What’s the first thing that pops into your mind when you hear the word Detroit? Like many Americans, the first thing I think of lately is the troubled auto industry. I think of high unemployment numbers. Then I think of the history of Detroit, Michigan. As someone who used to live close enough to be a day tripping tourist, I also remember friends from Detroit who gave ominous warnings about which neighborhoods outsiders like me should avoid.
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Now Mark Durfee takes me down those inner city streets with his new book, Stink: Poetry and Prose of Detroit. He shows me his world in the way that only a native can. It is a powerful book that portrays the humanity behind the headlines—the unemployed, the never employed, the forgotten kids, the senseless murders. Stink is the fallout and frustration of the decline of what was once one of our greatest American cities.
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Stink is not supposed to be enjoyable reading. Don’t look for vignettes about swans or pretty yellow butterflies in this one. Stink intends to educate the adult reader. And it does.
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One of the things about Mark Durfee’s writing that strikes me is his honesty. The poems and prose in Stink do not dance around the edges of issues. They slosh through the middle of the big, oily puddle. Subjects like racism, drugs, and murder are portrayed with unblinking eyes.
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But Stink is not “Hollywood” blood and guts splashed across walls. It is real. I find it to be much more powerful, because the descriptions are not overdone. It is told in a matter-of-fact voice, which for me, makes the impact even stronger.
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The beginning section of the book deals with the “attitude” of the city. The first piece, 911 Is For Emergencies Only, begins in full force. With a nonchalant voice, the narrator describes a dead body he found while walking his dog. After seeing the body had been dead for a while, the narrator “finished walking the dog because she hadn’t shit yet.” In this world, a dead body is not an emergency anymore.
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Another piece in this section of the book haunts me. Better To Have Your Shit With You Than Have To Go Home And Get It begins on a warm summer day. The narrator is relaxing on his porch and can see inside his neighbor’s house. Once again, a young boy is being beaten by his father. The narrator describes the scene:
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“It became near impossible when, as has happened many times before, I saw
the back of the ten year old hit the storm door of the house across from me. I
could see the new dent and just the hand and lower arm of his old man
reaching to drag him back into the darkness of the house. I knew the old
man, unemployed for about six months, was full of cheap whiskey and piss.”
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The narrator can’t stand watching the scene anymore, so he walks into the neighbor’s house with a gun and opens fire. He “looks at the kid, saw he’d most likely live.” Then he leaves with the feeling that at least he got to “see one end right.” Perhaps the act is literal. Perhaps it is only in the narrator’s head. Regardless, it is chilling.
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I had nightmares about this scene, but it made me think deeply. Yes, I have felt that same anger when I see children who have been abused. No, I’m not condoning murder. The narrator’s act was pure evil and wrong. But who among us hasn’t raged at the perpetrators of abuse and a system that does nothing to help the victims?
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I also think about about our responsibility as human beings. The narrator didn’t want to watch the beating or hear the boys’ cries anymore. It was ruining his pleasant afternoon. He had seen the system fail the boy many times before. If we turn our heads away from the beating, aren’t we just as guilty as the man who beats the child? Maybe not literally. But we are guilty nonetheless.
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In It Doesn’t Always Take A Blood Trail, the “first rooster crowing” is the sound of gunshots at 3:54 in the morning. The narrator waits for the sound of police sirens. The police never come. The narrator concludes:
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“The body will be wherever it fell,
it’s not in any hurry anymore to get
a little drug money
it will never be able to spend.
It doesn’t matter anymore
if the dead meat’s not found early,
the mystery of where life ended
will be solved soon enough
by following the smell.”
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Stink also tackles racism head on. The poem, 2905 Garland: Ossian Sweet Bought More Than A House, tells the true story of a black doctor who moved his family to a white Detroit neighborhood in 1925. A white mob, angry that a black family was living in “their” neighborhood, gathered at the Sweet house. In an attempt to protect his home and family from mob violence, Ossian Sweet and some of his friends armed themselves. In the mob violence that follows, a white man is shot and dies. Two of the most striking stanzas in the poem read like a call and response:
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“Police man true,
police man blue,
where in hell are you?”
The mob heard Ossian cry.
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Right here, Dr. Ossian Sweet,
protecting the other houses on
Garland Street.”
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The Sweets and their friends were tried for murder. Sweet was acquitted, but the horror of the event was far from over.
