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BreakBeat Poets
A People's History of Chicago
Known variously as “‘the Windy City,”’ “‘the City of Big Shoulders,”’ or “‘Chi-Raq,”’ Chicago is one of the most widely celebrated, routinely demonized, and thoroughly contested cities in the world. Chicago is the city of Gwendolyn Brooks and Chief Keef, Al Capone and Richard Wright, Lucy Parsons and Nelson Algren, Harold Washington and Studs Terkel. It is the city of Fred Hampton, House Music, and the Haymarket Martyrs. Writing in the tradition of Howard Zinn, Kevin Coval’s A People’s History of Chicago celebrates the history of this great American city from the perspective of those on the margins, whose stories often go untold. These seventy-seven poems (for the city’s seventy-seven neighborhoods) honor the everyday lives and enduring resistance of the city’s workers, poor people, and people of color, whose cultural and political revolutions continue to shape the social landscape. Kevin Coval is the poet/author/editor of seven books including The BreakBeat New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop and the play, This Iis Modern Art , co-written with Idris Goodwin. Founder of Louder Than A The Chicago Youth Poetry Festival and the Artistic Director of Young Chicago Authors, Coval teaches hip-hop aesthetics at the University of Illinois–-Chicago. The Chicago Tribune has named him “the voice of the new Chicago“ and the Boston Globe calls him “the city’s unofficial poet laureate.”
152 pages, Paperback
First published March 28, 2017
39 people are currently reading
1384 people want to read
About the author
Kevin Coval
19 books45 followersKevin Coval is an award-winning poet & author of Everything Must Go: The Life & Death of an American Neighborhood, A People's History of Chicago & over ten other full-length collections, anthologies & chapbooks. He is the founding editor of The BreakBeat Poets series on Haymarket Books, & Artistic Director of the MacArthur Award-winning cultural organization, Young Chicago Authors, & founder of Louder Than a Bomb: The Chicago Youth Poetry Festival, the world's largest youth poetry festival, now in more than 19 cities across North America. He's shared the stage with The Migos & Nelson Mandela, has published in Poetry Magazine, The Chicago Tribune & CNN.com & co-hosts the podcast, The Cornerstore, on WGN Radio.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 127 reviews
June 30, 2018
Chicago’s own hip hop poet, (he refers to himself as a "breakbeat poet"), teacher, the director of Young Chicago Authors, and co-creator of Louder Than the Bomb, a group and individual teen spoken word competition, is very dedicated to the development of youth poetry and performance poetry, but is also himself very prolific as a writer, and is well known to Chicago slam and spoken word poets here and elsewhere. I know him personally, but this can be said for literally thousands of Chicagoans; he’s everywhere, an explosion of energy.
A People’s Guide to Chicago is his most ambitious project, building quite obviously on Howard Zinn’s People’s History of the United States; both set out to uncover little known stories that highlight inequities swept under the cover so we can see that magnificent mile or the skyline. Coval focuses here primarily on African American and working class history in Chicago. Sometimes he highlights Chicago writers such as Gwendolyn Brooks or Nelson Algren. But more than half of the book pertains to his own experiences growing up here, and his family.
There is so much to admire about this collection, first and foremost conceptually: 77 poems, each representing one of the 77 distinct neighborhoods in Chicago. I wish, as is the case with Zinn’s work, that more of this book were about Chicago history than his own personal and family history, but in this strategy he follows a kind of implicit principle of the spoken word scene that he continues to help shape: You tell about the need for social change, but you make it real usually in the context of your personal life. These poems are thus very accessible, narrative poems, better suited to performance than they are to close examination. Coval is nothing like an academic poet; he openly disdains most mainstream poetry traditions, though the work here represents the most scholarly research he has ever done for a book.
Here’s part of one from the book:
"mayor byrne Moves Into & Out of Cabrini Green."
her publicist
said she'd return to her gold
coast apartment a few blocks
east for a change
of clothes or perhaps a week
end, tho residents saw her sneak
in every morning & out each night
for three weeks she lasted.
& such is whiteness
That isn’t a powerful political observation, it’s not a great moment in a poem, and that glib dismissal of “whiteness” is typical of his work (though I agree with his critique of what the naïve Byrne did to try to “connect” with economically disadvantaged African American people). Coval is white, too, grew up in the suburbs, attended upper middle class Glenbrook North High School, was popular and privileged himself, and remains so, but as with Zinn, he chooses to side with the powerless, those victimized by the (generally) white power elites., and I support that, and like the accumulated sense of an introduction (maybe especially to young people) to the largely hidden history of Chicago.
Here is Coval’s take on Rahm Emanuel, the city's mayor:
You dismantle the same system from which your family benefited:
union pay, livable wages, park space safe enough to play outside
arts funding to take ballet, a decent well-rounded public education
the same ladder your family climbed
you kick the rungs from.
This is a pretty good quick summary of a political critique of the neo-liberal Emanuel; is it also good poetry? Not really, I think, but I like the provocation in it. Most poets aren’t taking a stand today, and many poets could do more.
Coval’s view of The White City, at the time of the Chicago World’s Fair of 1896, to put that critique of Rahm’s rich against the poor in historical context:
the world’s fair turned the swamp
utopian lie. classical architecture
a garish nod to old ass empire,
made the poet of steel, Louis Sullivan,
mourn the buildings businessmen
desired to show off. all bluster
& facade. all fronts. the white city
meant to distract, erase the Black
city of smoke & sky, grime & grind.
faces that gutted the land, made it run,
banned, pushed to the side. the face
the city presented to tourists, miles
of magnificence millionaires wanted
out-of-towners to whisper about
on the train trip home. a museum
prison Houdini tried escaping.
fraudulent city of the future built
from scratch, from scraps, hidden
the hands that scraped. Beneath
the veneer lurked murder. silent
terror behind white construction.
Is this a good poem? I dunno, it’s slam poetry, and it works live as rant, in performance.
I like the poem about Marc Smith and the invention of the poetry slam at the Green Mill:
Marc stood on top of a table
in his father's coat & pulled a poem
from night. Part Sandburg
part Saul Alinsky, for a few seconds
the din sunk to the floor. even the drunks
listened.
