The Big Smoke Read online

  Most times, I forget I’m rubbing

  until Etta reminds me.

  TICKET ON THE TITANIC

  Etta & I had no intention of missing

  the maiden voyage of the finest ship

  built by man, but Captain Smith drew

  the color line almost as quickly as Tommy

  Burns did. I expect the line from

  a frightened prize fighter, but an English

  sea captain? He should be more principled.

  Especially after I offered $4,000 for each

  ticket. Of course, that color line kept me

  from fighting for Etta’s space on a lifeboat

  when the iceberg hit. That is a fight

  you can bet your last copper I would

  have won. Even after all the offense

  I suffered & the indignity of being refused

  passage, I would never dance the Eagle

  Rock after all those people drowned.

  IL TROVATORE

  The first time I heard the aria,

  it was like sun up after the Great Storm.

  The woman’s voice rising, then rising

  more as if the want of it all wouldn’t

  allow her another breath. Like roadwork

  when you’ve punched yourself out.

  Like Tommy Burns catching my gut hook.

  Like the first I saw of Etta.

  Like the sound of the crowd in Reno

  when Jeffries couldn’t go on. Like going

  up the steps of the Café de Champion

  after the crash of a gunshot in Etta’s

  room. Like finding Etta on the floor,

  a halo of blood getting bigger

  by the minute. Like the nurses not nursing

  but crying & pointing at the gun,

  still hot in Etta’s own hand. Like realizing

  Etta’s still breathing, whispering

  a libretto on the heels of her last breath:

  You did this, Papa. You did this.

  NO DECISION

  HUBERT’S MUSEUM & FLEA CIRCUS (1937)

  Below constellations of pool balls scattering geometry’s

  grace. Below pinball machines ringing like telephones

  full of congratulations & the streetcar stutter of a movie

  viewer: Jack Dempsey clubbing Luis Firpo or being

  clubbed by Gene Tunney, depending on the reel & the day.

  Below the heavy bag that, with each amateur punch, pulls

  down the ceiling like confetti at the end of a parade.

  Behind the man with the sagging eye who makes change

  for the 25¢ admission by touch, & past the turnstile

  that sticks sometimes, so he pushes himself up, dusts

  sunflower shells from blue trousers, & exits his smudged

  booth to make it work. After Congo the Wild Man’s

  caterwaul & Sealo the Seal-Finned Boy’s handclaps,

  as slick as fresh meat on the butcher’s table, Jack Johnson

  comes out. Dog-eared blue suit & blue beret. Red wine

  sipped through a straw: What would you like to know?

  NOTES

  1.The collection’s epigraph is transcribed from the version of “The Titanic” included in Leadbelly’s Last Sessions (Smithsonian Folkways, 1994). In the recording, there is a bridge between the two verses.

  2.“A Great Maltese Cat Toying with a White Mouse”: The title comes from a description of the 1908 championship fight in the San Francisco Call (December 26, 1908).

  3.“Texas Authorities Will Prosecute the Champion if He Takes White Wife”: The title is a byline excerpt from the Chicago Tribune (March 12, 1909). The full byline is “Beware Mr. Jack Johnson: Texas Authorities Will Prosecute the Champion if He Takes White Wife to That State.”

  4.“Race Relations I”: Del sole un raggio brilla più vivido nel tuo bicchiere (“A ray of sun shines brighter in your glass”) is from Giuseppe Verdi’s Il Trovatore, Act II, Scene I.

  5.“Vedi! Le fosche notturne”: All of the quotes are from the chorus of Verdi’s Il Trovatore, Act II, Scene I. All’opra, all’opra! (“To work, to work!”); Dagli, martella! (“Go to it, hammer away!”); Chi del gitano i giorni abbella? / La zingarella! (“Who is it cheers the gypsy’s days? / The gypsy girl!”).

  6.“A Struggle Between a Demon and a Gritty Little Dwarf”: The title comes from a ringside description of the fight between Jack Johnson and Stanley Ketchel.

  7.“Machine Containing Johnson’s Friends Wrecked”: The poem’s title is a byline from the New York Times (July 17, 1909).

  8.“Alias”: “Texas Watermelon Picaninny” comes from the title of a fabricated biography of Johnson that ran in the Los Angeles Times (October 4, 1903). The full title is “Texas Watermelon Picaninny Makes Big Dents.” The rest of the names were given to Johnson by sportswriters over the course of his career.

  9.“Gold Smile”: The epigraph is from William Shakespeare’s Henry VI, Part 3: Act 5, Scene 6.

  10.“Fidelity”: Di geloso amor sprezzato (“Fires of jealousy, despised affection”) is from Act I, Scene II of Verdi’s Il Trovatore.

  11.“Out of the Bath”: “Stride la vampa” is the aria from Act II, Scene I of Verdi’s Il Trovatore. Donna s’avanza (“A woman advances”); Lieta in sembianza (“With a happy face”); La tetra fiamma che s’alza, che s’alza al ciel (“A gloomy flame rises, it rises to the sky”).

