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The Milwaukee Anthology
The Milwaukee Anthology is a book on hope and hurt in one of America's toughest ZIP codes. In these pages are the stories of a Grecian basketball superstar in the making against an unlikely backdrop; of Sikh temple services that carry on after one of America's most notorious mass shootings; of an astronaut's wish for kids in the same school halls where he formed a dream of space. You won't find Summerfest or Laverne and Shirley herein, but you will find Riverwest, Sherman Park, and the South Side; Hmong New Year's shows, 7 Mile Fair, and the Rolling Mill commemoration. Edited by Justin Kern, with personal essays, narratives, poems, Q&As, and art from more than 50 contributors including Dasha Kelly, Pardeep Kaleka, and Michael Perry, it's a book about a place on the lake that can make you say "yes" and wonder "why" in the same thought.
228 pages, Paperback
Published April 9, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
May 30, 2019
Five dozen uneven poems, essays, drawings and line art.
I enjoyed learning that Tarzan, aka Johnny Weissmueller, swam in the Milwaukee River a hundred years ago trying but failing to break the backstroke record. Cheryl Nenn traces the history of swimming in the river from its filthy days as a sewage flush to today’s celebration of our namesake river, restored although she demands more improvements in the water quality and infrastructure.
The Chudnow Museum of Yesteryear opened seven years ago. The essay by Rachel Seis will inspire me, at long last, to go see the collection of found and foraged artifacts from the twenties, thirties and forties assembled by Abe Chudnow.
Henry Schwartz hopes for more hops in Milwaukee, championing more neighborhood breweries.
Matt Wild gives us an amusing essay about Opening Day. The Miller Park parking lot covers three million square feet for twelve thousand vehicles. Wild writes that traversing the lot on Opening Day takes him on a bewildering trip through tribes, colonies and customs on the way to the ballgame.
Brent Gohde recounts the origins of Milwaukee Day, a holiday on April 14 begun from scratch based on civic pride and our area code.
That’s a sample of what I liked best here.
But a playwright contributed a dense and overwritten meander where a three-page play would work better for him.
Three and a half stars.
I enjoyed learning that Tarzan, aka Johnny Weissmueller, swam in the Milwaukee River a hundred years ago trying but failing to break the backstroke record. Cheryl Nenn traces the history of swimming in the river from its filthy days as a sewage flush to today’s celebration of our namesake river, restored although she demands more improvements in the water quality and infrastructure.
The Chudnow Museum of Yesteryear opened seven years ago. The essay by Rachel Seis will inspire me, at long last, to go see the collection of found and foraged artifacts from the twenties, thirties and forties assembled by Abe Chudnow.
Henry Schwartz hopes for more hops in Milwaukee, championing more neighborhood breweries.
Matt Wild gives us an amusing essay about Opening Day. The Miller Park parking lot covers three million square feet for twelve thousand vehicles. Wild writes that traversing the lot on Opening Day takes him on a bewildering trip through tribes, colonies and customs on the way to the ballgame.
Brent Gohde recounts the origins of Milwaukee Day, a holiday on April 14 begun from scratch based on civic pride and our area code.
That’s a sample of what I liked best here.
But a playwright contributed a dense and overwritten meander where a three-page play would work better for him.
Three and a half stars.
May 26, 2019
A motley and middling collection of short essays about Milwaukee written by a combination of local scene folks and other contributors. In a no doubt well-intentioned attempt to represent diverse perspectives, the editor chose breadth and sacrificed depth, with the resulting content reading like a tick-box list of Milwaukee clichés. And sometimes just generic urban ones.
For example: opening day tailgating at local ballpark (X), serviceable childhood in an immigrant neighborhood (X), tenuously successful grassroots mentoring program overwhelmed by culture of poverty/ghetto (X), disappearing social realm (taverns) of white working class (X), local hoarder creates folksy museum (X), local student returns from elite university and demonstrates commitment by buying house in the hood (X), profile of near-comically eccentric bohemian (X). But wait, there's more!
Especially predictable and unfortunately tedious were the "I'm a white mom in a mixed neighborhood and my kids heard gunshots but I'm staying because community or something" piece (X) and the preachy look at criminal justice reform by way of a model prisoner who didn't get paroled as quickly as some people thought he deserved (X). Oh, and of course there was one about painting a mural after the riots (X) because there's always a mural and something about the healing power of art, isn't there? I had read all of these types of things before, elsewhere, often about places that were not Milwaukee.
It's not that none of these topics merit essays; it's that these essays tended toward the trite, the typical, the platitude-peddling, the not-especially-insightful. Some were just too short to be nuanced, ending as abruptly as a college student's term paper when it hits the requisite word count.
There were other questionable, head-scratchy pieces, like an intentionally overbaked look at four local restaurants. And "Notes from the Seasons," my reaction to which was shaking my head and setting the book aside for a day because...why was that even included?
