A man approaches the podium—close-cropped, dusty brown hair; glasses; yellow tie emanating from the folds of his gray suit coat, a Fauvist fabric parallel to the intermittent sunshine peering between ominous storm clouds in the windowpanes behind him. He is here to introduce the man of the hour, the man of the afternoon, the keynote speaker of the 2008 Chicago Poetry Symposium. The room is small—the Special Collections Research Center of the University of Chicago’s Regenstein Library—but nearly full, as individuals eventually make their way away from the refreshments and back to their black fold-up seats. Young, old, male, female; business suits alternating with sweatshirts and jeans. The diverse crowd is bonded through its subtle anticipation.
“A few years ago I started asking around about poetry in Chicago, and two words kept popping up—Michael Anania,” the introducer intones. He effuses about the poet’s “particular attention to the places we inhabit…not just the physical environment, but the atmosphere of it, the uniqueness of it.” He reads off the long list of credentials: published poetry collections, professorships, editorial positions, the list goes on. Finally he invites Anania to take the proverbial stage.
Anania is a big man with a formidable build, his hair swept to the side in dark gray waves, enlivened by the whiter strands interspersed at occasional intervals. And when he speaks, his sonorous voice enlivens the crowd, his personal anecdotes conjuring repeated bouts of laughter, unrestrained throughout the audience. He is more than just an esteemed colleague; he’s a friend, and his stature represents the growth and strength of the Chicago poetry scene. His tales exemplify this—he name-drops luminaries like Nelson Algren and Gwendolyn Brooks alongside their lesser-known contemporaries, and recalls South Side poetry workshops and running the Swallow publishing press. His stories are humorous and heartening; they are not so much historical lectures as recollections among friends. He reads poems evoking the city’s jazz traditions. One mentions the parakeets in Hyde Park.
It can be easy to overlook the advantages of the city you live in, but this was hardly a problem for the program’s participants. As Anania puts it: “There’s a roughness about the city, but also an acceptance”—an acceptance that’s allowed Chicago’s poet community to grow, and, if the Symposium is any evidence, will help it continue to thrive well into the future.