  12.“Carefree as a Plantation Darky in Watermelon Time”: This description of Johnson training to fight Jim Jeffries is from the Baltimore American (July 2, 1910).

  Although numerous public records about Jack Johnson were produced during his lifetime, many of those documents—especially the newspaper accounts—contain racist illustrations and demeaning language. As a result, modern biographies on Johnson, such as Finis Farr’s Black Champion: The Life and Times of Jack Johnson, Randy Roberts’s Papa Jack: Jack Johnson and the Era of White Hopes, and Geoffrey C. Ward’s Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson, were crucial to the development of this project. The illuminating photographs and video clips featured in Ken Burns’s documentary adaptation of Ward’s book made that work an important resource as well.

  Jack Johnson was a natural fabulist and never let the truth get in the way of a good story, so I used his autobiographies In the Ring and Out, Jack Johnson Is a Dandy, and My Life and Battles as organizational resources for the collection’s narrative. I utilized his anecdotal approach to story in the autobiographies as a model for his storytelling style in the poems.

  “The Battle of the Century” and the other poems addressing the Johnson-Jeffries contest are the composite of several newspaper accounts and three critical texts: Thomas Hietala’s The Fight of the Century: Jack Johnson, Joe Louis, and the Struggle for Racial Equality, Robert Greenwood’s The Prize Fight of the Century, and Wayne A. Rozen’s superb America on the Ropes: A Pictorial History of the Johnson-Jeffries Fight. In addition, the one remaining recording from Johnson’s narration of the Johnson-Jeffries fight film, “My Own Story of the Big Fight at Reno, Nevada, July 4, 1910 (Part 1),” was indispensable. That recording appears on Lost Sounds: Blacks and the Birth of the Recording Industry, 1891–1922 (Archeophone Records, 2005).

  One final source worth mentioning is the Department of Justice File 164211. The file catalogues the government’s case in Johnson’s 1913 Mann Act conviction and the subsequent surveillance of Johnson once he fled the United States. Though the incidents related to the trial do not directly appear in this book, the Belle Schreiber interview poems are a response to documents included in the file.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thank you to the editors and staffs of the journals and anthologies in which these poems have appeared, sometimes with different titles and in diff
erent versions:

  American Poetry Review: “Battle Royal,” “Fidelity,” “Il Trovatore,” “Sporting Life”

  Black Renaissance Noire: “Shadow Boxing III,” “Shadow Boxing IV,” “The Shadow Knows I,” “The Shadow Knows II”

  Crab Orchard Review: “Fisticuffs,” “Rememory”

  jubilat: “The Battle of the Century”

  Natural Bridge: “Fisticuff Difficulty,” “‘Machine Containing Johnson’s Friends Wrecked’”

  Papers on Language and Literature: “‘A Great Maltese Cat Toying with a White Mouse’”

  Pluck!: “Cannibalism,” “Courtship”

  Prairie Schooner: “Alias,” “Gold Smile,” “Prize Fighter,” “Ticket on the Titanic”

  Reverie: “Roadwork at Seal Rock”

  Southern Indiana Review: “‘A Struggle Between a Demon and a Gritty Little Dwarf,’” “Chicken & Other Stereotypes,” “Marriage Proposal,” “Race Relations I,” “Race Relations II”

  Sou’wester: “Cooking Lessons,” “Equality”

  St. Louis Beacon: “Battle Royal”

  “Cannibalism,” “‘Carefree as a Plantation Darky in Watermelon Time,’” and “Courtship” appear in the anthology America! What’s My Name? (Wind Publications, 2007).

  “Blues His Sweetie Gives to Me” appears in the anthology City of the Big Shoulders: An Anthology of Chicago Poetry (University of Iowa Press, 2011).

  “Battle Royal,” “‘Carefree as a Plantation Darky in Watermelon Time,’” “Fisticuffs,” “Rememory,” and “Sporting Life” appear in audio and text form on the Illinois Poet Laureate Web site (www .2illinois.gov/poetlaureate/).

  “Battle Royal,” “Hubert’s Museum & Flea Circus (1937),” “Rememory,” “Sporting Life,” and “Il Trovatore” appear in audio and text form on the Pen American Center Web site (www.pen.org).

  My gratitude to the friends and family who helped make this collection happen with their support and insight: Sherwin Bitsui, Allison Adelle Hedge Coke, P. Scott Cunningham, Allison Funk, Ross Gay, Terrance Hayes, Major Jackson, Richard Johnson, Rodney Jones, A. Van Jordan, Melanie Jordan, Allison Joseph, Ruth Ellen Kocher, Quraysh Ali Lansana, Shara McCallum, Kevin Neireiter, Marilyn Nelson, Richard Newman, Michael Nye, Oliver de la Paz, Howard Rambsy, Cedric Ross, Steven D. Schroeder, Sean Singer, Jon Tribble, Frank X. Walker, and Kevin Young.

  Thank you to the Lannan Foundation and to the Graduate School and URCA program at Southern Illinois University– Edwardsville for their generous support of time and funding. Thanks to my URCA research assistant, KeyLyn Song, for her archival work.