Thankfully, not everything in this collection was lackluster. Take, for instance, the unsparing critique of MSOE's Grohmann Museum, which (though a little clumsy in execution) served up a worthy indictment. The Sikh temple shooting piece had enough space and subtlety to marry high drama and a snapshot of a subculture. And the reflection on coming of age in a Polish Catholic enclave was, while fully expected in a collection on Milwaukee, able to shadow in more than just the halcyon. Finally, the Michael Perry cameo/coda was a welcome way to end a book that is, as uncanny as it seems, indeed, about Wisconsin too.
Now, I do admire the effort involved in assembling a collection like this (I can't even fathom the politics of local anthology editing), and I respect the work of Belt Publishing, a press dedicated to nonfiction on the Rust Belt / Midwest. As a transplant who is--most of the time!--content to live here, maybe I set my expectations too high. Or maybe I was seduced by a superb cover for which the content is only partly worthy.
For example: opening day tailgating at local ballpark (X), serviceable childhood in an immigrant neighborhood (X), tenuously successful grassroots mentoring program overwhelmed by culture of poverty/ghetto (X), disappearing social realm (taverns) of white working class (X), local hoarder creates folksy museum (X), local student returns from elite university and demonstrates commitment by buying house in the hood (X), profile of near-comically eccentric bohemian (X). But wait, there's more!
Especially predictable and unfortunately tedious were the "I'm a white mom in a mixed neighborhood and my kids heard gunshots but I'm staying because community or something" piece (X) and the preachy look at criminal justice reform by way of a model prisoner who didn't get paroled as quickly as some people thought he deserved (X). Oh, and of course there was one about painting a mural after the riots (X) because there's always a mural and something about the healing power of art, isn't there? I had read all of these types of things before, elsewhere, often about places that were not Milwaukee.
It's not that none of these topics merit essays; it's that these essays tended toward the trite, the typical, the platitude-peddling, the not-especially-insightful. Some were just too short to be nuanced, ending as abruptly as a college student's term paper when it hits the requisite word count.
There were other questionable, head-scratchy pieces, like an intentionally overbaked look at four local restaurants. And "Notes from the Seasons," my reaction to which was shaking my head and setting the book aside for a day because...why was that even included?
Thankfully, not everything in this collection was lackluster. Take, for instance, the unsparing critique of MSOE's Grohmann Museum, which (though a little clumsy in execution) served up a worthy indictment. The Sikh temple shooting piece had enough space and subtlety to marry high drama and a snapshot of a subculture. And the reflection on coming of age in a Polish Catholic enclave was, while fully expected in a collection on Milwaukee, able to shadow in more than just the halcyon. Finally, the Michael Perry cameo/coda was a welcome way to end a book that is, as uncanny as it seems, indeed, about Wisconsin too.
Now, I do admire the effort involved in assembling a collection like this (I can't even fathom the politics of local anthology editing), and I respect the work of Belt Publishing, a press dedicated to nonfiction on the Rust Belt / Midwest. As a transplant who is--most of the time!--content to live here, maybe I set my expectations too high. Or maybe I was seduced by a superb cover for which the content is only partly worthy.
February 9, 2020
Just ok. Some wonderful pieces, but too many very short and not terribly substantive autobiographical pieces. I appreciate the spirit of sharing many different local perspectives but many of these pieces had little to say about Milwaukee in particular (as opposed to any other Midwestern city). I didn't get nearly as strong a sense of place from this volume as from the Chicago anthology, which is a shame.
December 19, 2021
53206 is the most incarcerated ZIPCODE in the nation according to a UW-Milw study. Two chapters-We Got This and The Rippling Effect of Baron Walker bring seeds of hope in the former and a spotlight and empathy in the latter, regarding two individuals' lives from that zipcode.
From Athens, with Hops: Giannis Takes Milwaukee is a chapter that touches our heart strings with tales of how the MVP of the NBA handled challenges in his first days, and years, here in Milw.
There is also heartbreak in the first person narrative of memories of the mass shooting at the Sikh temple in Oak Creek.
Even if you grew up or live elsewhere now, this is a book for most WI citizens to embrace. There's prose, poetry and inked art inside the cover.
From Athens, with Hops: Giannis Takes Milwaukee is a chapter that touches our heart strings with tales of how the MVP of the NBA handled challenges in his first days, and years, here in Milw.
There is also heartbreak in the first person narrative of memories of the mass shooting at the Sikh temple in Oak Creek.
Even if you grew up or live elsewhere now, this is a book for most WI citizens to embrace. There's prose, poetry and inked art inside the cover.
March 16, 2020
Challenge: Grinchathon July Edition 2019 (belated) - Community (9). A wonderful memoir/history anthology by various Milwaukee residents who have built community and continue to do so in this just-right, Goldilocks-sized city that is paradoxically the most segregated in the United States. I grew up in Milwaukee, formed by many of the experiences accounted in this collection. I wish I had the health and wealth to go back and participate in and contribute to the life of Milwaukee, and see how it has changed and yet remained the same.
December 28, 2020
This is a collection of poems, essays, and art about Milwaukee. I found most of it enjoyable, and it definitely had a strong sense of place. I even learned a few things.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews