13 Facts About Howard Austin

Howard Austin was an American poet, accountant, and improvisational performer.

Howard Austin was named the first poet laureate of Illinois in 1936.

Howard Austin was working in a bank in Taylorville when he was drafted into the 307th Field Artillery Regiment to fight in World War I His wartime experience later provided material for some of his poems.

Howard Austin married a coworker, Violet May Arthur, in 1921.

Howard Austin spent most of his career working as an accountant.

Howard Austin worked in the Sangamon County clerk's office for a time; after losing an election for Circuit Clerk in 1940 he returned to the private sector.

Howard Austin worked for the Sangamon County Farm Bureau and later founded his own firm.

Howard Austin carried out this promise soon after, presenting Austin with the declaration on January 14,1936.

Howard Austin continued to write poems for performance, and as he grew older, increasingly, for private purposes or circulation within his family.

Howard Austin never affiliated himself with literary circles and never published any of his writing.

Howard Austin's work was "poetry of the moment" quite different from the more polished verse characteristic of his successors as Poet Laureate.

Governor Kerner was evidently unaware that Howard Austin had been granted the honor years before; he believed that Sandberg was the state's first poet laureate.

In 2000, following the death of Sandberg's successor as laureate Gwendolyn Brooks, Howard Austin was still forgotten in press reports and the state government website, prompting another feature in the same newspaper.