Coval’s book does a good job of telling stories of fighting the power, and those “hidden hands that scraped” as we look at the “old ass empire” of skyscrapers and museums. Not many of the poems are great, in my opinion, but the impulse here to make poetry speak to the need for change is strong and admirable. It engages, it provokes, and teaches.
You interested in the state of youth poetry? Louder than a Bomb is a documentary focused on the annual youth spoken word poetry competition here in Chicago, featuring in part my friend Pate Kahn’s Oak Park-River Forest High School Spoken Word Club, and Coval is of course in it, too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSCV_...
A People’s Guide to Chicago is his most ambitious project, building quite obviously on Howard Zinn’s People’s History of the United States; both set out to uncover little known stories that highlight inequities swept under the cover so we can see that magnificent mile or the skyline. Coval focuses here primarily on African American and working class history in Chicago. Sometimes he highlights Chicago writers such as Gwendolyn Brooks or Nelson Algren. But more than half of the book pertains to his own experiences growing up here, and his family.
There is so much to admire about this collection, first and foremost conceptually: 77 poems, each representing one of the 77 distinct neighborhoods in Chicago. I wish, as is the case with Zinn’s work, that more of this book were about Chicago history than his own personal and family history, but in this strategy he follows a kind of implicit principle of the spoken word scene that he continues to help shape: You tell about the need for social change, but you make it real usually in the context of your personal life. These poems are thus very accessible, narrative poems, better suited to performance than they are to close examination. Coval is nothing like an academic poet; he openly disdains most mainstream poetry traditions, though the work here represents the most scholarly research he has ever done for a book.
Here’s part of one from the book:
"mayor byrne Moves Into & Out of Cabrini Green."
her publicist
said she'd return to her gold
coast apartment a few blocks
east for a change
of clothes or perhaps a week
end, tho residents saw her sneak
in every morning & out each night
for three weeks she lasted.
& such is whiteness
That isn’t a powerful political observation, it’s not a great moment in a poem, and that glib dismissal of “whiteness” is typical of his work (though I agree with his critique of what the naïve Byrne did to try to “connect” with economically disadvantaged African American people). Coval is white, too, grew up in the suburbs, attended upper middle class Glenbrook North High School, was popular and privileged himself, and remains so, but as with Zinn, he chooses to side with the powerless, those victimized by the (generally) white power elites., and I support that, and like the accumulated sense of an introduction (maybe especially to young people) to the largely hidden history of Chicago.
Here is Coval’s take on Rahm Emanuel, the city's mayor:
You dismantle the same system from which your family benefited:
union pay, livable wages, park space safe enough to play outside
arts funding to take ballet, a decent well-rounded public education
the same ladder your family climbed
you kick the rungs from.
This is a pretty good quick summary of a political critique of the neo-liberal Emanuel; is it also good poetry? Not really, I think, but I like the provocation in it. Most poets aren’t taking a stand today, and many poets could do more.
Coval’s view of The White City, at the time of the Chicago World’s Fair of 1896, to put that critique of Rahm’s rich against the poor in historical context:
the world’s fair turned the swamp
utopian lie. classical architecture
a garish nod to old ass empire,
made the poet of steel, Louis Sullivan,
mourn the buildings businessmen
desired to show off. all bluster
& facade. all fronts. the white city
meant to distract, erase the Black
city of smoke & sky, grime & grind.
faces that gutted the land, made it run,
banned, pushed to the side. the face
the city presented to tourists, miles
of magnificence millionaires wanted
out-of-towners to whisper about
on the train trip home. a museum
prison Houdini tried escaping.
fraudulent city of the future built
from scratch, from scraps, hidden
the hands that scraped. Beneath
the veneer lurked murder. silent
terror behind white construction.
Is this a good poem? I dunno, it’s slam poetry, and it works live as rant, in performance.
I like the poem about Marc Smith and the invention of the poetry slam at the Green Mill:
Marc stood on top of a table
in his father's coat & pulled a poem
from night. Part Sandburg
part Saul Alinsky, for a few seconds
the din sunk to the floor. even the drunks
listened.
Coval’s book does a good job of telling stories of fighting the power, and those “hidden hands that scraped” as we look at the “old ass empire” of skyscrapers and museums. Not many of the poems are great, in my opinion, but the impulse here to make poetry speak to the need for change is strong and admirable. It engages, it provokes, and teaches.
You interested in the state of youth poetry? Louder than a Bomb is a documentary focused on the annual youth spoken word poetry competition here in Chicago, featuring in part my friend Pate Kahn’s Oak Park-River Forest High School Spoken Word Club, and Coval is of course in it, too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSCV_...
March 29, 2017
My review for the Chicago Tribune: http://www.chicagotribune.com/lifesty...
Defining the function of literature can be a tricky thing to do without sounding pompous or stoned or both, but Joseph Conrad offered this: "By the power of the written word," the writer's task is "to make you hear, to make you feel — it is, before all, to make you see."
What exactly a given work makes an audience see, of course, depends on the vision of the artist. Chicago-based poet and educator Kevin Coval has one of the strongest and most long-standing literary visions in the city. Not only is he the author or editor of 10 books, but he is also the artistic director of Young Chicago Authors, the founder of the youth poetry festival Louder Than A Bomb, and a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where he teaches hip-hop aesthetics.
In his latest book, the passionate and illuminating collection of poems, "A People's History of Chicago," he offers readers a heartfelt and forthright opportunity to see Chicago not merely as a received idea — the Windy City, the City of Big Shoulders or even Chiraq — but from the frequently unacknowledged perspectives of the groups and individuals — workers, people of color, the poor — who live at the margins.
Coval's book opens with an epigraph from Howard Zinn and contains 77 poems, one for each of Chicago's community areas. In the tradition of Zinn's desire to disclose "hidden episodes of the past," Coval zooms in on such incidents as the one when, as the title of the poem states, "mayor byrne Moves Into & Out of Cabrini Green." Of this, he writes:
her publicist
said she'd return to her gold
coast apartment a few blocks
east for a change
of clothes or perhaps a week
end, tho residents saw her sneak
in every morning & out each night
for three weeks she lasted.
