I’ve known Karl Koweski, aka The Polish Hammer, since the early 2000s. I was first introduced to his writing through his column “Observations of a Dumb Polack” at Brian Fugett’s Zygote in my Coffee. Karl’s provocative, self-deprecating humor and big heart have kept me happily reading his work through Roadside Press and his column at The Literary Underground, “The Polish Hammer Poetry Corner,” in which he never shares any poetry whatsoever. We need a break sometimes, don’t we? Here, we talk about his roots in “the Region,” writing… and, since we’re all getting older—the places and people that have stayed with him.
MM: You describe yourself as a “displaced Region Rat.” What did growing up in the Region give you as a writer?
KK: It gave me everything. The Region, specifically, the Northside of Hammond, Indiana, the hometown of Jean Shepherd perhaps the greatest purveyor of observational humor who ever lived, where I came of age. I was lucky enough that my parents didn’t question my absences, growing up. I guess they figured the worst that could happen was that I’d just never come home again, and they made their peace with that. I grew up fairly poor, but so did all the other neighborhood kids. The economic downturn of the late seventies hit Hammond exceptionally hard. And their parents didn’t want them inside any more than my folks did. So we’d run the streets, pick-up football games at Pulaski Park or homerun derbies at Hermit’s Park. I was forced to be a social creature. And if I wasn’t throwing crab apples at cars, or sniping eighteen-wheelers with BB guns, I was at the library reading whatever I could get my hands on. There were so many places that felt unique to me that I don’t think I would have experienced growing up anywhere else. You had Lake Michigan down the street, water stretching out to the horizon. Chicago a little further away. There was St. Casimir Church where I learned to steal wine and dodge handsy priests, catering to my spiritual needs. The esoteric bookstore run by a psychic who managed to guess wrong about every fucking thing that applied to my future. Goldblatt’s flea market where you could buy cheap paperbacks and Chinese stars, aiding in my desire to become the most literate ninja in the region. There was the dregs of the once mighty Sin Strip along State Street. Hammond didn’t have a town drunk. It had an army of town drunks. All of them shuffling shirtless from one corner bar to the next. There was the most isolated, pathetic adult bookstore in the entire northwest nestled off state line behind the cigarette stand among a thatch of mostly abandoned buildings. All this filtered into my mind mixed just right and poured out of my pen. I’m still trying to capture the emotional resonance of growing up in The Region during that time frame. I think it’s going to take me at least two more books to get it all down.
MM: What do you miss about the region now that you live in Alabama? What do you see more clearly from a distance?
KK: First and foremost, I miss my brothers. I have three younger brothers who live in The Region. We’ve all stayed exceptionally close (or, for me, as close as you can possibly be when you live sixty hundred and sixty-six miles away). They are three of the best people I know. I only get to see them once a year if I’m lucky. But, then, we all work long hours at our respective jobs and wouldn’t be able to run the streets together half as much as we’d want. I miss them, though. I also miss the food, something I manage to work into any conversation I have about Hammond. Living in rural Alabama, you just can’t get the simple delicacies I used to take for granted when I lived back home. Arnie’s hot dogs is at the top of the list. I must have eaten ten thousand Arnies chili cheese dogs with a side of cheese fries. Usually washed down with a Pepsi half full of Malibu Rum pour from the pocket pint. Monster gyros from Munster Gyros. Zel’s roast beef sammiches. Giant shrimp from Bob’s Shrimp on Calumet. Greek style pizza from Larry’s Pizza on Gostlin. Good, greasy pizza encrusted with their secret blend of herbs. Show me a Greek diner and I will be there with a fistful of cash. The Mexican short order cooks at those Greek diners cook their asses off. If you’re hungry in rural Alabama, unless you like smoked pork, you can fuck right off. And I guess that’s for the best. If I still lived in the Region, I’d be buried in Holy Cross Cemetery, right now. Congestive heart failure, or a ruptured pancreas and shriveled liver with such easy access to Okocim, the greatest beer brewed in the dumbest fucking country not run by Trump. I miss living in such close proximity to Chicago. I miss the corner bars. I miss my honorary Koweski brothers and the sense we were always a step away from creating the sort of mischief that would become legend in every watering hole between Scarlet’s Lounge and Mister Joe’s Tap. Two bars that seemed integral to my social life thirty years ago. Jesus, you know, it’s not only the geography but the moment in time I miss. I wrote an entire novel commemorating it. I also miss the frame of mind I possessed which allowed me to enjoy that place and time to the fullest extent. It seems its all behind me, now.
Revisiting the Region after living in rural Alabama, what strikes me most is how close everything is to each other. I only had a sliver of yard growing up, but it seemed egregious compared to the other patches of yard. Every house is right on top of each other. You look out the window right into the front room window of your neighbor. Obviously, it never bothered me in my youth; I just accept things as the only way they could be. Now, I live on a twenty-three-acre spread with a mountain in my backyard and absolute peace, no one constantly walking the sidewalks outside my house, no roar of trains or diesel whine of eighteen wheelers. I suppose it’s why I’ve never gone back for anything more than an extended visit. I need my solitude.
MM: What first made you want to write about the people and places you knew?
