Everyday People

A hip-hop writer writing against type, given his white, Jewish, suburban origins, Coval is more seasoned and tapped into the depths of Chicago life and literature in his second collection, following the bristling Slingshots (2006). In “Sunrise” and a towering tribute to Jane Addams, he’s a veritable reincarnation of Carl Sandburg, only now the city’s stalwart workers are “toiling in the death / of industry.” Coval’s affinity for Chicago’s crazy-quilt of ethnicities and races, the dreams of immigrants and seekers, infuse his poems with lamentation and exaltation as he celebrates uniqueness and commonality. Funny, sexy, and empathic, he riffs on the knot of family and the revelations kicked up by chance encounters, meditates on America’s sorrows and beauty as he rides cross-country trains and a subway that rises from the shadows to the light on elevating tracks. Curious about everyone’s story, Coval is an enemy of complacence and a believer in cross-pollination, and like the corner store he describes, his well-stocked poems contain “beef jerky and sandalwood incense,” that is, earth and spirit, body and soul. --Donna Seaman