There is much more to the story, and it is one that everyone should know. If you’ve never heard of Ossian Sweet, please look it up. Slavery eventually turned into the Jim Crow South. Unjust laws were eventually changed. Attitudes are much harder to change. And the attitudes are not confined to only one region or country.
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Racial tension remains in modern day Detroit, as it does in many places. In I Never Knew I Was White, the narrator speaks of walking the streets of Harlem or Watts without incident. But in his own neighborhood in Detroit, he is told that a white man doesn’t belong. He questions the fact that racism is often portrayed as a white only problem:
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“What of the white who lives with a majority minority?
Is he judged on the color of his skin,
rather than the soul within?”
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A young black man in the same neighborhood might tell a different story. But if we’re honest, many people have heard that question before. The narrator makes a good point. People of all colors are often judged by skin color or history, instead of as individuals.
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The questions posed by the poet are respectful. In my opinion, the honesty of Stink is civil discourse through which change can occur. If we try to “pretty up” or hide problems, the problems will not go away.
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In the middle of all the questions, the reader will find much lyrical writing in Stink. The language is often beautiful, even though the subject is tough. One example can be found in the poem, Brother:
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The chariot of flame
burned the castle stones,
leaving all within
naked,
unprotected
with only the illusion of walls left to save us.
Walls that could never have kept
the flame vultures of want out anyway.
There never was enough water
to quench a flame of desire,
nor stop a wing made of fly ash.”
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There is hope in Stink, though it sparkles in bits of broken glass. In the final section of the book, the poem, I Hope I live Long Enough, speaks of the desire to see that better day:
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“I was told by a young black woman a week ago
it will not be my generation to bridge the chasm
our grandfathers had dug but hers would do the job;
and make it right, make this living together flow
man I hope I get to live long enough
to throw at least a little fill into that hole.”
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Stink is a book that needs to be read several times, not because it’s hard to understand, but because the subject matter should be absorbed. It should be discussed. Everyone should care, because these are our fellow human beings. One sentence that kept going through my mind as I read was It doesn’t have to be like this. I think that is one of the author’s intentions.
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Yes, I recommend this book to all adult readers, even to people who want to put their heads in the sand and not hear the truth. Maybe those are the people who really need Stink the most.
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You can order Stink by emailing Mark Durfee at detstink@gmail.com. The price including the postage to anywhere is $9 (US). No checks please, but money orders are OK. Mark handles all the book shipping himself and does not do pay pal to keep the cost reasonable in the times we all live in.
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You can find more of Mark Durfee’s poetry and prose at his site, The Walking Man. And be sure to check out Motor City Burning Press. It is obvious that Mark Durfee deeply loves his city and its people. Now when I think of Detroit, I also think of him.
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Thanks for such an excellent review of what seems to be an important work.
“Stink is not supposed to be enjoyable reading. Don’t look for vignettes about swans or pretty yellow butterflies in this one.”
I had to chuckle a little at that one. With a name like Stink, I’m not expecting swans and butterflies. But it sounds like Stink has a lot more to offer than a bad smell.
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Thanks so much for checking it out, Brigindo. I meant to say how much I love the title. You know a title like that instantly catches my attention:) And I love poetry of place.
I actually had to cut a lot of the post. It just got too long, so I figured I could bring up those points here if necessary. One part I cut was about the good people I have met in Detroit and the good things I have read about the city. But I wanted the post to be an accurate portrayal of Stink, and I didn’t want to dilute the problems Detroit faces. And in a sense, we all face those problems. I hope your week is going well, Brigindo. Thank you! -Julie
Thank you for the awesome review. Sounds worthy to be read…(I am not in a mood for tough city poetry now).
Hi, Ana. You have probably seen a lot of it lately. But when you’re in the mood again, I do hope you’ll check it out. Thanks so much.
Pittsburgh can be a very depressing city during fall (rainy, cloudy) this is why I try to make myself think at sunnier areas, wider spaces. I bought the Jeff Fleming book , though, I think it will cheer me up 🙂
Hi, Ana. Okay:) I was thinking you were referring to recent events in your city. No problem at all. Have a good one.
Great review, Julie.
I think I’d like to read this book.
Thanks so much, Glenda. It’s great to see you:)
HI Julie, Thanks for the extensive review, your admiration for the poet, and your belief in the power of words.
Hi, Annie. Thanks so much for your support!
thanks for such an awesome and detailed review Julie! this sounds like my kind of book. i will definitely add it to my list.