KK: That’s where it all begins, right? Watching the people you know going about their business in places you know. I knew fairly early on I wanted to write with an eye toward publication. It’s one thing to write glorified journal entries. I knew I wanted to write stories, maybe not for the masses, but at least for like-minded people who might be interested in reading whatever poems or stories I set to paper. Reading is of absolute importance to anyone who wants to write seriously; sharpening one’s observational skills is a close number two. I wouldn’t call it a failure of imagination, I’m always most comfortable describing the streets I’ve walked, the areas I’ve visited and studied. Plot for me is nowhere near as important as character. If I create a compelling enough character, that character will lead me through the adventure simply by making the decisions I know the character will make. My writing has vastly improved in the last thirty years only because my understanding of the people around me has been refined through countless conversations and just listening. Everybody wants to tell you their story. Rather than tune out and say “that’s crazy” after every uncomfortable pause, I pay attention. I file shit in the back of my mind. Writing a weekly column helps in that I’m constantly recording the minutiae of everyday occurrences, maybe a little exaggerated. Not as much as one would hope. I want my stories to read like living, breathing reality. The best way to do that is to cleave as close to my everyday reality as I can.
MM: Your work can be brutally funny and unexpectedly tender. Is that how you see the world, or is it something you discovered on the page?
KK: “Brutally funny and unexpectedly tender” could be the title of my autobiography. For me and for my style of writing, the two must go hand in hand. Aggressive humor without pervasive empathy would make an asshole out of me. Pure tenderness without the bite of satire I feel would defang my writing, make a schmuck out of me, and reduce every word out of me to the schmaltziness of a dollar store Hallmark card. My entire life I’ve sought to strike a balance between the two. They’ve never been mutually exclusive, but it is a challenge not to go too far in either direction. A caustic wit comes far more naturally to me than emotional connection. Jokes come quicker than hugs. Though, as I age, I’m becoming increasingly comfortable with my vulnerable side. Understanding and embracing the foibles of my fellow man has become almost as rewarding as simply backhanding a fool and calling him a “jackass.”
MM: You collect pop culture ephemera. What’s an object, song, or TV show that can take you straight back to the Region?
KK: Collecting the pop culture ephemera I do is firmly rooted in childhood nostalgia, integrally tied, of course, to The Region of my youth. These tokens I’ve gathered are a form of mental time travel for me. I can look at the Hammerhead, mint on a twelve back Star Wars card, and I’m instantly transported back to the Goldblatt’s department store in the downtown Hammond of the late nineteen-seventies. I have vivid memories of stalking behind my mother and grandmother through the aisles of crap knowing if I just kept my mouth shut and my facial expressions schooled, I might get an action figure at the end of all this for being so well-behaved. I’d always turn down the Luke Skywalkers and the Han Solos for the creatures of Mos Eisley cantina, characters that might have had a few seconds of screen time. I loved the monsters. Still do.
My Ozzy Osbourne Randy Rhoads tribute album takes me back to being a twelve year-old metal head, going into Hegewisch Records out on Torrence Avenue in Calumet City and buying the album with my paper route money along with the Def Leppard T-shirt Joe Eliot wore in the Pour Some Sugar on Me video. This was back before you could tap a button on your phone and hear the entirety of the record. Every album purchased was a gamble. Goldblatts and Hegewisch Records are long gone. I can close my eyes and see both in minute detail. The band shirts hanging from the rafters of Hegewisch Records like the banners of tribes you wish you could be a part of. The first album I bought there was Iron Maiden’s Seventh Son of a Seventh Son. The last album purchased there not too long before I relocated to Alabama was Marilyn Manson’s Portrait of an American Family.
My collection of Clive Barker signed first editions calls to mind trips to B. Dalton bookstore in River Oaks Mall when it was still outdoors. Weaveworld was the first Barker novel I read. The paperback cover art gripped my imagination. I was a horror junkie in my early teens, and Barker’s epic dark fantasies remain a safe space I can nestle my mind within.
My comic book collection harkens me back to Amazing Fantasy comic book shop in its original location before it moved onto Torrence a half block down from Hegewisch Records and across the street from Scarlet’s Lounge, my favorite bar back then. I remember pulling Amazing Spiderman #300, first full appearance of Venom, right off the new issue shelf. Six years later, once they began incorporating countercultural books into their inventory, I remember pulling the first of many Bukowski books I would buy from them. That would have been War All the Time.
Karl Koweski is a displaced Region Rat now living in rural Alabama. He writes when his pen allows it. He’s a husband to a lovely wife and father to some fantastic kids. He collects pop culture ephemera. On most days he prefers Flash Gordon to Luke Skywalker and Neil Diamond to Elvis Presley.
THE POLISH HAMMER POETRY CORNER is a weekly column, posted each Tuesday morning right here at The Literary Underground’s IN CONVERSATION.
Under Normal Conditions by Karl Koweski is available at https://www.magicaljeep.com/product/normal/145
Abandoned by All Things by Karl Koweski is available at
https://www.magicaljeep.com/product/abandon/164
Thrift Store Jackets by Karl Koweski is available at https://www.magicaljeep.com/product/thrift/181
Mister Joe’s Pirates (The Region Rats Trilogy, Volume 1) by Karl Koweski is available at https://www.magicaljeep.com/product/pirates/PHGJOLRPFEHVPPXOWSLQ6CZK