& such is whiteness
Illustrated by Hebru Brantley, Bianca Pastel, Max Sansing and more, the book contains visual portraits, too, of famous Chicagoans from Jean Baptiste Point du Sable to Ida B. Wells-Barnett to Chief Keef.
Coval's poems immerse the reader in the rhythms of "Maxwell Street storefronts" and "cassettes jammed into the factory/ issued stereo deck of the hoopty/ I rolled around in. a bucket. Bass/ & drum looped with some string/ sample, fixed."
In "Marc Smith Invents the Poetry Slam," he presents the image "Marc stood on top of a table/ in his father's coat & pulled a poem/ from night. Part Sandburg/ part Saul Alinsky, for a few seconds/ the din sunk to the floor. even the drunks/ listened." Here and throughout, he celebrates Chicago's particular genus loci, the complex and multifarious spirit of the place in all its greatness and all its trouble.
This new collection is published by Haymarket Books, whose mission is to "contribute to struggles for social and economic justice"; the book is a natural extension of that project, big and inviting, direct and accessible. Not every reader will necessarily agree that poetry works best or even well in the service of politics and documentary-style witness-bearing. Some of the poems are clunky, prose-y, and perhaps overly obvious. But the book has a higher aim than inoffensiveness or the achievement of bland adulation. It wants to engage, to teach and, if needed, to argue.
Education has been and continues to be Coval's lifeblood, and he's been a mentor to thousands. Chancelor Bennett — better known as Chance the Rapper and one of Coval's many mentees — writes in his foreword: "Kevin made art a job to me ... and made me understand what it is to be a poet, what it is to be an artist, and what it is to serve the people."
This book expands the tirelessness and inclusivity of Coval's project to people who might never get to study or work with him; in reading his words, anyone who wants to can have a flash of the experience of being guided through the city by someone who loves it for what it is and pushes it toward the potential of what it could become.
Defining the function of literature can be a tricky thing to do without sounding pompous or stoned or both, but Joseph Conrad offered this: "By the power of the written word," the writer's task is "to make you hear, to make you feel — it is, before all, to make you see."
What exactly a given work makes an audience see, of course, depends on the vision of the artist. Chicago-based poet and educator Kevin Coval has one of the strongest and most long-standing literary visions in the city. Not only is he the author or editor of 10 books, but he is also the artistic director of Young Chicago Authors, the founder of the youth poetry festival Louder Than A Bomb, and a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where he teaches hip-hop aesthetics.
In his latest book, the passionate and illuminating collection of poems, "A People's History of Chicago," he offers readers a heartfelt and forthright opportunity to see Chicago not merely as a received idea — the Windy City, the City of Big Shoulders or even Chiraq — but from the frequently unacknowledged perspectives of the groups and individuals — workers, people of color, the poor — who live at the margins.
Coval's book opens with an epigraph from Howard Zinn and contains 77 poems, one for each of Chicago's community areas. In the tradition of Zinn's desire to disclose "hidden episodes of the past," Coval zooms in on such incidents as the one when, as the title of the poem states, "mayor byrne Moves Into & Out of Cabrini Green." Of this, he writes:
her publicist
said she'd return to her gold
coast apartment a few blocks
east for a change
of clothes or perhaps a week
end, tho residents saw her sneak
in every morning & out each night
for three weeks she lasted.
& such is whiteness
Illustrated by Hebru Brantley, Bianca Pastel, Max Sansing and more, the book contains visual portraits, too, of famous Chicagoans from Jean Baptiste Point du Sable to Ida B. Wells-Barnett to Chief Keef.
Coval's poems immerse the reader in the rhythms of "Maxwell Street storefronts" and "cassettes jammed into the factory/ issued stereo deck of the hoopty/ I rolled around in. a bucket. Bass/ & drum looped with some string/ sample, fixed."
In "Marc Smith Invents the Poetry Slam," he presents the image "Marc stood on top of a table/ in his father's coat & pulled a poem/ from night. Part Sandburg/ part Saul Alinsky, for a few seconds/ the din sunk to the floor. even the drunks/ listened." Here and throughout, he celebrates Chicago's particular genus loci, the complex and multifarious spirit of the place in all its greatness and all its trouble.
This new collection is published by Haymarket Books, whose mission is to "contribute to struggles for social and economic justice"; the book is a natural extension of that project, big and inviting, direct and accessible. Not every reader will necessarily agree that poetry works best or even well in the service of politics and documentary-style witness-bearing. Some of the poems are clunky, prose-y, and perhaps overly obvious. But the book has a higher aim than inoffensiveness or the achievement of bland adulation. It wants to engage, to teach and, if needed, to argue.
Education has been and continues to be Coval's lifeblood, and he's been a mentor to thousands. Chancelor Bennett — better known as Chance the Rapper and one of Coval's many mentees — writes in his foreword: "Kevin made art a job to me ... and made me understand what it is to be a poet, what it is to be an artist, and what it is to serve the people."
This book expands the tirelessness and inclusivity of Coval's project to people who might never get to study or work with him; in reading his words, anyone who wants to can have a flash of the experience of being guided through the city by someone who loves it for what it is and pushes it toward the potential of what it could become.
Read
January 1, 2018Closing out the year with poetry. A few times over the past three years I've had the opportunity to help chaperone my school's poetry slam team and indie poets as they take the stage during LTAB season. "You *live* here?? In the city??" they ask, wide-eyed, when I meet them at the train stations and various venues. "Why do you teach in Bartlett if you live *here*?!" "Because Rahm fired most of the Chicago Public School librarians," I reply. "But also because I love you guys."
Bought this book--for myself and the library--at the 2017 LTAB Quarter-Finals at Malcolm X College before its official release date (and a few days before the last poem's dedication date I realized tonight). It sits proudly atop the shelves in our school library, which recently caught the eye of my principal, who stopped in his tracks and said, "Wow! We have this here??" Proud librarian moment.
Kevin Coval is a household name with my students; they even have their own call and response, and when we were fortunate enough to host him during our annual Writers Week, you would have thought Michael Jordan had entered the auditorium (thus is the beauty of Writers Week, when writers are as revered as sports legends). I love what he's done with YCA and LTAB, both organizations I wish existed when I was a teen, though I was beyond lucky enough to be a student where the original Writers Week was first invited at Fremd High School.