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Hi, Odessa! Thank you so much. Whenever I think of writing about place, I also think of you:) Have a good one. -J
Julie…Thank you so much for the honest portrayal of STINK. You got it exactly as I tried to write it.
Detroit has not been a pretty place since the first decade of the 20th century. there has always been a manufacturing industry here for one product or another. Beginning with cast iron stoves in the 19th century, but when the auto industry ramped up the city forgot all about being “The Paris of the Midwest” and forged ahead to become the “Arsenal of Democracy” less than a half century later. No one was bothered though by the pollution and ash from the stacks, there were jobs for all who asked and that was all anyone really wanted. Culture was something the bosses had for their own off time amusement.
It was the swift and heavy influx of an extremely diverse population beginning in 1914 from the world over that began the problems. The populations, from wherever segregated themselves into enclaves. Blacks there, the different ethnic whites there or there or there, Hispanics there, Asians there and Arabs there. There never was a folding in and merging to come to a new people with pride of place.
The Ossian Sweet account I have given is accurate but you are correct there is much more to the story. Ossian witnessed a lynching of a neighbor as an 8 year old in Florida, left home an uneducated 12 year old to work as a porter, went to 8 years of college before he went to medical school. Then came to Detroit to practice among the Black and Eastern European population.
At first all ten adults were tried and acquitted in the killing of Leon Briener, the second time Henry Sweet was tried alone because he was the only one to admit to having fired a weapon that night. They were defended by Clarence Darrow and acquitted but the story really didn’t end until 1960.
The ethnic tensions were everywhere including the factory floor until the UAW allowed the foreign born non English speakers and blacks equality in pay. People were able to get along some in the factories but they went home to their enclave and never mixed socially. 1943 was the first big blow out of the tensions between the races in what was true race riot. People were killing and being killed (blacks and whites) simply because of their race.
After WWII when wages went up and as the Blacks who were living in the oldest part of the city wanted better housing, schools and services began to move out of their enclave, the Whites began to establish the ring suburbs. Homogeneity has never been a buzz word here.
Slowly the factories closed and moved. First to other states then to other countries. some blame Corporate greed for cheap labor, some blame greed of the UAW. I personally don’t blame either. But rather federal policy after WWII and GATT. (General Agreement on Trades and Tariffs)
Today in 2009 the estimated population of Detroit is 850, 000 which is a 1.1 million soul loss from sixty years ago. There are vacant tracts of land equal to the size of Boston or San Francisco and a 35% adult unemployment rate followed by a 75% rate for youth. High Schools are graduating a mere 25% of them who enter in ninth grade. The city is currently running a $300,000,000 deficit and the school system another $85,000,000 on top of that.
I wrote STINK neither to defend nor condemn Detroit or her population but to simply present the story as the city presented it to me over the last 55 years. Yes I still live south of 8 mile road and no we do not have any plans to move. Such as it is, this is home.
Finally anyone interested in purchasing a copy can email me at detstink@gmail.com The price including the postage to anywhere is $9 (US) no checks please, money orders are OK. I handle all the book shipping myself and do not do the pay pal, CC thing to keep the cost reasonable to the times we all live in.
Thank you again Julie for the absolutely stunning assessment of STINK. I am humbled by your words.
Be Well
Mark C. Durfee
I also wanted to mention the cover. It was done by Michelle Carolan and outstanding collage artist and poet. More of her recent work can be found at:
http://mindyourthroat.blogspot.com/
Hi, Mark. Thank you for allowing me to put your book up here. It is an honor. It is very powerful work. I also appreciate Michelle’s link, because I love the cover art.
I will add your e-mail, cost and ordering details you mention here to my post.
And thank you for the additional history of Detroit. A lot of people enjoy the conversation here in the comments section (myself included), and they will be interested to read the history. I had read about Ossian Sweet in the past, but your poem spurred me to look up more information.
A side note for my fellow rural Southerners who make derogatory comments about problems in “the big Northern cities.” Guess where the history of those race riots began? Not talking about ugly does not make it go away. No, I’m not blaming modern day people for slavery or Jim Crow. I’m just saying we should not try to pretty up the past (or present). Stink looks at the problems without rose colored glasses. In my opinion, honesty is the best way to fix problems. It’s not about criticism. It’s about love.
