Chicago is built on a foundation of meat and railroads and steel, but its identity long ago stretched past manufacturing. A city of opportunity from the get-go, it continues to lure new residents from around the world, and from across a region rocked by recession and deindustrialization. But the problems that plague the Belt don’t disappear once you get past Gary. In fact, they’re often amplified. Chicago’s glittering downtown towers stand in sharp contrast to the struggling south and west sides. A city defined by movement that’s the anchor of the Midwest, bound to its neighbors by a shared ecosystem and economy, Chicago’s complicated – both of the Belt and beyond it. Which makes it a perfect subject for a book.
Publishing August 10, 2017, Rust Belt Chicago: An Anthology, the ninth book in our series of city anthologies shines a light on the common ground Chicago shares with the Rust Belt through essays, memoir, journalism, fiction, and poetry. Includes work by Chloe Taft, Sonya Huber, Britt Julious, Kari Lydersen, Kevin Coval, Mark Guarino, and many more. See the full Table of Contents below
Edited by Martha Bayne, Senior Editor, Belt Publishing
For publicity and other questions, please send an email to [email protected].
ISBN 978-0-9977743-7-5
Table of Contents
Introduction: Beyond the Belt
Martha Bayne
City of Movement
Chicagoland
Sonya Huber
Poetry: LaSalle Wrote it Down Wrong, 1687
Kevin Coval
Poetry: A Skillet of Suns and Oceans
Iris Orpi
Notes on Summer (Or, Black Girlhood is a Thing)
Britt Julious
How to Buy Bread on Devon
Kelly McNees
Elsewhere in a Flash
Kelly Hogan
Rust Never Creeps: Notes from the Detroit Diaspora
Rob Miller
The Last City I Loved
Zoe Zolbrod
Fiction: The Book of Poems by the Lost Birds of Union Station
Andrew Hertzberg
The Built City
It Is Not Waste All This, Not Placed Here in Disgust, Street After Street
Kathleen Rooney
Poetry: Locative
Andrew Cantrell
Where 0 is State Street
Claire Tighe
Poetry: Database
Rachel Arndt
Poetry: Chicago by Water
Carol Gloor
Beyond the Michigan Sea
Garin Cycholl
Spectral Shorelines
Chloe Taft
Cycling
Scott Wilson
Poetry: Mornings With Sarah Jindra
Eileen Favorite
Poetry: U.S. 41
Sandra Marchetti
The Divided City
North Sider, South Sider, Bi-Sider
Bill Savage
1964 Red Buick
Elaine Hegwood Bowen
Poetry: seven years
Quraysh Ali Lansana
Fun Town
Jake Austen
Poem: Rogers Park Botanica
David Mathews
All Sales Final
Sharon Bloyd-Peshkin
The Pantry
Michael Van Kerckhove
Fiction: Ballast
Christine Maul Rice
Sports Break
Hard Hat, Lunch Pail
David Isaacson
Poetry: Disco Demolition, July 12, 1979
Kevin Coval
The Carnival
Paul Dailing
Sixth City
Paul Durica
The Conflicted City
Victory Auto Wreckers, Moo & Oink, and the Free Wilson Basketball
Robert Dean
The Sediment of Fear
Toni Nealie
Poetry: Four Poems
Raymond Berry
Poetry: Ida B. Wells Testifies in the Ghost of the Ida B. Wells Homes
Kevin Coval
Cotton Cobwebs
Logan Breitbart
How to Win Reparations
Sarah Macaraeg and Yana Kunicoff
Fiction: Sorry Shit Sucks
Wyl Villacres
The Living City
For Girls Who Straddle Seasons
Ola Faleti
The Urban Rural
Linda Garcia-Merchant
Poetry: Thorndale in February
Jacqui Zeng
The View From Wolf Lake
Ava Tomasula y Garcia
Prairie Water, Lake Sky
Gretchen Lida
Chicago Water Taxi: Romancing the River
Dina Elenbogen
Poetry: Late Storm on Lake Michigan
Laura Passin
City of Migrants
Illiana
Gretchen Kalwinski
Not From Around Here
Gina Watters
Beneath the Willow Tree: The Early Death and Immortal Life of Linda Parker
Mark Guarino
Last Call: El Trebol and the Cantinas of Pilsen
Kari Lydersen
Chicago Notebook
Ryan Schnurr
Poetry: The City Hasn’t Killed Everything
Sharon Dornberg-Lee
Chiasmus: A Narrative of Ascent
Rayshauna Gray
Wherever
Naomi Huffman
Coda: Reasons Why I Do Not Wish to Leave Chicago: An Incomplete, Random List
Aleksandar Hemon
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