  Many thanks to my editor, Paul Slovak, for helping me develop the book.

  Special thanks to Marley and Stacey for their constant support and editorial suggestions.

  And to Jake Adam York (August 10, 1972–December 16, 2012), thank you for your grace in poetry and all things. I miss you, my man.

  Lastly, thank you to John Arthur Johnson (March 31, 1878–June 10, 1946), the original Heavyweight Champion of the World.

  Credit: Taylor Cincotta

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ADRIAN MATEJKA is the author of The Devil’s Garden (Alice James Books, 2003) and Mixology (Penguin, 2009). He is the recipient of two Illinois Arts Council Literary Awards, a National Poetry Series Award, the New York/New England Award, and a fellowship from the Lannan Foundation. He teaches at Indiana University and lives in Bloomington with his wife, Stacey Lynn Brown, and their daughter.

  PENGUIN POETS

  JOHN ASHBERY

  Selected Poems

  Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror

  TED BERRIGAN

  The Sonnets

  LAUREN BERRY

  The Lifting Dress

  JOE BONOMO

  Installations

  PHILIP BOOTH

  Selves

  JULIANNE BUCHSBAUM

  The Apothecary’s Heir

  JIM CARROLL

  Fear of Dreaming: The Selected Poems

  Living at the Movies

  Void of Course

  ALISON HAWTHORNE DEMING

  Genius Loci

  Rope

  CARL DENNIS

  Callings

  New and Selected Poems 1974–2004

  Practical Gods

  Ranking the Wishes

  Unknown Friends

  DIANE DI PRIMA

  Loba

  STUART DISCHELL

  Backwards Days

  Dig Safe

  STEPHEN DOBYNS

  Velocities: New and Selected Poems, 1966–1992

  EDWARD DORN

  Way More West: New and Selected Poems

  ROGER FANNING

  The Middle Ages

  ADAM FOULDS

  The Broken Word

  CARRIE FOUNTAIN

  Burn Lake

  AMY GERSTLER

  Crown of Weeds: Poems

  Dearest Creature

  Ghost Girl

  Medicine

  Nerve Storm

  EUGENE GLORIA

  Drivers at the Short-Time Motel

  Hoodlum Birds

  My Favorite Warlord

  DEBORA GREGER

  By Herself

  Desert Fathers, Uranium Daughters

  God

  Men, Women, and Ghosts

  Western Art

  TERRANCE HAYES

  Hip Logic

  Lighthead

  Wind in a Box

  NATHAN HOKS

  The Narrow Circle

  ROBERT HUNTER

  Sentinel and Other Poems

  MARY KARR

  Viper Rum

  WILLIAM KECKLER

  Sanskrit of the Body

  JACK KEROUAC

  Book of Sketches

  Book of Blues

  Book of Haikus

  JOANNA KLINK

  Circadian

  Raptus

  JOANNE KYGER

  As Ever: Selected Poems

  ANN LAUTERBACH

  Hum

  If in Time: Selected Poems, 1975–2000

  On a Stair

  Or to Begin Again

  CORINNE LEE

  PYX

  PHILLIS LEVIN

  May Day

  Mercury

  WILLIAM LOGAN

  Macbeth in Venice

  Madame X

  Strange Flesh

  The Whispering Gallery

  ADRIAN MATEJKA

  The Big Smoke

  Mixology

  MICHAEL MCCLURE

  Huge Dreams: San Francisco and Beat Poems

  DAVID MELTZER

  David’s Copy: The Selected Poems of David Meltzer

  ROBERT MORGAN

  Terroir

  CAROL MUSKE-DUKES

  An Octave above Thunder

  Red Trousseau

  Twin Cities

  ALICE NOTLEY

  Culture of One

  The Descent of Alette

  Disobedience

  In the Pines

  Mysteries of Small Houses

  LAWRENCE RAAB

  The History of Forgetting

  Visible Signs: New and Selected Poems

  BARBARA RAS

  The Last Skin

  One Hidden Stuff

  MICHAEL ROBBINS

  Alien vs. Predator

  PATTIANN ROGERS

  Generations

  Wayfare

  WILLIAM STOBB

  Absentia

  Nervous Systems

  TRYFON TOLIDES

  An Almost Pure Empty Walking

  ANNE WALDMAN

  G
ossamurmur

  Kill or Cure

  Manatee/Humanity

  Structure of the World Compared to a Bubble

  JAMES WELCH

  Riding the Earthboy 40

  PHILIP WHALEN

  Overtime: Selected Poems

  ROBERT WRIGLEY

  Anatomy of Melancholy and Other Poems

  Beautiful Country

  Earthly Meditations: New and Selected Poems

  Lives of the Animals

  Reign of Snakes

  MARK YAKICH

  The Importance of Peeling Potatoes in Ukraine

  Unrelated Individuals Forming a Group Waiting to Cross

  JOHN YAU

  Borrowed Love Poems

  Paradiso Diaspora