Brass Knuckles

by Stuart Dybek

The poems in this powerful first book have grown from the American urban experience of the last half of this century, a time of decay and diminishing possibilities; they vary from realistic vignettes of working-class Chicago neighborhoods to prose poems elegant and spare in their surrealism. At the middle of this book and at the thematic center of the collection is Dybek’s remarkable reworking of the myth of Persephone, in which the American goddess learns to prefer the underworld and has fallen in love with Death.

Genres: Poetry

72 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1979

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

[Mimi V · Rating 4 out of 5]

i met Stuart Dybek at a poetry reading and made a complete ass of myself. i get so giddy and silly around authors that i admire. i no longer speak to them -- for my sake as well as theirs. get the signature, smile, nod, walk away.

[C · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wasn't a huge fan of the first section of the book, but the later poems, especially the prose poems included are fantastic.

[Neal · Rating 4 out of 5]

At times too wordy for me to really connect with his thoughts, but that is his style it seems. The poems and prose don't follow specific structure and flow like stream of consciousness. The man seems to be a bit of a womanizer, and some of his more sensual work felt true to the heart. Though, the ones that really struck a chord and hit me deep were about loss and also hope. Favorites: Cat's Pyre, Crime & Punishment, Orpheus, In The Basement, Traveling Salesman, To Acquire A Beautiful Body.

[Abigail Munson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Dybek so much. All of his writing makes me feel like I'm in love, incredibly sad but in love. My favorite poems in this collection were: Maroon, Doors, Cats pyre, Crime and Punishment, Svengali, Lazarus, Rain and Infrared.