Stink also spurred me to do some additional reading about the “decline” of Detroit. I really appreciate a book that makes me want to learn more.
Mark, when I saw your book at your site, my first thought was “It’s about time somebody wrote a book about Detroit!” I know books have been written about Detroit. I mean lately. The decline did not begin in the past few years, but the Recession surely didn’t help.
When I read Stink, I was blown away. It does not condemn Detroit. I think it is a very honest and respectful account of the problems Detroit faces. I also think your book could be used in universities or community organizations as a discussion starter for change.
Getting people to care is sometimes HARD. But Stink is a great way to spread the word. The things you showed me through your words will never leave me. Thank you again, Mark. It has been a pleasure to meet you here in cyberspace. -Julie
Thank you, Mark and Julie, for continuing the discussion and the information about Detroit, the book, and about Ossian Sweet, in the comments. I love what you said, Julie: “In my opinion, honesty is the best way to fix problems. It’s not about criticism. It’s about love.”
Hi, Annie. I always appreciate and enjoy your comments very much. Yes, the history Mark details is so important. The current statistics he sites also blew my mind. Unemployment, deficit numbers, etc. And a 25% high school graduation rate!! So many problems spin off from the other problems.
Thank you, Annie. Your conversation is much appreciated.
Great review, Julie. (You do such a good job with reviews, I think this could be your job!)
Having been to Detroit only once, and then as a child visiting relatives who lived nearby, I don’t know the city, but I remember the feeling of fear it inspired, simply because the relatives were so cautious of it – even back in the 60’s. It sounds as if this book will show me just why.
Thanks for opening the discussion and introducing us to what sounds to be an important book of poetry. It will definitely move me from my comfortable little life.
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Hi, Karen. That’s a very good point about your relatives in the ’60’s, and it underscores what Mark says about the history. I’m a dirt kicking hick, so I have no idea, either. Ha! I had to drive into a city here recently, and I got lost. You would have laughed to see me. I looked like a deer caught in headlights.
But I love poetry of place, whether it’s country or city. And I do feel like I learned a lot from Stink. I also think that what happens in the cities also happens in rural areas. Maybe it’s on a smaller scale. But it does affect everyone. I grew up in a village, and there were the same drugs as in any city, and they were easily available for any kid to buy cheap. The last place I lived was also very rural (less than a thousand people) and meth labs were a big problem. My heart was always breaking for the sad life of one kid or another.
Well, Karen…I always write a novel when I talk here. Ha! Ha! Thanks so much for your good words. I hope your week is going well. -Julie
The odd thing is that honesty is a matter of perception. While I tried to be truthful, brutally so in some cases, I think at best it is an honest work done from one residents perception. There are some here who think it’s all good and fine because they know how to work the system. Their perception is much different than mine.
I am not a dispassionate detached viewer from two steps back on the subject of Detroit (or any other subject I care about.) STINK is a cautionary tale as well as a snapshot of Detroit. The storms that are continuing to hit us here can replicate themselves anywhere.
The confluence of missing education, industry, and foresight are not something that is restricted to cities like Detroit. Other places are lacking in the foresight especially them that are becoming one trick ponies like we did. The result of the loss of the source of employment is what causes the violence and poverty to spiral upward.
There still are no answers presenting themselves to the Detroit dilemma because we are now, just now trying to resolve a budget that was hidden in the mediocrity of them who were elected. All I can say is there is no pie in the sky despite what is told us,
It is a shit sandwich and we will be eating it for awhile longer.
Hi, Mark. I agree with you completely. (See my comment to Karen above). It’s not something that’s limited to one place. Out in the lovely woods and dirt roads, I’ve seen sad lives. I’ve seen the unemployed, drunk fathers who beat their kids. Drugs, pregnant girls, etc. etc. I’m sure people in the suburbs have seen it, too.
You’re right that some people might tell very different stories, and it is a matter of perception. There are people not far from where I live who would tell a very different life story than I have right now. My life hasn’t been easy, but my story is full of Lah Lah Land dreams, because I really do have hope. They are at the soup kitchen right now or on street corners. Just because I look out my window and see deer grazing peacefully doesn’t mean those people don’t exist in the same county, not far from where I live.
Yes, parts of Stink are brutally honest. Yes, it will make the reader squirm. But I think many people know the story you are telling, which is why it is important.
