By Marie Wood
Philip Bryant grew up on Chicago’s South Side in a working class neighborhood where parents wanted their kids to go to college instead of work in factories and steel mills.
Bryant made it out of the neighborhood to become an award-winning writer and English professor at his alma mater, Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter. His second book, “Stompin’ At The Grand Terrace: A Jazz Memoir in Verse,” was just published by Blueroad Press in Janesville.
In this volume of prose and poetry that’s powered by legendary jazz music, Bryant takes the reader to the streets, clubs and churches of the South Side of Chicago during the 1950s and ’60s.
Many of the pieces are set in Bryant’s childhood home, where his father, James, and his friend, Preston, both blue collar workers, listen to jazz records and talk about music and life.
“This one is what I call my music book,” said Bryant of St. Peter.
James and Preston first appeared in a few poems at the end of “Sermon on a Perfect Spring Day,” a collection which was nominated for a Minnesota Book Award in 1999. That book also explores his Chicago roots and African American culture, said Bryant.
When Bryant started writing his James and Preston pieces 16 years ago, he realized the characters and the long-gone world in which they lived were a clear presence that had always been a part of him, he said.
The book is accompanied by “A Stompin’ Suite,” a CD that features Bryant’s reading set to music composed by jazz pianist Carolyn Wilkins, a well-known musician on the Boston music scene and professor at the Berklee College of Music in Boston.
Wilkins also happens to be Bryant’s oldest friend from the neighborhood. They go back to age 3. These longtime friends also share a passion for jazz.
“We would sit around our living room and play my dad’s jazz records all day,” said Bryant. “When I was 13 or 14, we vowed that I would write poetry and she’d put music to it. That’s something special.”
During those teenage years, Wilkins was the first person to see Bryant’s writing outside of teachers. Bryant filled notebooks with his writings and poetry but kept it under wraps in his tough neighborhood, he said.
In 1998, his poetry was silenced again by the tornado that blew through St. Peter. The manuscript for part one of this collection was sitting on the dining room table when the tornado hit.
When volunteers arrived to help, they boxed everything up. The Bryants reconstructed their home, got their boxes out of storage, but never found the manuscript. About two years later, Bryant found a box they hadn’t opened and there was the manuscript at the very bottom.
While the words flowed during the writing process, the collection still went through five to six edits in all. Throughout the process, Bryant continued to write, so some of the poems are only a year or two old.
Part two of the collection features Bryant’s memories of his Aunt Janey. Part three reveals Bryant’s life journey from Chicago to St. Peter in poems that invoke Sam Cooke, Miles Davis and Ko Ko Taylor.
John Gaterud, Blueroad Press editor and publisher, heard a reading from Bryant at Minnesota State University in 2007. Bryant’s poems were included in “Where One Voice Ends, Another Begins: 150 Years of Minnesota Poetry.”
In conversation after the reading, Gaterud asked Bryant for submissions and later Bryant gave him a folder of his work.
“I was bowled over by his collection, with its rich stories and powerful voices. And the more I read, the more I realized these poems would make a terrific book,” said Gaterud.
Bryant said he is excited to be published by Blueroad Press because the regional presses, such as Milkweed and Coffee House, are in Minneapolis and he doesn’t see himself as a Twin Cities writer.
“With so many great writers and poets in southern Minnesota, there are not enough venues and publishers,” said Bryant. “I think Blueroad can be a significant presence in the future in representing outstate Minnesota.”
