CHICAGO — Some days the hardest thing in the world is explaining Chicago to someone not from Chicago. Other days, particularly when you already live here, the hardest thing is seeing the city clearly, as vast and varied, as larger than your block, your neighborhood or your ward. Hence, the violent reputation, the provincialism, the old mash of cliches: “I’ll have a Deep-Dish Windy Capone with a Sweet Home chaser,” as journalist (and South Shore native) Carlo Rotella jokes in the introduction to an invaluable new collection, “Wherever I’m At — An Anthology of Chicago Poetry.” A collaboration of the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame, the venerable South Side staple Third World Press and the Elmwood Park-based After Hours Press, it’s a portrait of the city as seen by contemporary poets and artists.
Assembled with just two rules: Each poem must be from a living poet, and about Chicago. (Not merely written by someone from Chicago, or written while in Chicago.)
The result — edited by Hall of Fame founder Donald Evans, with illustrations by Kerry James Marshall, Amanda Williams, Tonika Lewis Johnson and 24 other Chicago artists — is an unusually engaging snapshot of a place too often understood with lazy shortcuts. Or rather, it’s 134 snapshots, by 134 poets, from unknowns to world-famous vanguards.
