The first collection of poems he wrote in graduate school he titled "No, Mom, It Doesn't Pay Well." But David Bond's mother can consider him a success nonetheless.

Bond was the only writer to snag an Illinois Arts Council Literary Award in both 2003 and 2004. The IAC annually makes 10 such awards for works by Illinois writers that appeared in Illinois literary publications in the previous year.

This year, Bond won $1,000 for his poem "At the Wellness Center," published by the Spoon River Poetry Review. His 2003 award-winning poem was published in the poetry journal RHINO.

Currently the manager of interlibrary lending at SIUC's Morris Library, Bond has held jobs as a substitute teacher, a newspaper reporter, and, for 17 years, a warehouse manager for an underground coal mine. At age 44 he began working part-time on an MFA in creative writing from SIUC. By the time he graduated in 1998, the coal mine had shut down.

Bond has been publishing his poems in literary magazines nationwide since the early 1990s. As an undergraduate he had majored in English, but back then was more interested in writing short stories. After reading books in the late 1980s and early 1990s by SIUC poets Rodney Jones, Allison Joseph, and Lucia Perillo (all of whom have been featured in this magazine), Bond was inspired to go in another direction.

"I guess I really came back to school to talk to somebody about poetry," he says.

The IAC awarded Bond a $7,000 Artists Fellowship in 2001, the same year his self-published book, Colors, came out. He was the featured Illinois poet in the Summer/Fall 2003 issue of the Spoon River Poetry Review, one of the nation's most respected literary magazines. He has given poetry readings and workshops at several universities and his work has been showcased as part of Chicago Public Television's Arts Across Illinois series.

Much of Bond's free verse concerns everyday experience, from blue-collar labor to his love of the Midwest. He says he investigates "the creative force of work and the workplace" in his poetry.

--by Marilyn Davis, ed.