Slow Trains Overheard: Chicago Poems and Stories

(The University of Chicago Press) Gibbons’ stories and poems detail everyday life in Chicago. The pieces crisscross the city, taking place in a variety of locations, from museums and juvenile court to O’Hare airport. Each poem or story recounts a particular slice of human experience — a chance encounter with a veteran, domestic violence in a North Side brownstone. Gibbons is a professor of English and classics, director of the Center for the Writing Arts, and co-director of the M.A./M.F.A. Program in Creative Writing at Northwestern University.