Matthew Lawler’s collection of poems is, primarily, a love letter to Chicago. We are all irrevocably shaped by the places where we grew up. As such, these poems are also an urban anthropological catalogue, as well as an elegy, and a memoir. The collection opens with an opus about youthful, sun-drenched summers, playing basketball, smoking weed, trying not to get into trouble even as you test boundaries and try to figure out who you are.
These poems are unmistakably a young man’s journey, confronting gangs and violence, caught between the desire to be strong, to find acceptance somewhere, and to avoid terrible outcomes. Lawler introduces us to window washers, the homeless, bums, veterans, addicts, gang members, victims of violence, and brutal cops. There are suicides and absent fathers. It’s the great paradox of cities that people are most lonely when they’re surrounded by a sea of humanity. Lawler probes that idea by showing these relationships, how people try to connect even when it ends in heartbreak. But it also celebrates the deep love of platonic relationships between men, whether it’s between peers, mentor figures, (as in “The Drifter”), or depicting male family members like Uncle Len in “Everyday Heroes.”
This collection is a meditation on mortality. Aside from witnessing many friends die young, Lawler developed juvenile diabetes. Some of the poems detail his experiences with the onset of the illness and subsequent hospitalization. Nothing will give you an adult outlook like illness, which forces us to face our body’s frailty. “Broken Body” particularly resonated with me, describing his physical symptoms, being mired in “continents of sweat.”
Lawler’s bio said he started out with an interest in rap, and you can definitely see how these poems, with their rhymes and repetition, share DNA with rap lyrics. He also embraces old forms, like sonnets and villanelles. His work is blunt—he says what he means, there is no ambiguity.
As a city kid myself, these poems spoke to me of experiences that my cousins and uncles may have shared. I appreciated Lawler’s tenderness with subjects that are near and dear to my heart. If you’ve ever loved a city, if you grew up in one and still find faded graffiti on your soul, these poems are for you.
Concrete Oracles was published by Alien Buddha Press. It is available for purchase on Amazon.
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