{"id":579,"date":"2004-03-09T09:36:53","date_gmt":"2004-03-09T17:36:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp\/2004\/03\/calling_all_publishers\/"},"modified":"2013-02-11T16:05:55","modified_gmt":"2013-02-11T21:05:55","slug":"calling_all_publishers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/2004\/03\/calling_all_publishers.html","title":{"rendered":"CALLING ALL PUBLISHERS"},"content":{"rendered":"

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[Angel Island, 1961]<\/p><\/div>

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[Photos: Steve Deutch]<\/p><\/div> One of the great American novelists of the 20th century, Nelson Algren is always associated with Chicago, where he grew up and gained fame as its most ardent chronicler — Carl Sandburg, Saul Bellow, Richard Wright, and James T. Farrell notwithstanding. Algren’s notorious love-hate relationship with Chicago went beyond the city’s limits with A Walk on the Wild Side<\/em><\/a> and The Devil’s Stocking,<\/em><\/a> but filled his best-known novel The Man With the Golden Arm<\/em><\/a> and his least-known Never Come Morning,<\/em><\/a> and his long-limbed poetry.<\/p>\n

Below are a few excerpts from a 28-page poem, entitled “Ode to Kissassville,” which to my knowledge has never been properly published. Filled as it is with sardonic humor, lyrical grace, and an outrage that is more timely than ever, “Ode to Kissassville” would make a wonderful chapbook. It was written more than 40 years ago and centers on Chicago but surely applies to the current state of our Banana Republic.<\/p>\n

The poem once appeared as an epilogue in 100 copies of a 1961 reprint edition of his prose poem Chicago: City on the Make<\/em><\/a>. The edition now in print from the University of Chicago Press, with an introduction from his old friend Studs Terkel, does not include the epilogue.
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“Ode to Kissassville” begins:<\/em><\/p>\n

Hog-Butcher, Stacker-of-Wheat, Freight-Handler, Piano-Mover,
\nTall bold slugger set vivid among the little soft cities and
\nAll-Around-Rotating-Fink-To-The-Nation
\nWhere else (Contentedly at rest before the evening telly)
\nCould I watch PROFILE OF A SECRET WAR:
\nTASK FORCE TUFF KEEPING CHICAGO STRONG AND AMERICA MIGHTY
\n(WGN-TV assisting the forces of law and order
\nBy entrapping two derelicts into a feeble attempt at mugging)
\nWhat other city could show me eight armed cops
\nBeating the living bejesus out of two defenseless winos
\nIn Living Color?<\/p>\n

Show me another city so proud to be alive
\nThat it can fit two citizen-dress men into false bra’s
\nAnd tight gowns
\nThen send them down Skid Row bravely swinging handbags
\nAnd hips rolling.
\nWhat New York’s police would like to do, Chicago’s really can
\nIn that contented evening hour when we learn to Trap Our Man.<\/p>\n

It has stanzas such as this:<\/em><\/p>\n

The perch — the alderman reminds us well —
\nHave disappeared.
\nThe underwater population now consists
\nOf bloodworms, sludgeworms
\nAnd fingernail clams.
\nYet once, where Marina Towers’ twin-atrocities now stand
\nThe Pottawattomies hunted down both banks
\nAnd the river flowed cleaner and more deeply then.<\/p>\n

And this:<\/EM><\/p>\n

Under the terrible burden of destiny
\nLaughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs
\nWho has never lost a battle
\nBragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse
\nAnd under his ribs the heart of the people —
\nHurray for our side.
\nIf my City of the Big Shoulders
\nStormy, husky, bawling
\nYipping, yapping, yessing, crawling
\nWould only stop giggling like a farm-boy wearing earrings
\nOn North Wells Street for the first time
\nMaybe we could find out what kind of joint we’re living in.<\/p>\n

And this:<\/EM><\/p>\n

Again that hour when taxies are deadheading home
\nBefore the trolley-buses start to run
\nAnd snowdreams in a lace of mist drift down
\nAnd paving-flares make shadows on old walls
\nWhen from asylum, barrack, cell and cheap hotel
\nAll those whose lives were lived by someone else
\nWho never had a choice but went on what was left
\nReturn along long walks where thrusts of wintry grass
\nBy force of love have split the measured stone.<\/p>\n

If by chance a publisher reads this and is prompted, inspired or brave and crazy enough to bring out a “Kissassville” chapbook, please let me know.<\/EM><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the great American novelists of the 20th century, Nelson Algren is always associated with Chicago, where he grew up and gained fame as its most ardent chronicler — Carl Sandburg, Saul Bellow, Richard Wright, and James T. Farrell notwithstanding. Algren’s notorious love-hate relationship with Chicago went beyond the city’s limits with A Walk […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-579","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry","8":"has-post-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbvgEs-9l","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}