It was there I met the one and only Gwendolyn Brooks 20 years ago this coming spring. The number of times she's mentioned on these pages made me smile and remember how life-changing it was to meet her when I was also a wide-eyed suburban teen. During that time I also had the privilege of being exposed to Marc Smith, Patricia Smith, and Studs Terkel, all prominent names in this volume as well.
What I loved about this collection is that it was reminiscent of Terkel's devotion in that it left me with even more questions and renewed curiosity about this city I've called home for most of my 35 years of life and a desire to continue investigating and processing through writing.
Thank you Kevin for all you do and for educating people about important Chicago histories which have been and continue to be covered up in more ways than one.
Bought this book--for myself and the library--at the 2017 LTAB Quarter-Finals at Malcolm X College before its official release date (and a few days before the last poem's dedication date I realized tonight). It sits proudly atop the shelves in our school library, which recently caught the eye of my principal, who stopped in his tracks and said, "Wow! We have this here??" Proud librarian moment.
Kevin Coval is a household name with my students; they even have their own call and response, and when we were fortunate enough to host him during our annual Writers Week, you would have thought Michael Jordan had entered the auditorium (thus is the beauty of Writers Week, when writers are as revered as sports legends). I love what he's done with YCA and LTAB, both organizations I wish existed when I was a teen, though I was beyond lucky enough to be a student where the original Writers Week was first invited at Fremd High School.
It was there I met the one and only Gwendolyn Brooks 20 years ago this coming spring. The number of times she's mentioned on these pages made me smile and remember how life-changing it was to meet her when I was also a wide-eyed suburban teen. During that time I also had the privilege of being exposed to Marc Smith, Patricia Smith, and Studs Terkel, all prominent names in this volume as well.
What I loved about this collection is that it was reminiscent of Terkel's devotion in that it left me with even more questions and renewed curiosity about this city I've called home for most of my 35 years of life and a desire to continue investigating and processing through writing.
Thank you Kevin for all you do and for educating people about important Chicago histories which have been and continue to be covered up in more ways than one.
April 23, 2017
These days I don't read much poetry
But when i do I read Kevin Coval
Cause he's dope
But when i do I read Kevin Coval
Cause he's dope
September 26, 2022
Many of the top reviews for this book are from Chicagoans, which makes sense - Coval is a well-known figure in the city's poetry scene, and a book about the city itself is sure to speak to the locals.
I have long admired Chicago from afar via Carl Sandburg's poems, tv shows (Early Edition, anyone?), and studying its architecture and history as part of an urban planning degree. Coval touches on events and people I know (reversing the flow of the Chicago River, Studs Turkel, Harold Washington) and many that are more recent or that I never heard of (a hunger strike for a promised but never built high school, Nelson Algren).
While covering the whole of the city's history the poems are heavily weighted to Coval's lifetime, and a chunk are personal and generic in nature. I cared for these poems least, rathering the rabbit holes pieces on historical figures sent me down.
The poems as poems didn't do much for me. There are 77 here, but only a handful made me feel something. I appreciate them as insights into all corners of Chicago, but sadly few have stuck in my brain.
I have long admired Chicago from afar via Carl Sandburg's poems, tv shows (Early Edition, anyone?), and studying its architecture and history as part of an urban planning degree. Coval touches on events and people I know (reversing the flow of the Chicago River, Studs Turkel, Harold Washington) and many that are more recent or that I never heard of (a hunger strike for a promised but never built high school, Nelson Algren).
While covering the whole of the city's history the poems are heavily weighted to Coval's lifetime, and a chunk are personal and generic in nature. I cared for these poems least, rathering the rabbit holes pieces on historical figures sent me down.
The poems as poems didn't do much for me. There are 77 here, but only a handful made me feel something. I appreciate them as insights into all corners of Chicago, but sadly few have stuck in my brain.
February 25, 2018
I read a novel once written by a white man about a futuristic slave trade. I found the short-sighted critics in the reviews discounting the book simply because a white man couldn't possibly have the proper perspective to construct a black protagonist without the historical and authoritative self-identity. If that were the case, Uncle Tom's Cabin would never have come to fruition, race AND gender notwithstanding. The writing comes from within, not from the skin, and it is ever more apparent in Kevin Coval's People's History of Chicago. Originally from the suburb of Northbrook and founder of Louder Than a Bomb, the world's largest teen poetry slam, Coval derives the title from Howard Zinn's People's History of the United States. The book is 77 rhythm and beat driven poetic verse odes, serenades, dirges and lullabies. One for each of the Chicago neighborhoods. Read aloud, with the best of the poetry, it is an existential experience of viewing Chicago through a literary time machine. Coval starts with DuSable, the first Chicagoan, the first wild onion or garlicky resident so to speak, and moves through iconic tragedies like the Eastland disaster and Emmitt Till's open casket funeral; he repeatedly references people of color embedded into the rich historical culture of the city such as Gwendolyn Brooks and Harold Washington. The three most powerful entries, in my opinion, were/are reflective of current political turmoil. A national crisis with abuse of authority within our police force is eerily evident in his piece on the assassination of Fred Hampton. The false politics that lie behind public service is apparent in the entry on Jane Byrne and Cabrini Green debacle. Finally, with race relations on the precipice of almost every nightly news, the Lenard Clark story is a sad reminder that it isn't unique to 2017/2018. As an addendum, the premier poem of the book is, hands down, The Night the Cubs Win the World Series. And not necessarily for nostalgia's sake. It carries a social element that simply brings perspective and eloquence to the banality of sports. Chance the Rapper approves. He says so in the foreword.
November 15, 2017
A PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF CHICAGO, poems by Kevin Coval, is a history of the city of Chicago as told through the eyes of the perspectives of the marginalized people who usually don’t have their stories told. There are 77 poems for 77 Chicago neighborhoods.
Some things about the collection did bother me. I found the structure of the book somewhat self-indulgent—percentage-wise, the book leans much closer to the present, where many poems shift to 1st plural or singular perspective as told by Coval. While some of the up-close-and-personal poems there are very relevant and contribute well to the soul of Chicago, others—the poem about the house party, for example—are more universal, and so seem out of place. Some of the poems are more clunky than others, reaching a little bit to make their topic work, and there can be small, overly-repetitive references that appear in a couple too many poems.
