SPRINGFIELD — Saying he feels like the player who replaced Michael Jordan on the Chicago Bulls, Kevin Stein took over Thursday as the first Illinois poet laureate since the death of Pulitzer Prize-winner Gwendolyn Brooks. “If this doesn’t quake my knees, then I’m not human,” the Bradley University professor said when his appointment was announced at the state library, which is named for Brooks. Stein said he hopes to build enthusiasm for poetry, especially among students, by highlighting Illinois poets on a Web site, hosting a monthly radio show and founding annual poetry contests for children. “How sweet it would be to spark an interest in these students, an interest in poetry, before they learn to fear, reject or simply hate it,” he said.

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Gov. Rod Blagojevich chose Stein after a search committee reviewed the work of 25 nominees and narrowed the field to two finalists, Stein and Rodney G. Jones of Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. Blagojevich praised Stein, a high school football player and former factory worker, for translating his real-life experiences into poetry that will have meaning to working people. “He has translated his life experience and put it into rhyme, rhythm and verse. He was wise enough and brave enough to know that poetry can have as much of a place on the factory floor as it does in the lecture hall,” Blagojevich said. Poetry experts applauded the selection. They praised his writing and noted that Stein also teaches, has edited an anthology of Illinois poetry and has written two books of literary criticism, helping prepare him for the job of explaining poetry to people. “The biggest challenge for any poet laureate of Illinois is actually getting out there with the message to the people of Illinois that poetry is for them, that it’s not this exclusive, lofty art form,” said Kenneth Clarke, executive director of the Poetry Center of Chicago. Laurence Lieberman, who edits poetry for the University of Illinois Press and served on the poet laureate search committee, said Stein is “as close as I can imagine to the ideal person for the job.” Illinois has had only three poets laureate over the years, and they include Brooks, the first black person to win a Pulitzer, and Carl Sandburg, a legendary poet and author. Brooks held the position from 1968 until her death in 2000. It has been vacant since. The post has been a lifetime appointment, but it is being changed to a four-year term. Stein, 49, lives in Dunlap, near Peoria, with his wife and two children.