A former Rockford resident said living in the city inspired him to write again after a 15-year hiatus. He took these experiences and strung them together in his latest poetry book that came out July 11.
Richard Vargas’s new book is “The Screw City Poems.” Screw City is one of Rockford’s nicknames. The city was a major hub for the manufacturing of screws, bolts, and other machinery in the 20th century.
Vargas started writing poems in junior high school, but he was in love with the craft before that. He said he was a ferocious reader.
“When I would go into the beginning of a new school year, they would always hand us out that anthology that we would be reading from throughout the year,” he said. “Well, the first thing I would do is skim through it and look for all the poems, because they were short. I could read them in one take.”
Vargas always wanted to be a singer or a musician, but that wasn’t his talent. Writing poetry gave him a voice.
The author tackles topics most people may not even speak of in everyday conversation. This book shows how free Vargas’s pen is. His inspirations include visits to McDonald’s, his works as a call center agent, and even prostitutes.
This freedom came from discovering German-American writer Charles Bukowski. Vargas said Bukowski’s work reminded him that he didn’t have to write like the poetry he read in the American Poetry Review.
“He was writing about everything,” Vargas said, “…going to the track and betting, listening to classical music on the radio, you know, getting in a fight with his girlfriend, whatever, it was all there.”
Vargas grew up in Compton, California. He said there’s a lot of great childhood memories, but his father developed a drug problem and died of a heroin overdose when Vargas was 10.
While attending California State University, Long Beach, Vargas published The Tequilla Review. The magazine had five issues from 1978 to 1980. Years later, from 2009 to 2015, he published The Mas Tequilla Review. This publication featured poets across the country. His own work was published in magazines like the Wormwood Review, which ran from 1959 until 1999.
Vargas said one bad decision made him leave the Golden State.
“I had my one and only ever DUI,” he said, “and I had to spend the night in jail, and it woke me up, and I thought, I need to get out of California. And I figured if I joined the military, I'd get all this material I could keep on writing.”
He couldn’t reconnect with his pen. He met someone from Rockford who was also in the military. They married and he moved back to California. Still the words weren’t showing up.
But when they moved to Rockford in 1995 it opened something up for him. His pen and paper were reunited after 15 years apart.
“It gave me permission to be who I wanted to be,” Vargas explained, “who I was always meant to be. I didn't have to live up to anybody's standards or expectations. I could be anybody I wanted to be, and I went back to being a writer.”
Vargas's sixth poetry collection, “The Screw City Poems,” takes readers on a journey from the Irish Rose restaurant to Logli Supermarket, and even to see his barber, Carla.
Vargas said right now he is focusing on promoting the book. He has readings this month through October.
