“Poetry is what is unsayable. To blurt out what is unsayable is to ignore this fundamental premise.” – Lee Seong-bok, ‘Indeterminate Inflorescence: lectures on poetry’
My post-AWP was pretty quickly followed by Mallory taking a trip with her parents, meaning I’ve been solo parenting for the last four days. Not only that, but I was a chaperone on school field trip Monday. Suffice to say, my blog-writing energy is pretty low.
Thing is, my energy levels don’t change the fact that it’s Poetry Month.
So let’s read a poem, just—maybe expect Wizards MJ from my writing, instead of 1992 or 1996 MJ. Forgive me, bask in the poetry.
Dr. Taylor Byas’s ode to the South Side of Chicago, I Done Clicked My Heels Three Times, is one of the latest in a long tradition of Black women writing some of the best poetry about one of the most fascinating places. The South Side is beautiful, vibrant, and full of joys if you’re willing to look for them. The South Side is full of historic communities, from Bronzeville to Pullman. And, sure, the South Side can also be violent, under-invested-in, and more sprawling then some of the tightly planned parts of the North Side. Everywhere has problems. Not everywhere hosts my favorite baseball team—Nelson Algren’s, too, even though he, like me, lived up north. I have only read Dr. Byas’s book once, but it’s stayed on my mind. I will re-read it the moment I get a free week in the schedule.
Here’s “South Side (V):”
To those who come after, this is the law of the town—
the South Side is not a place, but a state of being,
a song, the candy lady circling around
the blocks with walking tacos, Kool-Aid unfreezing
in Styrofoam cups. Happiness costs so little
for those who are willing to buy. And everyone
has a name; the man who drives the ice-cream truck, the nickel-
and-dime bag boys with Frootie Rolls lining one
side of their jackets’ insides—Mr. Bradley,
Joshua ‘nem, their presence steady as statues.
How much of this city is flavor? The thick and sappy
taste of too sweet, too quick to melt, the cashew
crunch of Garrett popcorn mix? It’s sensory;
the act of remembering, of making memory.
Right away, I’m completely in love with an area as a “state of being.” Instead of staying purely in vibes, though, Dr. Byas moves immediately into specific details—not just snacks, but inspired corner store creations like frozen Kool-Aid and the walking taco. I’m not sure if the walking taco has made it to the national stage yet. Hell, I’m a bit of a poser, because my main experience of them was when I worked at Groupon (HQ downtown, on the Chicago River), food trucks would sell walking tacos. Basically, open a bag of Doritos, dump whatever taco toppings you want in, and then consume while walking. That’s a walking taco. I love the details she selects, what she deems worthy of being celebrated as part of the neighborhood’s state of being. It’s not historical buildings or architectural styles, it’s not something as basic as “the way to Grandma’s house” or whatever over-the-river-and-through-the-woods genericisms would be easier. It’s how everyone has a name, even the man who drives the ice cream truck and nickel-and-dime-bag boys.
Of course, those characters remain unnamed in the poem, presumably not for privacy reasons. What Dr. Byas does next pull back from the specificity just enough to let us know that these people are real while also being somewhat archetypal. While she’s writing about her neighborhood, just about every community has a man who drives the ice cream truck. Every community as a Mr. Bradley and a Joshua ‘nem (even if my parents might have to call me later to ask what “‘nem” means, every neighborhood has a Joshua ‘nem). She does the zoom-in/zoom-out trick again, asking the vague “How much of this city is flavor?” before following up with hyper-sensory “cashew // crunch of Garrett’s popcorn mix,” which comes after this sort of sensory-experience-as-state-of-mind trick: “The thick and sappy / taste of too sweet, too quick to melt.” That’s a genius move. I can feel both of those things on a summer day. Personally, I’m transported to playing with my cousins in the backyard they had before their parents got divorced. Yet they’re not just feelings, they’re sensory—you almost start to feel that irritating stickiness of ice cream melting on your hands.
For the record, this kind of sensory memory-making is exactly how it works. But I feel like I have a clearer understanding of that idea now. Reading this highly specific poem that I can’t all the way relate to, but it makes me feel very similar specific memories—that tells me something rad.
To take it back to neighborhoods, and communities, and what is worth celebrating in those institutions—no detail is too ordinary to be worth recognizing. Something or someone you might take for granted as a fixture on your walking route is actually unique, and a hole would be poked in you if that someone or something was suddenly gone. Idk. Maybe that’s getting dramatic. I’ll close with some feedback Josh gave us in undergrad poetry workshop. We’d been assigned “write a Chicago poem” the previous week, and he was returning our assignments with feedback. I don’t remember what I wrote, but I’m 85% certain it was some bullshit about taking the train to downtown (read: like, Water Tower Place or somewhere else a 19-year-old suburban transplant college student with underdeveloped taste would go). Apparently, everyone’s was like this, and Josh said he was either disappointed or surprised (don’t remember which, genuinely) that no one chose to write about Patio Beef. Patio Beef, for the record, is one of the greatest hot dog and Italian beef spots on the North Side. Mal and I took the kid recently, and the food was even better than we could’ve expected. Not to brag, but our family goes absolutely wild for cheap local burger/gyro/hot dog places like this, and visit as many different ones as we can. So us being surprised by both the quality and price of food like this is a big deal.
But undergrad me would’ve never known that. Hell, I’m not sure I would’ve ever developed this love of diners and greasy spoons without a poetry professor pointing me towards it, odd as that might sound (you’ll be unsurprised to learn that it was also in Josh’s classes where, via both him and classmates, I got introduced to Tom Waits). Poetry is great at noticing the little things, and I don’t think it’s puffing up the vocation to say that noticing the little is a great way of moving through life. Kendrick Lamar would say something here about flowers rising from concrete. He won a Pulitzer. Y’all ever seen this Tom Waits and Cookie Monster mashup?
*raising benediction hands* Go forth. Read poetry. Love your communities.
Sorry you got an email,
Chris