Poetry / Chicago
Chicago, this city with its broad shoulders, surges within me. I am dipped in the ink of it, but instead of leaching into me from the outside, it radiates out from deep within. Inside me, like a fetus, it is the return “ping” on my cosmic sonar which locks me into place and defines me.
With its poor western and south-side neighborhoods, it is the rhythm to the most American of tunes. With its pushy pot-bellied old men who drink away weekend nights in their neighborhood bars who rail against friends standing defiantly pressed against each other while they mouth beer-slurred words and, who just as quickly make peace and stand sheepishly…vastly apologetic for every hurtful word…these men are a celebration of this life.
Their ancient wives, also, with their innocent, almost oddly girlish faces wearing their wildly colored scarves drawn tight over rollers and pin-curls, smelling of kraut, and wearing Revlon lipstick from the Five and Dime. It’s red—always red. And they nod cheerfully and say, “Dzień dobry” when they see you in the morning and “Dobranoc” when they wish you good night. Their lives are my life, and together we are the crucible of what it is to be from this, the most American of cities.
The only new thing in this city of never changing constants is the where that our new we comes from. With their hard edges covering soft, vastly innocent and forgiving centers, this latest we, is just a tawny, brown-skinned version of the Poles, the Irish, and the Italians who came here before them. Fresh off the boat, these wondrous brown-skinned people are so familiar with graft and corruption from living back home with Francois Duvalier, or the Federallis, or the taxmen and sheriffs that it makes them feel more comfortable and oddly more at home to live in such a place. Chicago…an American city of sharks on the prowl and of palms dreaming, literally itching to be greased…a city of sights and smells and unlimited corruption—a city tainted to its core by the deadliest of sins.
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“Vastly innocent and forgiving centers…” This description of the immigrants seems patriarchal. However I love your vivid description of the old women
Federales is the Spanish spelling of what you are writing, I believe. Also- I don’t quite understand the idea of Chicago having broad shoulders. Are you referring to the size of the city, or its suburb growth? Or its tough guy persona?
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Nice. Verbose without becoming clogged by language, if that makes sense. Does read more like prose, but that’s too subjective to really make a comment on. If this is complete, the last line is somewhat problematic… the deadliest sin is cliche, and without telling us what that particular sin is, we’re left to guess with no guidance. Good imagery, evocative, and makes a statement, too.
really liked this evocation of chicago. i am visiting the US in the summer and was nice to get a flavour of the place. Although i found the piece a little too wordy with some of its allusions taking it into many different genres. For example early on you used science fiction and later it morphed into surrealism and hard hitting metaphor. it was alittle overloaded and could do with having a little breathing space. i’d be interested in a longer narrative piece if you have written one?
In parts, you really have some lovely imagery here, and there were phrases that I read again and again just to retain the feeling that I got from them. I live near Chicago, so I know the city very well. I found myself tromping through the streets of your poem as I would in the flesh. However, you lost me a bit when you went into your descriptions of the people of Chicago. While I believe the characters you mentioned exist in Chicago, it almost felt as if you were trying to encompass them all within this description, and I do not feel that this is correct. You may want to try limiting your scope. Instead of just saying Chicago is a certain way, why don’t you narrow it down to a specific neighborhood? There are just so many personalities within that city, and unfortunately, my view of the people that habitate there is different from yours—just my humble little opinion. Keep up with this, it definitely displays talent!
Neat litle vignette. Was the spacing and flow on purpose, or just how it came out? And, if this is poetry, which in the year 2008 is a very fluid genre, is it the images that is the point, or a certain sense you’re trying to convey? Poe did say that one must mean to convey a certain feeling or effect, and I’m really not sure what you were going for with this piece.
I enjoyed this, but i would suggest blocking off the lines, in a more traditional poetic form. Other than that very minor gripe, i really liked it. Your descriptions of the city were top-notch all around. You make the reader feel like he or she is really there, and i applaud you in that respect.
You have a good style. You have good metaphores too, my favourite: “the rhythm to the most American of tunes”. But many of your observations are a bit trivial. Like: “an American city of sharks on the prowl”
“city tainted to its core by the deadliest of sins” These things are done before. Not new tougths. And what’s more you could say the same thing about New York, or London, or even Moscow, or our capitol, Budapest. All in all you don’t say much new about Chicago.
I was born in Chicago and lived most of my life in Illinois, so i can defintately understand and relate to this poem. I agree there does need to be changes in Chicago. I visited there in January and was uphauled by how bad the southern suburbs looked and yet downtown chicago was still in pristine condition.
I’m from Chicago, so you have to understand that I’m really super biased when I say that I love this. The imagery is gorgeous and makes me miss my favorite city in the world even more than I already do.
A few suggestions:
—When you have the Polish for hello and goodbye, I would suggest using italics instead of quotation marks. The quotation marks disrupted the flow of the piece a little.
—Also, I’m not quite sure I understand this sentence: “The only new thing in this city of never changing constants is the where that our new we comes from.” Are you talking about how new people are always coming to the city? Perhaps phrase it a little more simply?
Overall, though, I really love this. “An American city of sharks on the prowl and of palms dreaming, literally itching to be greased…” I love it so much—thanks for writing it! I really enjoyed reading.
I think it lacked flow. It seemed to run on in spots. It didn’t seem to have a conclusion and I felt the words didn’t fit. Is there a way to make it flow better?
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