springfield as presented by the poet to my great-grandmother, Lyna Souther.

The session was titled, "Walled Towns to Pre-Urban Giants: Topographical Town Scenes in Vachel Lindsay's Universe." Samuel J. Rogal presented a paper titled, "Vachel Lindsay's Chicago," while mine was titled, "Vachel Lindsay and 'Walled Towns'". Dan Guillory moderated the session and commented on the papers.