Overall, however, this is an excellent, well-researched volume of poetry telling the history of Chicago through the untold and less-told stories of its people—specifically its workers, its poor and under-privileged, its non-white inhabitants. It profiles famous Chicagoans like Studs Turkel and Gwendolyn Brooks and Kanye West. It begins with the true founding of Chicago by DuSable and touches everything from Muddy Waters going electric to the Eastland disaster to the burning of disco records at Comiskey Park to when Simone de Beauvoir and Nelson Algren met at the Palmer House. No one leaves the collection unscathed—it tells about the night of Obama’s inauguration through skepticism and shaking heads, and tears the Cubs’ World Series victory to shreds. I learned things I never knew about my adopted city. Coval’s book does a good job in telling a story of perseverance against corruption, telling the stories of those who have been trodden on while keeping the soul and heart of Chicago whole.
Some things about the collection did bother me. I found the structure of the book somewhat self-indulgent—percentage-wise, the book leans much closer to the present, where many poems shift to 1st plural or singular perspective as told by Coval. While some of the up-close-and-personal poems there are very relevant and contribute well to the soul of Chicago, others—the poem about the house party, for example—are more universal, and so seem out of place. Some of the poems are more clunky than others, reaching a little bit to make their topic work, and there can be small, overly-repetitive references that appear in a couple too many poems.
Overall, however, this is an excellent, well-researched volume of poetry telling the history of Chicago through the untold and less-told stories of its people—specifically its workers, its poor and under-privileged, its non-white inhabitants. It profiles famous Chicagoans like Studs Turkel and Gwendolyn Brooks and Kanye West. It begins with the true founding of Chicago by DuSable and touches everything from Muddy Waters going electric to the Eastland disaster to the burning of disco records at Comiskey Park to when Simone de Beauvoir and Nelson Algren met at the Palmer House. No one leaves the collection unscathed—it tells about the night of Obama’s inauguration through skepticism and shaking heads, and tears the Cubs’ World Series victory to shreds. I learned things I never knew about my adopted city. Coval’s book does a good job in telling a story of perseverance against corruption, telling the stories of those who have been trodden on while keeping the soul and heart of Chicago whole.
July 2, 2018
This collection is my town's one book selection and I'm proud of the library for selecting this expansive and critical collection. I booktalked it to all middle schoolers at the end of the year; it's a collection for young people, Coval said this himself. I loved it and could hear Coval throwing it down while I read; I wish I'd made it to a reading. It's a collection I will be proud to have in our school library, as Chicago is infinitely interesting to our young people. The nerd in me wanted to be able to connect poems to the 77 neighborhoods, and I probably could if I didn't have dinner to make and children to tend. I'm proud of myself for reading poetry, something I rarely do. Each poem is smart and so carefully curated. Each has a message about what Chicago is, could be, was, is becoming, need look out for.
Read
February 10, 2022Kevin Coval is one hell of a poet and this is one hell of a book.
June 13, 2018
This is a wonderfully ambitious book, and I couldn’t help feeling as if it had my name on it. It’s an alternative history of Chicago – and I suppose I can call myself an alternative historian of Chicago – yet it’s also a book of poetry, and I write (rarely) and teach (more frequently) poetry.
I realize this takes its name and theme from Howard Zinn’s famous People’s History of the United States, but I see this in many ways as a particular person’s history of the city. Coval is pushing throughout against the idea that Chicago grew because of its industrial leaders. We don’t get Marshall Fields or Col. McCormick – which is great; they’re both overrated in any case. Absent the standard parameters of the city, though, we get Coval’s vision of how to draw a line from the city’s origins to its status today.
And the line he draws is a pretty straight one: it is, throughout, a story of displacement, of the disenfranchised fighting against – and generally losing to – the powerful. We begin with the group of ‘X’-signing Native chiefs who had the land of the city swindled from them (a story, to my embarrassment, I don’t really know). We early on get a poem about Jean Baptiste DuSable, the African-American man acknowledged as the city’s founder, and the way he has no streets named for him while Kinzie, the man who purchased his original homestead, dots the map with his namesake streets and landmarks.
Coval does a good job of noting others who are dispossessed in the city. We get Haymarket, the victims of the Eastland disaster, the residents who aren’t served by the opening of the ‘L.’ Selfishly, I was sorry not to see a reference to the Lazarus Averbuch affair – that’s the one Walter Roth, Aleksandar Hemon, and I have all written about – but Averbuch is there in spirit.
The second half of this becomes increasingly personal, and we see Coval identifying with those dispossessed. One late poem talks about the night the Cubs finally won the World Series, but he speaks of his inability to join in the celebration. He’s too aware of how the performance of North Side joy would be impossible on the West or South Side, and he implies that it mimics the sort of violence that the police and mayor use to justify cracking down on those neighborhoods.
In the final one, “Chicago Has My Heart,” he talks of wanting to love the whole of the city, of wanting to find a way – and I paraphrase – to re-possess (not repossess) all of it. He wants, as he says, for it to belong to the entire “body politic.”
It’s only fairly late in this that Coval begins to identify himself as Jewish, and, for me, that provides a fascinating complementary perspective to the Native- and African-American perspective he works to push into the foreground. Throughout, he celebrates – directly and indirectly through the language of his poems – the role Chicago has played in developing hip-hop culture. By writing as a Jew, Coval both acknowledges himself as on the periphery of the crucible that formed that culture and shows its pliability. Hip-hop and slam poetry may be the language of African-American youth, but it’s also a vocabulary that can be put into the service of a project like this – a project that reframes the history of a city that celebrates itself as a matter of policy.
