On "On W. Touhy, Chicago, IL." (by me)

"On W. Touhy, Chicago, IL" is a beautifully written prose poem structured in three parts. Each takes as its subtitle a number which, presumably, refers to an address on W. Touhy. The poem explores the relationship of the narrator to his Jewishness. In vivid descriptive language, the poem starts with the speaker on W. Touhy on a slushy day: "the hem of my coat was stained the same gray color as the cuffs of my pants and the winter sky." The narrator observes that "the little boys were out for recess at the yeshiva across the street" playing ball. At this address in the poem, # 2620, the narrator sees the "little hands pushing through the bars" of the playground fence reaching for a lost ball, "their soft payos curling at their temples." An instant later, the speaker is imagining "the faces of six million of my people behind another even higher fence." Turning away from that vision, the narrator walks on and enters #2625 Touhy, to visit one "of my own flesh and blood," whom the poet describes in vivid terms as very ill or dying. From there, the narrator also departs to visit #2919, a bakery where he sees "dark weighty ryes and golden challah, braided and glazed in bright egg." This part of the poem describes rather gorgeously the appeal of the bakery (in stark contrast to the horror of the sick room in the previous section). Here the speaker is connecting with a culture that seems sustaining, even beautiful. The traveler eats, but leaves this place too. In going out into the "salt and dirt and filth of winter while shrewd little birds picked at the heavy crumbs that I left behind as I left it all behind me," the narrator echoes Hansel and Gretel, who leave a trail of bread crumbs to help them find their way home. Like those children, it's likely that the narrator in this poem will return to W. Touhy and to his people in spite of an equally strong urge to turn away. I was moved by this poem and impressed by the poet's formal imagination. I admire the poet's invention: how he structures the poem as a brief journey from one address to another on a particular street--one which reminds the speaker of his complicated relationship to a history and culture.
-Allison Funk