I PROMISE NOT TO BEHAVE
In the late seventies, Lydia Tomkiw, a precocious, inventive poet and a beguiling new wave chanteuse, blazed out from Chicago’s intertwined worlds of poetry and punk rock. Her trajectory stands as a thrilling testament to the independent do-it-yourself ethos—that the journey from Chicago’s Ukrainian Village to the inaugural volume of Best American Poetry can be made via basements and nightclubs, armed with little more than restless imagination, words, office xerox machines, and moxie. Tomkiw’s poetry is both innovative and entertaining—formally playful, rigorously perceptive, delightfully surreal, and fueled by her singular, sexy charm. Tomkiw emerged alongside a circle of immensely talented poets, mostly women, including Elaine Equi, Connie Dea no vich, and Sharon Mesmer. Collectively they invigorated American urban poetry and cleared paths for more vital, raucous, and fiercely female verse. In their scene lay the roots of now-established forms like slam and spoken word. With her acclaimed band Algebra Suicide—designed explicitly as a vehicle for her poetry—Tomkiw pushed the boundaries of poetic performance, while also leaving behind a series of unassailably terrific records.
However, after fifteen promising, trailblazing years, Tomkiw and her career dramatically unraveled and fell apart. Algebra Suicide’s enduring reputation amongst devotees of left-field new wave has ensured that her music remains in print and accessible. Meanwhile, Tomkiw’s poetry swiftly slid into obscurity and soon fell hopelessly out of print.
The recent publication of Lydia Tomkiw Poems, a compressive reissue of her long-sought-after work, provides an opportunity to rediscover an exhilarating and important voice in American poetry.
Lydia Tomkiw was born in Chicago’s Humboldt Park neighborhood in 1959, to Ukrainian immigrants. The Tomkiws were intense, hardworking, and quarrelsome. Arguments were frequent, exacerbated by drink, the wreckage of many an evening ending with hastily packed suitcases and slammed doors. Amidst the tumult at home, Tomkiw’s parents scarcely noticed the concurrent disintegration of the neighborhood outside. It was not unusual for Tomkiw and her brother John, two years younger, to catch sight of full-on brawls spilling across their front lawn. Often frightened and constantly wary, Tomkiw holed up inside her house and lost herself amidst the landscape of her imagination—reading, drawing, writing.
In the midst of this turbulence, Tomkiw’s mother anchored herself by doting on her daughter. Creative and precocious, in her mother’s estimation Tomkiw was a child of singular gifts—smart, witty, crafty, and endlessly charming. Drenched with attention and adulation, Tomkiw developed a potent blend of self-confidence and self-regard, a forceful charisma that at first proved a volatile and often alienating mix. Friendships imploded abruptly and birthday parties were sometimes celebrated bereft of any invited guests.
Meanwhile, her father remained taciturn, stern, self-involved, and decidedly uninterested in his daughter’s creative inclinations. The gulf between them was already palpable, and throughout Tomkiw’s life their relationship would remain difficult and fraught.
Chicago’s poetry scene… was particularly lively at the time, centered on boisterous readings at the Body Politic Theatre.
Tomkiw’s creativity and aptitude secured her a spot at the selective Lane Technical High School, on Chicago’s North Side, where students received intensive, career-focused instruction. She chose art, which meant her curriculum was built around long-form studio classes, supplemented by instruction in the practical applications of commercial art and design.
At Lane, Tomkiw’s stridency mellowed, and her personality deepened, and she emerged a scintillating, bighearted young teenager. While she was passionately dedicated to her artistic endeavors, socially she was typically all-American. Long, lustrous hair and bangs; jazz dance; pom-poms; track team captain boyfriend—Tomkiw’s high school years passed by agreeably, a series of Archie comics panels.
During these years Tomkiw wrote constantly. Partly these were the classic habits of the free-range, sensitive, North American girl—promiscuous journaling, writing stories and poems. But these proclivities alerted her early to poetry’s potential and pull, and in particular, she developed an affinity for the idiosyncratic Victorian poet Gerard Manley Hopkins. (Coincidentally, Hopkins would prefigure many of Tomkiw’s qualities as a poet—he first set out to be a painter, turned to poetry that was characterized by striking imagery, conversational language, and formal playfulness; his sister Grace would set many of his poems to music.)
In 1977, Tomkiw enrolled as an art major at University of Illinois at Chicago Circle, which boasted a rigorous and extremely competitive art program. Once there, however, she almost immediately found herself outclassed by other students. Her imagination often outpaced her skills, which stubbornly remained decent, but unexceptional.
Tomkiw did not do “unexceptional” with much grace, and growing frustrated, she began to