In that light, one of the most intriguing poems for me is the late, “Atoning for the Neoliberal in All, or rahm Emanuel as the Chicken on Kapparot.” To begin with, even the title reference is obscure. How many non-Jews (for that matter, how many contemporary Jews) know what Kapparot is? (It’s a ceremony of repentance in which a chicken serves as a scapegoat – and yes, I did look that up to be sure I had it right.) More subtly, the insistent repetitions of the final page read with a rhythm reminiscent of the closing prayers of Yom Kippur (at least in the Reform and Conservative siddurim I’ve known). This is, in other words, a kind of Jewish prayer in which our subtly Jewish narrator condemns our overtly Jewish mayor for selling out half the city. The comparisons to Israel as a place that enforces apartheid on its Arab citizens seems to me to lessen some of the effect, but the point is clear: Emanuel’s Jewishness opens him up for even more condemnation from a Jewish writer wanting the city to be all it promised it would be.
And, to take that a step further, I’m struck by the degree to which this book is also a subtle homage to the great Yiddish poets from between the World Wars, poets whom Coval’s grandparents likely knew as well as mine did. (That is, they probably overheard them at Bughouse Square or in various Jewish restaurants.) For all that these poems are hip-hop inflected, they are also engaged with the contemporary world in the way someone like Yaakov Glatstein was. They take for granted (as hip-hop does) that the material of the newspaper is more fit for poetry than are references to Greek mythology or towering historical figures. They enter into conversation like opinionated old men, throwing their opinions and their anger at the world without apology and with – if you listen for it beneath the growls – a fierce and humorous joy.
The proof of a project like this has to be in the quality of the poems, of course. I’m drawn to many, though not all. I especially liked “The L Gets Open,” “The Great Migration,” “Muddy Waters Goes Electric,” “Sun Ra Becomes a Synthesizer,” and “mayor byrne Moves Into & Out of Cabrini Green.”
More impressive to me, though – and perhaps this is a hip-hop device – are the many memorable and tight lines that Coval fires off. Here are a few of my favorites:
“City of long cons [,] fire & fine print.”
“City of scraps & sausage”
“Jane Addams…originated in loot & leisure”
“the city builds heaven for a few, tenements for most.”
“the acoustic guiatr’s an impotent whisper in the throat of the war machines”
“shtetls grew ghettos”
“patronage is a Chicago word for family”
“I witness…until America is haunted by the spirits of those it says never happened”
“this is how Black boys are bar-mitzvahed in Chicago/America, by boot and brick”
So, yeah, I admire what Coval is doing here, and I’m glad he’s in the city to do it. I’ll keep this one on the shelf, and I imagine I’ll pick it up again every now and then when I want to be reminded how much of the city’s history has never quite made it into the city’s history.
I realize this takes its name and theme from Howard Zinn’s famous People’s History of the United States, but I see this in many ways as a particular person’s history of the city. Coval is pushing throughout against the idea that Chicago grew because of its industrial leaders. We don’t get Marshall Fields or Col. McCormick – which is great; they’re both overrated in any case. Absent the standard parameters of the city, though, we get Coval’s vision of how to draw a line from the city’s origins to its status today.
And the line he draws is a pretty straight one: it is, throughout, a story of displacement, of the disenfranchised fighting against – and generally losing to – the powerful. We begin with the group of ‘X’-signing Native chiefs who had the land of the city swindled from them (a story, to my embarrassment, I don’t really know). We early on get a poem about Jean Baptiste DuSable, the African-American man acknowledged as the city’s founder, and the way he has no streets named for him while Kinzie, the man who purchased his original homestead, dots the map with his namesake streets and landmarks.
Coval does a good job of noting others who are dispossessed in the city. We get Haymarket, the victims of the Eastland disaster, the residents who aren’t served by the opening of the ‘L.’ Selfishly, I was sorry not to see a reference to the Lazarus Averbuch affair – that’s the one Walter Roth, Aleksandar Hemon, and I have all written about – but Averbuch is there in spirit.
The second half of this becomes increasingly personal, and we see Coval identifying with those dispossessed. One late poem talks about the night the Cubs finally won the World Series, but he speaks of his inability to join in the celebration. He’s too aware of how the performance of North Side joy would be impossible on the West or South Side, and he implies that it mimics the sort of violence that the police and mayor use to justify cracking down on those neighborhoods.
In the final one, “Chicago Has My Heart,” he talks of wanting to love the whole of the city, of wanting to find a way – and I paraphrase – to re-possess (not repossess) all of it. He wants, as he says, for it to belong to the entire “body politic.”
It’s only fairly late in this that Coval begins to identify himself as Jewish, and, for me, that provides a fascinating complementary perspective to the Native- and African-American perspective he works to push into the foreground. Throughout, he celebrates – directly and indirectly through the language of his poems – the role Chicago has played in developing hip-hop culture. By writing as a Jew, Coval both acknowledges himself as on the periphery of the crucible that formed that culture and shows its pliability. Hip-hop and slam poetry may be the language of African-American youth, but it’s also a vocabulary that can be put into the service of a project like this – a project that reframes the history of a city that celebrates itself as a matter of policy.
In that light, one of the most intriguing poems for me is the late, “Atoning for the Neoliberal in All, or rahm Emanuel as the Chicken on Kapparot.” To begin with, even the title reference is obscure. How many non-Jews (for that matter, how many contemporary Jews) know what Kapparot is? (It’s a ceremony of repentance in which a chicken serves as a scapegoat – and yes, I did look that up to be sure I had it right.) More subtly, the insistent repetitions of the final page read with a rhythm reminiscent of the closing prayers of Yom Kippur (at least in the Reform and Conservative siddurim I’ve known). This is, in other words, a kind of Jewish prayer in which our subtly Jewish narrator condemns our overtly Jewish mayor for selling out half the city. The comparisons to Israel as a place that enforces apartheid on its Arab citizens seems to me to lessen some of the effect, but the point is clear: Emanuel’s Jewishness opens him up for even more condemnation from a Jewish writer wanting the city to be all it promised it would be.
And, to take that a step further, I’m struck by the degree to which this book is also a subtle homage to the great Yiddish poets from between the World Wars, poets whom Coval’s grandparents likely knew as well as mine did. (That is, they probably overheard them at Bughouse Square or in various Jewish restaurants.) For all that these poems are hip-hop inflected, they are also engaged with the contemporary world in the way someone like Yaakov Glatstein was. They take for granted (as hip-hop does) that the material of the newspaper is more fit for poetry than are references to Greek mythology or towering historical figures. They enter into conversation like opinionated old men, throwing their opinions and their anger at the world without apology and with – if you listen for it beneath the growls – a fierce and humorous joy.
