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Janet Kuypers

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Janet Kuypers[edit]

Janet Lee Kuypers is an American publisher, poet, performance artist and photographer[1]. Her works feature experimental music, sounds, film integrated with acting, spoken word and singing. Initially educated as a journalist she found herself drawn to the more artistic elements of that work. Throughout her work you can hear undertones of journalism and storytelling. She has focused life on promoting poetry and prose as an art form and is the founder of Scars Publications which features two regularly published magazines, "Children Churches & Daddies" and "Down in the Dirt".[2].

Early Life and Education[edit]

Janet Kuypers was born in Palos Hills, Illinois on June 22, 1970.

In 8th grade she received the American Legion Award. Her first poem, "Under the Sea" was published in Read Magazine.

Kuypers graduated from University of Illinois (Urbana/Champaign) in 1992[3] with a BA in News/Editorial Communications. She was a volunteer worker for the Daily Illini Newspaper as a reporter, a beat arts and entertainment writer. She joined the Campus Acquaintance Rape Education (C.A.R.E.) and was a speaker on their behalf on campus.

1990s[edit]

Throughout college Kuypers not only dove into journalism, but discovered the "layout design" in journalism and fell in love with it. While taking a design class other journalism students abhorred, she relished in meticulously rendering typeface designs, and this is where realized that not only writing the word, but designing it on a page, is what she wanted to do. In her spare time she delved in portrait photography, taking group portraits of fraternities for their sections in the yearbooks (along with her photography and articles as well). Although her major did not allow minors, Kuypers held the equivalent of a minor in photography. Kuypers also studied poetry while in college.

After graduating college in 1992, Kuypers returned to Chicago where she found a position designing brochures for an equipment company. She then took a job as an ad coordinator at a trade magazine publisher in Chicago. While there, she also worked as a photographer and web page designer. During this time she traveled around the country for her job as their trade show photographer, and the learned the ins and outs of advertising, article magazine layout. In a competitive process for a new position in the company, Kuypers focused on the needs of the sales force to sell magazines. Her interviews with the sales team resulted in a new face for the magazine and her new position as art director.

During this time she released her first poetry collection book, "Hope Chest in the Attic" (13 years of poetry, prose and art) and founded Scars Publications. Scars Publications derived its name for a prose poem she wrote the year before, "Scars". Months after the release of her first poetry book, she started her first literary and art magazine, "Children, Churches and Daddies" in June 1993 as a monthly / quarterly saddle-stitched digest. The magazine was named after a poem of the same title examining the dysfunctional nature of family relationships and religion. In 1994 she re-formatted the magazine nearly 100 pages long with additional sections including "News you can Use", "AIDS News", "PETA News", "Philosophy Monthly". She also added an insert section of additional poetry titled "Down in the Dirt" which later became a separate publication.

After a few years, she left her Art Director position to travel around the continental United States by car in 1997. From November 1997 through June 1998, she visited several cities and many National Parks. On one camping trip she found that birds would eat out of her hands. As a requested show performer at the Albuquerque installment of the 1998 National Poetry Slam, Kuypers took this opportunity to not only write travel journals, but also groundbreaking poetry.

After traveling around the United States by car Kuypers was on her way to her parent's house southwest of Chicago on July 11 1998. Just days after wiring her poem, "Fantastic Car Crash", while stopped at the end of a long line of traffic her car was struck from behind and thrown into oncoming traffic where she was struck and thrown 108 feet the other direction. According to eye-witness accounts she spotted the speeding car, so she turned the wheels of her car to the left to avoid killing the motorcyclist in front of her.

She was transported to Christ Hospital where she remained in a coma for several days and unconscious for a couple weeks. As she began to recover the doctors and nurses working with her began to call her miracle girl. Eventually after relearning how to eat and walk and talk she was released from the hospital to continue her recovery at her parents home. 1998 was a year where some of her best poetry was written. The poetry written following her accident shows a deep change in how she viewed the world and the struggles one goes through while learning to cope with a new life. As the 1990's were coming to a close she met her husband, John.

2000s[edit]

2010s[edit]


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