Karen…The Detroit of the 1960’s even as late as the early 1970’s was a far cry from today. In 1972 when I graduated High School I could have done what the non college bound could still do and get immediate work building cars. I opted out and enlisted instead.
For me that was one of those life crossroads that turned into a well walked path. I know others that did not, went into the plants and slowly watched themselves become redundant to the manufacturing process. Some were able to hang on until they had secured a retirement others were not.
The reference you make about your relatives attitude reminds me of a story my mother told me as i was getting her oral history before she passed away.
It seems that the Catholic church was encouraging the Black population to move from their area of the city so they could have a better life and better everything and integrate the Catholic schools. I think the church wanted to show support for the spirit of ending the ongoing Racial Divide that at the time was upon the nation. This would have been about 1960.
It seemed that the bishops at the directions of the Cardinal of Detroit went out to certain white parishioners in the neighborhoods where the schools were strong and secured from a core group in each area a commitment to stay when the Blacks began to move in. My parents were two who did agree not only with the plan to not move but the spirit of it. In fact they moved from a house at the cities edge into a home right in the heart of the Irish neighborhood. Anchored by mostly Catholics and a neighborhood school that you went into in the first grade and left in the twelfth.
So when Blacks started to move into the neighborhood it was for the core group no surprise. They held cocktail hours just as they always had and dinner parties just as they always had, only with a new black face or two invited. This was an area of educated white professionals, engineers social workers, stay at home moms (not mine) and others. Not a lot of cops, firemen or other city workers that I knew of.
The Protestants and Catholics not in the know of the Archdioceses strategy began to get nervous when first one then another then another black family moved in. These blacks were not as educated, but they could honestly afford to live in the area because of the auto factory & city work and wanted to maintain the same quality of the area.
The Whites began to sell in droves. I remember a block of about twenty houses with fifteen for sale signs. Even them who swore to the archbishop they would stay and keep the area integrated sold. *shrug* Money talks and bullshit walks.
My parents never sold when they could have made money from the house they purchased. My father passed in 1982 and I was in the middle of a divorce that same year so I moved back with mom and my 95 year old grandmother and bought her house from her. She moved then after the third time my grandmother was accosted walking home from church.
I lived in that West side neighborhood until 1989 when some dick pointed a gun in my wife’s face. I’d had them in mine before but that was enough. We moved to the East side and have been here ever since.
The thing that still mystifies me is that no one forced the whites out, they willingly sold and ever since have sounded like it was a diaspora of some kind. It was not a diaspora it was a fear induced migration spurred by a lack of understanding and an unwillingness to accept the migrated Southern Black Culture.
And that is a bit of the less well known history of Detroit.
Be Well
Excellent review Jules. I love Mark’s poems, and can only imagine this book is powerful beyond measure. Mark is a superb writer and I love his thinking.
Hi, Cat. So true! The book is very powerful. Thanks for reading. I hope your weekend is a good one.
Wow! If I ever have a book published, you’ll be the first to review it. As a Detroiter living in the innermost outer ring of a cold cold city, I’d have to say this portrayal is very very accurate. Also, because I see the worst side of Detroit in the angry eyes of criminals, I truly believe Mark’s book is aptly titled. I haven’t purchased a copy yet; but will on the day Mark & I meet. Hopefully soon. Very very soon.
Hi, JR. I look forward to the day when I can review your book:) I hope your prison stories will be included.
I’m glad that you and Mark are meeting. I hope that someday I can hear both you and Mark give a reading. That would be so cool.
Thanks much, JR. It’s great to see you.
Great review, Julie. It sounds like a timely, well-written book. We need to care about our neighbors. What better way than through poems?
Hello, Christine. You’re so right. A book of poems is a great way to spread the word, and we should all care. I also like how Mark says that “Stink is a cautionary tale as well as a snapshot of Detroit.”
Thanks so much, Christine. It’s always great to see you. You cheer me up on a Monday morning:)
TWM – Thanks for sharing your story here and in you poems. Until I read this, I really thought (provincial that I am) that the fear of integration was a southern phenomenon. I think this my be my own feeling of collective guilt at living in an area and time (graduated from high school in 1970) when racial prejudice was widespread. Although my generation were the ones here who abhorred it, sadly my parents’ generation perpetuated it. You can be proud of your own parents and their stand against that sort of blindness.
How sad that you were finally forced to leave. I have to wonder what could have prevented this sort of “stink” from entering our cities and our lives. No simple answers, I know.