The essays in The Rockford Anthology create a rich and poignant telling of the city.
Rockford, Illinois, and I have ghosted each other for decades, but we refuse to quit each other completely. I grew up there but left after high school, returning occasionally to visit my family, who continued to reside among the strip malls, manufacturing plants, and my former teenage angst. Throughout, my mother continued to insist the city was better than ever, but I rejected her claims. Years passed, and my dad died. More years passed. My mom died too. Now, Rockford is still the place I left behind, and while I'm still hesitant to believe it's better than ever, it's where I return when I want to remember the early life that shaped me.
To visit, my children and I drive west and a little north from our home in Chicago. We inch past the suburbs, out to where the traffic thins, and we catch views of open space and an occasional farm. Eventually, we ease onto the ramp that takes us to East Riverside Boulevard, past the hospital where my mom died, the one we've since tagged "The Scene of the Crime." We head toward my sister's home, where she is raising her family in the house where we grew up, near the gum factory. The kids ask about the landscape: where I hung out with friends. What I did with my time. For years, I've asked myself similar questions. What did I do in Rockford? What did Rockford do to me?
The Rockford Anthology edited by Rachel León
Belt Publishing, paperback, 304 pp., $20, beltpublishing.com/products/the-rockford-anthology
In The Rockford Anthology, the latest in Belt Publishing's City Anthology series, editor Rachel León has compiled photographs, essays, and poems that offer a vantage point from which a reader can begin to understand how a place, and more specifically an often overlooked midwestern city, can shape, heal, break, and provide for its residents in surprising and lasting ways. [Disclaimer: The editor and I are both on staff at the online literary journal Arcturus but we do not work together directly.] As I read, I kept returning to Jane Jacobs's idea that "cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody." The pieces within the anthology create a rich and poignant telling of a city that, for many, resembles the city of Jacobs's writings. In fact, León suggests in the book's introduction that Rockford's "greatest strength is [its] people."
How do people in Rockford spend their time? Contributor Purpose Simba, a loctician, left Chicago for Rockford in 2017, hoping to find greater stability and a home where she could get ahead. In her essay, she reflects on how life has improved since arriving in Rockford. It "slowed me all the way down," she writes. "But I like it. I like peace." By contrast, Richard Cascio grew up in the area but never quite felt at ease. In "You Go East, I'll Go West," he offers honest reflections on how it felt to be a young person there, "sitting on lawn chairs. Drinking beers. Watching the nothing happen . . . ." This resembles the Rockford I experienced. Cascio also notes with generous understanding that Rockford "is still a young city . . . ."
Bing Liu plots a course across many childhood homes where he suffered deeply. While his experience is difficult to read about, the essay maintains a clarity that, when combined with distance and time, reveals a mother's earnest intentions. When reading Liu's essay, and so many of the other pieces, one is struck by the way a city can meet a person where they are, carrying them to their next thing. This might be skateboarding, a perfect playground for teenage truancy, the public library, a waterfront festival, or a place to heal from injury. Rockford is all of this and more.
Sometimes when I talk about Rockford, it's hard to describe it accurately. I do, however, remember how it felt to be there, especially as a young adult, on the cusp of leaving. The feeling returns when I come upon Scott Hartman's photographs of the Jefferson Street Bridge and Uncle Nick's restaurant. Illuminated and striking, each image transports me into someone's parents' car, cruising the streets with my friends, wanting the bridge's lights to suspend the moment forever.
The story of Rockford is long. It will, of course, change and be changed by the people who live and work and create there. But I sense Rockford will always pulse with an authenticity and groundedness that is specific to itself. I suspect this is why it's so deeply woven into those who know it, and why the collection feels like a portal into a club that will give everyone a shot.
Anthology Week events in Rockford
Tue Oct. 21, 5:30-7:30 PM Launch party
27 Aluna, 124 N. Main
Wed 10/22, 5-6 PM Reading with contributors
Estelle M. Black Library, Rock Valley College, 3301 N. Mulford
Fri 10/24, 6:30-9 PM An anthology-inspired evening hosted by Ars Pvblica
The Underground Art Gallery, 418 E. State
Sat 10/25, 10 AM-1 PM "Celebrating Third Spaces"
Booker Washington Community Center, 524 Kent
Sat 10/25, 2-4PM Anthology readings
317 Art Collaborative, 317 Market St.
Mon 10/28, 4:30-6PM Reading and reception
Howard Colman Library, Rockford University, 5050 E. State