Streets in Their Own Ink: Poems

by Stuart Dybek

" Streets in Their Own Ink . . . has a gritty realism infused with a sense of the marvelous." --Edward Hirsch, The Washington Post


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, they fell in love.
-from "Windy City"

In his second book of poems, Stuart Dybek finds vitality in the same vibrant imagery that animates his celebrated works of fiction. The poems of Streets in Their Own Ink map the internal geographies of characters who inhabit severe and often savage city streets, finding there a tension that transfigures past and present, memory and fantasy, sin and sanctity, nostalgia and the need to forget. Full of music and ecstasy, they consecrate a shadowed, alternate city of dreams and retrospection that parallels a modern city of hard realities. Ever present is Dybek's signature talent for translating "extreme and fantastic events into a fabulous dailiness, as though the extraordinary were everywhere around us if only someone would tell us where to look" (Geoffrey Wolff).

Genres: Poetry

88 pages, Paperback

First published November 3, 2004

About the author

Stuart Dybek has published three short story collections: Childhood and Other Neighborhoods, The Coast of Chicago, and I Sailed With Magellan; and two volumes of poetry: Brass Knuckles and Streets in Their Own Ink. He has been anthologized frequently and regularly appears in magazines such as the New Yorker, the Atlantic, Harper’s Magazine and the Paris Review.

He has received numerous awards, including: a 1998 Lannan Award; the 1995 PEN/Bernard Malamud Prize "for distinctive achievement in the short story"; an Academy Institute Award in Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1994; a Guggenheim Fellowship; two fellowships from the NEA; a residency at the Rockefeller Foundation's Bellagio Center; and a Whiting Writers Award. He has also received four O. Henry Prizes, including an O. Henry first prize for his story, "Hot Ice." Dybek's story, "Blight," was awarded the Nelson Algren Prize and his collection, Childhood and Other Neighborhoods, which was nominated for the National Book Critics' Circle Award, received the 1981 Prize for Fiction from the Society of Midland Authors and the Cliff Dwellers Award from the Friends of Literature.

Dybek grew up on Chicago’s South Side in a Polish-American neighborhood called Pilsen or Little Village, which is also the main setting for his fiction. He received an M.A. in Literature from Loyola University in Chicago and an M.F.A. from the University of Iowa. He teaches at Western Michigan University when he is not in Chicago.

Reviews

[Nan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some of these poems do feel like short story rehearsals, but I guess I don't care. I love Dybek. He paints pictures better than Edward Hopper. His language is gorgeous and surreal. His characters are both left behind and transported to a more hopeful future. They sail through life "led by a runaway hat". They are like "scarves streaming...vapor trails".

[L · Rating 5 out of 5]

I could live in his poems.

[Tasha · Rating 5 out of 5]

The poems in Streets In Their Own Ink seem like clear relatives of The Coast of Chicago. Dybek roots us in the concrete (the city) and then takes us another layer deeper, dissecting and reassembling it all. Dybek tends toward the lyrical, narrative-driven poem (and occasionally this can feel a little too explanatory). At any rate, I found myself taking notes and recording all my favorite moments in this book (and there were many). It's a gorgeous collection and I plan to buy my own copy.

[Megan · Rating 4 out of 5]

someone sweet and smart gave me this book, inscribed with a little poetic message just for me (shucks), so my thoughts on it are closely tied in with that memory rather than the poems themselves. But I like it.

[Vincent DiGirolamo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Makes you want to write, to notice better. The poems are about abstract notions: love, memory, childhood, ethnicity, family, religion, but via tangible scenes, objects: bouncing pearl beads, basement disrobings, hubcap mirrors, novena incense. Wonderful. Now for one of the novels...

[Dan Kugler · Rating 5 out of 5]

that's some real fine poems... chicago style you know?

[RUSA CODES · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was one of the 2006 RUSA Notable Books winners. For the complete list, go to http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/rus...

[Riegs · Rating 4 out of 5]

Favorites:
- "Windy City"
- "Angelus"
- "Current"

[Jennifer Murphy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love the language in this one. Raw and gritty with unexpected imagery. Very nice!

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dark, stark, gorgeous. When I finished I found myself wishing there was more of him to read. And then I find out he has not one but TWO books coming out in 2014...!!

[Simon Sweetman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some real grittiness in these poems, wonderful street tales, but the technique and skill here is impeccable.

[Joseph Spuckler · Rating 4 out of 5]

This reading of Dybek's poetry comes as a bit of late research on my part.

The first section of this collection hit home for me. It seems that we both grew up in a primarily Polish Catholic neighborhood. Many things that Dybek writes about, I experienced from the red brick streets to the biker bar (where I used to deliver the newspaper). It was an immigrant part of town and many of the grandparents did not speak English or very limited English.

The poems captured a bit of lost youth. "Ginny's Basement" is much like many friends basements an indoor teenage hideaway cave where parent's seemed to respect your space. "Fish Camp" and the catching of bullheads took me back to the pond where I used to fish after school. My grandmother (first generation American) paid me for the fish I caught. No one else in my family would eat bullheads. "Volcano" reminded me of the steel mill. The hot steel flowing and the coke tower fires visible for miles. Like a volcano it also left its "ash" for miles around.

I am sure we were from different cities and different times (a generation apart) but there are ties and shared memories we both experienced that we both carry on through though adulthood. Dybek gives the reader a big city flashback to what many like to think of as better days of youth.

[Dave Newman · Rating 1 out of 5]

No offense to Stuart Dybek, whose books I've often enjoyed, but these are the worst poems I've read in years. As evidence, I submit these lines from "Christening":

A syncronized wingbeat and the flock
gusted into a syllable and vanished,
a cry less to do with language
than the vocalization of snow,
its meaning a music hidden from words...

If this is the language a poet praised for writing about the streets uses, no wonder the world doesn't make sense and politicians lie to us nonstop.

On the donkey dick scale, this book gets 14 inches. No thanks.

[Meg Ready · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this is one of those collections that benefit from more than one reading. I enjoyed it, but it didn't blow me away. However, it's still a worthwhile read for his ability to transform towns into insidious microcosms.

[books.bananatoes · Rating 3 out of 5]

Idk if this is a two star or a four star, so we'll go with three

[Charles Barone · Rating 1 out of 5]

Dybek should stick to writing prose for adolescents. Leave poetry to the poets.

[Edward Gordon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dybek should stick to writing about Catholic adolescent boys (although that gets a bit tiresome) and leave poetry to the poets.

[Ron Fitzwater · Rating 2 out of 5]

Expected more.

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the majority of this collection, and loved several of them. When a poem evokes a memory so vivid that it startles the reader, that's a great poem. This happened at least twice in this book.

[Dana Jerman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible. This is the best book of poetry I've read in a long time. Dybek never disappoints. Earnest and marvelous.