Poets in Chicago

since I have returned home to Chicago I have to say that the one thing that I like the most is the fact that Chicago poets are not filled with the kind of New York elitism or faux San Francisco Bohemianism that is frustrating at times. I like the fact that Chicago is a no nonsense town. I lived in New Jersey for two years and I have to say that the poetry in the great wasteland between Philly and New York was constantly over shadowed by the two great cities. The fact is that Chicago is an island and that is a positive.

We have been invaded of late by poets from other places, with other sensibilities but some have brought some interesting edges here that I think are positive, some of the Hyde Park poets such as Matthias Regan, Eric Elshtain, and William Allegrezza bring a more open and more well formed poetic that offers allot. Arielle Greenberg, while I do like to have a little good natured fun with her and she must have an extra set of glands to read in as many venues as she does and have the energy to get up in the morning, No poet I know brings a marketing saavy to her work like her; this is unique, perhaps only poets like Kerouac and Ginsberg have done the kind of image making she has in the past.

I am biased since the are friends but are there any better magazines then Antennai edited by Jesse Seldess or Cunundrum edited by Kerri Sonnenberg? I think that something is happening next to our Inland Sea that may challenge the hegemony of the coasts, but then again once we get big we may all leave for New York or San Francisco.