The proof of a project like this has to be in the quality of the poems, of course. I’m drawn to many, though not all. I especially liked “The L Gets Open,” “The Great Migration,” “Muddy Waters Goes Electric,” “Sun Ra Becomes a Synthesizer,” and “mayor byrne Moves Into & Out of Cabrini Green.”
More impressive to me, though – and perhaps this is a hip-hop device – are the many memorable and tight lines that Coval fires off. Here are a few of my favorites:
“City of long cons [,] fire & fine print.”
“City of scraps & sausage”
“Jane Addams…originated in loot & leisure”
“the city builds heaven for a few, tenements for most.”
“the acoustic guiatr’s an impotent whisper in the throat of the war machines”
“shtetls grew ghettos”
“patronage is a Chicago word for family”
“I witness…until America is haunted by the spirits of those it says never happened”
“this is how Black boys are bar-mitzvahed in Chicago/America, by boot and brick”
So, yeah, I admire what Coval is doing here, and I’m glad he’s in the city to do it. I’ll keep this one on the shelf, and I imagine I’ll pick it up again every now and then when I want to be reminded how much of the city’s history has never quite made it into the city’s history.
January 17, 2021
Incredible! Hope this becomes required reading in either English or history classes across Chicago
January 17, 2024
I bought this book when I was in Chicago five years ago. For some reason I feel great sentiment toward Chicago, and for an obvious reason - great sentiment toward the book.
Coval has apparently put great effort and passion to create a small but precious collection of history and shared wounds and passions, which serves as a token of appreciation, an acknowledgement of the collective identity in its beauty and grace. And I think the book should be appreciated for that.
I have to say, though, in terms of literary standards, it is a disappointment to me. Firstly, the foreword by Chance the Rapper is a little superficial, full of makeshift wisdom and just big ideas and big claims and big thanks... And not much more.
As for the poetry.. One of my favorite poets, İsmet Özel, once wrote that what distinguishes poetry from prose is not rhyming schemes, rhythm, number of syllables or any other kind of exact measurement - but that it is the impossibility of converting poetry into prose. Why write something that could be perfectly expressed in prose in a "poetic form"? This kind of "poetry" is just prose written in a non-standard graphological form. Now, I know Coval is a breakbeat poet, I know about the movement. I am absolutely pro-experimenting in literature. In fact, one of my favorite authors for all times is Faulkner. In fact, I hate sonnets and haikus because the whole idea is too forced for me - unless you are a true genius like Lord Byron or Oscar Wilde or T. S. Eliot and you can have impeccable rhyming schemes and yet not compromise meaning. But there should be at least some, SOME stylistic devices in a literary piece I think. Where is a good metaphor? A great simile? Symbolism? Anything subtle, really. What exactly is art about this book - apart from its experimental nature (which I actually support)?
I don't mean to spill hate, really. I wouldn't go to great pains writing a review just to hate on someone on here. In fact, I am writing this because I truly care. I think Coval has lots to say and I'm truly glad he is saying it. And I deem Chicago a great good place for what I have seen of it. Oh, beautiful darling city. And I appreciate the book for what it is - I think Coval did it justice for what he meant to do. But I can't appreciate what it is not.
Coval has apparently put great effort and passion to create a small but precious collection of history and shared wounds and passions, which serves as a token of appreciation, an acknowledgement of the collective identity in its beauty and grace. And I think the book should be appreciated for that.
I have to say, though, in terms of literary standards, it is a disappointment to me. Firstly, the foreword by Chance the Rapper is a little superficial, full of makeshift wisdom and just big ideas and big claims and big thanks... And not much more.
As for the poetry.. One of my favorite poets, İsmet Özel, once wrote that what distinguishes poetry from prose is not rhyming schemes, rhythm, number of syllables or any other kind of exact measurement - but that it is the impossibility of converting poetry into prose. Why write something that could be perfectly expressed in prose in a "poetic form"? This kind of "poetry" is just prose written in a non-standard graphological form. Now, I know Coval is a breakbeat poet, I know about the movement. I am absolutely pro-experimenting in literature. In fact, one of my favorite authors for all times is Faulkner. In fact, I hate sonnets and haikus because the whole idea is too forced for me - unless you are a true genius like Lord Byron or Oscar Wilde or T. S. Eliot and you can have impeccable rhyming schemes and yet not compromise meaning. But there should be at least some, SOME stylistic devices in a literary piece I think. Where is a good metaphor? A great simile? Symbolism? Anything subtle, really. What exactly is art about this book - apart from its experimental nature (which I actually support)?
I don't mean to spill hate, really. I wouldn't go to great pains writing a review just to hate on someone on here. In fact, I am writing this because I truly care. I think Coval has lots to say and I'm truly glad he is saying it. And I deem Chicago a great good place for what I have seen of it. Oh, beautiful darling city. And I appreciate the book for what it is - I think Coval did it justice for what he meant to do. But I can't appreciate what it is not.
June 23, 2018
I have read several books on Chicago history and yet I learned more from this thin volume of poetry than all those tomes. The poems are portraits of historical
figures (usually those neglected by history) or vignettes of important events. Highly recommend this book.
figures (usually those neglected by history) or vignettes of important events. Highly recommend this book.
