Windy City, Poem by Stuart Dybek with Photo by Jack Delano

WINDY CITY

Poem by Stuart Dybek

The garments worn in flying dreams

were fashioned there—

overcoats that swooped like kites,

scarves streaming like vapor trails,

gowns ballooning into spinnakers.

 

In a city like that one might sail

through life led by a runaway hat.

The young scattered in whatever directions

their wild hair pointed, and gusting

into one another, fell in love.

 

At night, wind rippled saxophones

that hung like windchimes in pawnshop

windows, hooting through each horn

so that the streets seemed haunted   

not by nighthawks, but by doves.   

 

Pinwheels whirled from steeples

in place of crosses. At the pinnacles

of public buildings, snagged underclothes—

the only flag—flapped majestically.

And when it came time to disappear

 

one simply chose a thoroughfare

devoid of memories, raised a collar,

and turned his back on the wind.

I closed my eyes and stepped

into a swirl of scuttling leaves.

Photo: “Chicago Union Station,” by Jack Delano, 1943

Windy City, Poem by Stuart Dybek

WINDY CITY
By Stuart Dybek

The garments worn in flying dreams
were fashioned there—
overcoats that swooped like kites,
scarves streaming like vapor trails,
gowns ballooning into spinnakers.

In a city like that one might sail
through life led by a runaway hat.
The young scattered in whatever directions
their wild hair pointed, and gusting
into one another, fell in love.

At night, wind rippled saxophones
that hung like windchimes in pawnshop
windows, hooting through each horn
so that the streets seemed haunted   
not by nighthawks, but by doves.   

Pinwheels whirled from steeples
in place of crosses. At the pinnacles
of public buildings, snagged underclothes—
the only flag—flapped majestically.
And when it came time to disappear

one simply chose a thoroughfare
devoid of memories, raised a collar,
and turned his back on the wind.
I closed my eyes and stepped
into a swirl of scuttling leaves.
 
SOURCE: “Windy City” appears in Streets in Their Own Ink by Stuart Dybek. Copyright 2004 by Stuart Dybek. Available at Amazon.com.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:  Stuart Dybek is the author of three books of fiction: I Sailed With Magellan, The Coast of Chicago, and Childhood and Other Neighborhoods. Both I Sailed With Magellan and The Coast of Chicago were New York Times Notable Books, and The Coast of Chicago was a One Book One Chicago selection. Dybek has also published two collections of poetry: Streets in Their Own Ink and Brass Knuckles.  His fiction, poetry, and nonfiction have appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s, The Atlantic, Poetry, Tin House, and many other magazines, and have been widely anthologized, including work in both Best American Fiction and Best American Poetry.  Among Dybek’s numerous awards are a PEN/Malamud Prize “for distinguished achievement in the short story,” a Lannan Award, a Whiting Writers Award, an Award from the Academy of Arts and Letters, several O.Henry Prizes, and fellowships from the NEA and the Guggenheim Foundation. In 2007 Dybek was awarded the a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellowship.

Photo: Beck Cowles, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

 

You Were Never in Chicago, Nonfiction by Neil Steinberg

YOU WERE NEVER IN CHICAGO (Excerpts)

Memoir/History by Neil Steinberg

There are only two ways to get to Chicago. You either are born here or you arrive. Those born here have a natural claim, the automatic ownership that emerging into the world upon a certain spot has granted people, at least in their own view, since time began.

But those who come here also have claim to the city, eventually, and some even become its icons if they stick around long enough.

…Does being born here make you a Chicagoan? That can’t be all of it. If that were enough, then Bobby Fischer, born at Michael Reese Hospital and promptly departing the city forever, was a Chicagoan, even as the hate-twisted chess master passed his final reclusive days in Icelandic exile, while Studs Terkel, born in New York but living decade after decade in his cluttered brick house on Castlewood Terrace, was not.

So being a Chicagoan obviously isn’t just a matter of emerging into the world here…So is it sleeping here? That has got to be it, right? It’s where you put your head at night that makes you a Chicagoan. That’s what constitutes “living here” in most definitions. your place of residence, where you get your mail. Do you have to both live and work here? That was the entire case against Rahm Emanuel — those who currently reside here are Chicagoans, while those who leave, even temporarily, even at the behest of the President of the United States, are not. You stop being a Chicagoan after…eighteen months, apparently.

But if that were true, if living here right now is the key then plenty of flight attendants and TV meteorologists perched in Presidential Towers between gigs in San Diego and Pittsburgh are genuine Chicagoans, at least for the moment, while Nelson Algren, passing his bitter last years on Long Island, or Mike Royko, residing in baronial comfort in Winnetka, were not.

Being a Chicagoan is not a matter of how long you reside here, but how it affects you. It is a process, an attitude, a state of mind. 

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REVIEWS:

“In this wonderful book, Steinberg weaves a poetic mosaic of his life and the life of Chicago—past, present, real, imagined. Like many of its citizens, he came here from elsewhere, drawn by its brawny allure. He lives in Chicago and Chicago lives in him.” ROGER EBERT

“I grew up in Chicago. And reading You Were Never in Chicago reminds me why I still think of Chicago as home even though I haven’t lived in the city for more than twenty years. Steinberg brilliantly explores the historical and contemporary city and how each of us makes (or loses) our way in it. Whether you’re a native or you just arrived at O’Hare, read this book: it will make you feel at home in Chicago. Even better, it will you make Chicago yours.” DAN SAVAGE

 ”[A] rollicking newspaperman’s memoir . . . and a strong case for Second City exceptionalism.” NEW YORK TIMES

Find the You were Never in Chicagoby Neil Steinberg at Amazon.com.

Note: Congratulations to Neil Steinberg on his book’s rave reviews and warm reception. I can’t wait to read this love letter to my beloved home town. Yes, I live in L.A., but will always consider myself a Chicagoan — and the beautiful, exciting city’s biggest booster.

Chicago, Essay by David Mamet

“In our beloved Windville we curse the cold and revel in being the most senseless spot in North America to spend the winter in. But the air feels new, and all things still seem possible, as they did to Willa Cather and Sherwood Anderson and Willard Motley and Hemingway and Frank Norris and Saul Bellow and all the other Chicago writers who — when speaking of Home — finally wrote the same story. It was and is a story of possibility, because the idea in the air is that the West is beginning, and that life is capable of being both understood and enjoyed.” DAVID MAMET, Excerpt from essay entitled “Chicago” in Writing in Restaurants (1986)

Note: Like myself, David Mamet is a Chicago native. I know of few other places in the world that inspire such deep and abiding affection among its current and former inhabitants — especially its writers — as does our beloved Windy City.

Photo: Jen Goss, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Strange & Wonderful

Riverview Park bloomed on the shore of the Chicago River from 1904-1967, and inspired many an aspiring writer with its strange and wonderful sights. Perhaps Ray Bradbury walked its odd paths and saw freaks and geeks for the first time there. I love the above photo because it shows the magic — in this case, Aladdin’s Castle — in the midst of typical North Side Chicago residences. It’s possible that Bradbury and the other visionaries — Philip K. Dick and L. Frank Baum — who spent time in the Windy City felt their imaginations soar because they lived in a place that welcomed weirdness.