The Columbus Anthology

by Amanda Page (Editor)

Overview

Columbus, Ohio, is a place whose identity centers on its supposed lack of identity—an American “every place” that has launched countless chain dining concepts. Enter the contributors to this wide-ranging volume, who are all too happy to fight back against that reputation, even as they recognize it as an inevitable facet of the ever-growing city they call home. “Maybe we’re not having trouble designing a definitive identity,” writes Amanda Page in her introduction. “Maybe we are a city that is constantly considering what it will become.”
Race, sports, the endless squeeze of gentrification, the city’s booming literary and comics scenes, its reputation as a haven for queer life, the sometimes devastating differences in perspective among black and white, native and transplant residents—and more than one tribute to Buckeye Donuts—make this anthology a challenging and an energizing read. From Hanif Abdurraqib’s sparkling and urgent portrait of Columbus’s vital immigrant culture as experienced through Crew games to Nick Dekker’s insights into breakfast as a vehicle for getting to know a city to the poetry of Maggie Smith and Ruth Awad, the pieces gathered here show us a Columbus far more textured than any test marketer could dream up.
 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780814277706
Publisher:	Ohio State University Press
Publication date:	03/17/2020
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	184
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Amanda Page is an essayist and educator in Columbus, Ohio.

Read an Excerpt

In roller derby, you’re constantly being told to get low to the ground, and to stay low. This form keeps your center of gravity in check, making you, as a player, harder to knock down. I became known for how low to the ground I could get when I skated. I would make an entire lap around the track, my butt inches from the ground, and then pull myself back up to full height. I did squats to keep in that shape, roughly counting myself down at the gym or even in my own living room. At practice, I would find I could spend two hours sweating and pushing, making my body move with force, and then realize after that I hadn’t thought about politics at all, not even once. The same could not be said for any other two-hour periods of non-practice days, when I scrolled numbly through Twitter and refreshed the Washington Post’s website anxiously.

At practice, I felt myself getting more sturdy and confident on wheels, but I still struggled to hit other players hard enough to make an impact. That changed when I learned my signature move.

One weekend that season, we had a clinic with a visiting skater named Sarah Hipel, from another league. It was an all-day training in mid-April; it was humid, and North Korea was broadcasting to the U.S. that it was ready for war if necessary. Airstrikes were happening in Syria, Sean Spicer had just tried to convince the American people that Hitler never used chemical weapons, and Steve Bannon was still somehow important and dangerous. We were tired and hot, but we were there for practice anyway.

Sarah showed us some moves for “juking,” when you fake out your opponent by making them incorrectly guess which direction you’ll be going next. Then she added onto the move, by showing how you could trick your enemy by changing direction, but also hurt them in the process, by getting low to ground and then popping back up to hit them as you change route at the last second. As soon as I saw Sarah crouch down the way I’d been doing, I knew I wanted to master this trick. It was a simple move, but one I’d never seen before. I tried it that day and hit my practice partner squarely with my shoulder as I streaked past, knocking them out of my way. Pushing up with my shoulders instead of over, using my hips, turned out to be key for me, and I thought about the signs I raised above them in protest during the weeks and months before.

I may have become a one-trick pony, but I could finally give a hit as well as I could take one.

Living and skating in three different cities and states is an experience I wouldn’t give back. It’s still fun to visit Chicago and Portland and see my old teammates play, and I’m glad for the perspective I was granted by each. But nothing can change the fact that Ohio has always felt the most like home. It’s here where my family can come see me play without hopping a plane, and I can teach my nieces how to skate at the same roller rink where I learned. It’s here where I know three dozen teammates I can call if I want to support the Parkland students’ efforts downtown in a local March for Our Lives. And it’s here where I know I can learn in an environment in which everyone knows we’re all just learning, and trying to do better.

Columbus is a place full of badass women, and they showed me that I am as well. And it’s a place that has always known how to land a hit.

Thanks to the city, I finally do, too.

Table of Contents

THE COLUMBUS ANTHOLOGY Edited and with an Introduction by Amanda Page Half Title Page Title Page Copyright Page Contents Columbus by MAGGIE SMITH Introduction by AMANDA PAGE Five Reasons Why Writers Should Move to Columbus by ANNIE McGREEVY Buckeye to All That by MANDY SHUNNARAH I’m Here to Win by HARMONY COX Art in a City That Can Kill You by SCOTT WOODS Every Day I Ride the Bus by DAVID BREITHAUPT Swole for the Revolution by MERYL WILLIAMS The Blue Jackets Have Turned Columbus into a Major League City by JEFF SVOBODA Sitting Out the Anthem: Reflections on the Columbus Blue Jackets, Racism, and Protest by DAN SKINNER Military Appreciation: An Everygame Affair What the Hell Is a Blue Jacket? A New Norm Anthems, Protests, and Hockey Hockey, Race, and the Politics of Protest Sitting It Out in the Age of Trump In a City Marked by Change, Columbus Crew SC Remains a Powerful, Unifying Force by HANIF ABDURRAQIB The City That Raised Me Has a New Face by TIFFANY WILLIAMS What Would Jane Say? by SARAH MARSOM Where the Sidewalk Ends by STACY JANE GROVER Life in Franklinton by GREG PHILLIPS Breakfast with Columbus by NICK DEKKER Consider the Johnny Marzetti by SHELLEY MANN HITE What Ain’t to Be, Just Might Happen Pre-Fab City One History of Columbus Music Welcome to Flat City The Columbus Sound Can’t Last by BELA KOE-KROMPECHER Van Sciver in Columbus by NOAH VAN SCIVER In the Silent City She’s Yearned For by JEN TOWN Cactus by JEN TOWN Diorama Turned to Ashes by JEN TOWN Black Woman Repetition (After Terrance Hayes) by BARBARA FANT Magic Before/Before Magic by BARBARA FANT Long Line of Strong Women by BARBARA FANT Transplant by FAYCE HAMMOND Fear of Fuel by FAYCE HAMMOND Main Street by ROSE M. SMITH Billboard, 2013 by ROSE M. SMITH Ackerman Place by PSYCHE NORTH TOROK Nighthawks: (Buckeye Donuts) by JOSEPH HESS American Folklore by ADAM J. GELLINGS The Whales Are Always Feeding by ETHAN RIVERA Justice Be Like by ETHAN RIVERA Shapes Heard Free by DARREN DEMAREE Do the Right Thing by CHARLENE FIX Ornithology by GEOFF ANDERSON Phasmophobia by GEOFF ANDERSON Flyover Country by STEVE ABBOTT Hold Me Like Ohio by AMY TURN SHARP Summertime by ROBERT COLBY Walking in the Topiary Park After Snowfall in February by JEREMY GLAZIER On the First Snowfall by WILL EVANS Auribus Teneo Lupum by WILL EVANS The New Oath by HANNAH STEPHENSON Table Manners by FARIHA TAYYAB Thanksgiving by FARIHA TAYYAB The Dead Walk Over Your Land by RUTH AWAD Inventory of What Remains by RUTH AWAD Taillights by RUTH AWAD Some Friday by ANDREW ANDERSON Acknowledgments Contributors Belt Publishing Series Page

Editorial Reviews

"Most all of us have love/hate relationships with our hometowns. But what's remarkable here are the myriad lenses through which the writers in this anthology view Columbus, its residents, its histories and everchanging present. This is a bountiful collection I will read again and again!" --Kathy Fagan, author of Sycamore

"What a vibrant, diverse collection of voices. The Columbus Anthology is a memorable chorus from a city too often overlooked." --Lee Martin, author of Pulitzer Prize-finalist The Bright Forever

From the Publisher