February 23, 2023
more like 4.5-8 stars
good: i absolutely LOVE the idea of a chronological poetry anthology as an historical account, and Coval executes it incredibly well. so many wild moments in history are from Chicago and when i knew of the subject of a poem (an historical event or person), the poem hit so deeply and creatively. a lot of his words evoked whole scenes in my mind even when he didn’t spell them out in whole descriptions. i don’t gravitate towards poetry much and i thoroughly enjoyed this. i also have a huge (and inexplicable) soft spot for Chicago so this was a joy. also love the urban-centric content of it hehehe
the awkward: i feel like a hater to say it but there were times Coval’s slang was just too cringey as a white author, or certain ways he would describe racial stuff came off a little weird. thru research & the book, it’s definitely clear he’s the real deal and has lived what he’s describing is and in these neighborhoods, but to me as an outsider it was still awk at times. doesn’t ruin the book tho!!!!
ultimately the good far outweighed the bad and i highly recommend this book and hope to revisit it over time myself!
good: i absolutely LOVE the idea of a chronological poetry anthology as an historical account, and Coval executes it incredibly well. so many wild moments in history are from Chicago and when i knew of the subject of a poem (an historical event or person), the poem hit so deeply and creatively. a lot of his words evoked whole scenes in my mind even when he didn’t spell them out in whole descriptions. i don’t gravitate towards poetry much and i thoroughly enjoyed this. i also have a huge (and inexplicable) soft spot for Chicago so this was a joy. also love the urban-centric content of it hehehe
the awkward: i feel like a hater to say it but there were times Coval’s slang was just too cringey as a white author, or certain ways he would describe racial stuff came off a little weird. thru research & the book, it’s definitely clear he’s the real deal and has lived what he’s describing is and in these neighborhoods, but to me as an outsider it was still awk at times. doesn’t ruin the book tho!!!!
ultimately the good far outweighed the bad and i highly recommend this book and hope to revisit it over time myself!
January 2, 2018
Art has the power to change lives- to enlighten, to empower, to empathize. This book of poetry does it all. Kevin Coval intelligently weaves history into poetry in a way that will leave your mouth hanging open. Chicago has always been the windy city to me, home of cloud gate, and Sears tower (it will always be Sears tower), a place I’ve vacationed year after year. Chicago marked the existence of my family members, but I idealized what existing there was like. Coval begins the Shikaakwa, who lived in Chicago long before it was Chicago, and ends with an ode to the city- despite all its flaws. “I witness until the world does / until ghost stories are documented/ & irrefutable, until America is haunted / by the spirits of those it says never happened.” (78) Coval will educate, and activate.
October 16, 2017
Kevin Coval's collection of poetry is the one book that will give you a complete picture of Chicago, not just a partial perspective, but an insightful and rounded overview.
This book follows the city's history as Coval writes a poem for every major event and issue met, adding up to the number of neighborhoods in Chicago (btw 77).
He never gets stuffy or boring, using simple language to create beautiful imagery. He is incredible hip, and occasionally hilarious in his poems too (I met him twice in person and he cracks me up). I'd never read such urban and slang poetry which still contained such important messages.
This book follows the city's history as Coval writes a poem for every major event and issue met, adding up to the number of neighborhoods in Chicago (btw 77).
He never gets stuffy or boring, using simple language to create beautiful imagery. He is incredible hip, and occasionally hilarious in his poems too (I met him twice in person and he cracks me up). I'd never read such urban and slang poetry which still contained such important messages.
December 31, 2017
I really enjoyed this compilation of Chicago's history told through poetry. Coval takes some major milestones in Chicago's history and tells the tales from a different perspective. I will probably try to incorporate some of his work into my Chicago Literature class. If you're a fan of Chicago history, you're sure to enjoy this. If you aren't as familiar, I'm guessing much of it will go over your head.
June 14, 2018
The People’s History of Chicago gets its vibe from Howard Zinn’s People’s History of the United States, that is a determination to focus on the people who actually make life happen: the working class, people of color, the radical, the labor organizer. It looks at Chicago from the bottom up, so to speak. It’s easy to understand how many people are challenged by this focus since they are used to seeing themselves depicted as the “stars” of most art forms.
Challenging and an interesting work.
Challenging and an interesting work.
March 5, 2020
A beautiful look at a beautiful city, with some not so beautiful history. But it covers so many things and people and emotions. It's hard to sum up other than you should definitely read it. A 360 view of life here
July 20, 2019
It is great to read a poetic and critical history of Chicago. The poems are cutting and entertaining.
May 20, 2021
An innovative and engaging poetry collection about Chicago as seen through ordinary BIPOC eyes.
December 12, 2018
No punches are pulled in this passionate and biting history of Chicago written by the director of Louder Than A Bomb and Young Chicago Authors. The book of poetry is a creative way to share a satisfyingly raw perspective on the City.
March 25, 2019
Such a powerful and radical history text, found myself wanting to learn more after each piece. Some of my favorites were “The Supreme Court Makes Color Illegal”, “A Moratorium on the Death Penalty”, “Albert Parsons Can Hang” and “Republic Windows Workers Sit In.”
December 20, 2020
i really enjoyed this. some of the poems definitely stuck with me more than others, but i am mostly just impressed by the passion that is so evident in the writing.
August 3, 2024
I have fEeLiNgS about Chicago, but it’s hard to deny that’s where I grew up and I know so little about it. I know the broad strokes, but surprisingly, this gut punch of a book taught me some of the details. There are a couple poems in here that ended weak for my taste, but overall it’s a good read. If you really want to know Chicago, this could be a good start.
March 6, 2019
I am no aficionado of poetry but I enjoyed this book immensely. It was great to read about historical events I only had heard alluded too while living in Chicago, as well as get Kevin’s perspective on events that happened while I was there.
April 16, 2017
Kevin Coval has created a true, unvarnished history of Chicago with this collection. It's a chronological history and the poems are fierce. Coval clearly did his research and the perceived heroes of Chicago history are taken to task with no mercy. Northside Cubs fans (and the elitist Cubs culture, in general), the Daleys, Obama, and on and on...no one gets a free pass. The great thing about this collection is it's honesty, but also the historical value of the work itself. There was obviously a lot of preparation and research put into this. I think it takes a real talent to not allow a project like this to become tedious. Coval's poetry is fresh, even when tackling subjects 100+ years old. In a perfect world, this would be required reading for all high school students in Chicago because this is probably one of the only places they're going to find the truth about their city in (bonus!) verse form.
August 9, 2017
Interesting, challenging, brilliant book of poems about Chicago (one poem of each of the 77 neighborhoods). Coval focuses marginalized people and stories, in the spirit of Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States." Great rhythm, perspective, and history lesson.
January 30, 2019
This collection of poetry would be an excellent addition to a history or literature class. It enlightened me to many current and historical events I had only a passing awareness of occurring. It also provided different points of view making me realize how entrenched our own world view can be.
February 3, 2018
I want everyone to read this book.
There is a poem for almost everyone.
There is a poem for almost everyone.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 127 reviews