Lydia Tomkiw (August 6, 1959 – September 4, 2007) was an American poet, singer, and songwriter, best known for her work with the new wave musical group Algebra Suicide, along with her husband Don Hedeker.
By 1975, gang violence and crime in Humboldt Park had become untenable and the family moved to an apartment in Ukrainian Village, a vibrant hub of the émigré community.
In particular, Chernoff thought Tomkiw would flourish under the tutelage of her husband, Paul Hoover, who served as poet-in-residence and taught a highly respected poetry workshop for undergraduates.
His first breakout student, Elaine Equi, was followed by a core group that came to include Connie Deanovich, Deborah Pintonelli, Sue Greenspan, Karen Murai, Lorri Jackson, and Sharon Mesmer.
A strong, midwestern practicality fortified the prevailing DIY ethos: art fueled and formed less by questions of fashion and style than the imperatives of craft and expression.
Bars like O'Banion's, Tut's, and Lucky Number all hosted readings in between punk shows by locals like DA, Tutu and the Pirates, and Naked Raygun, and touring acts like the Dead Kennedys, TSOL, and Hüsker Dü.
It began to be published regularly, by small regional and literary presses like Another Chicago Magazine, Thunder Egg, Hair Trigger, Wormwood Review, and Permafrost.
Meanwhile, one of her farflung submissions made a powerful impression on a young, precocious UK poet named Martin Stannard, who in 1978 had begun publishing a small occasional review called joe soap's canoe.
The song "True Romance at the World's Fair" was selected by the New York-based new wave magazine Trouser Press for inclusion on its trailblazing 1983 compilation, The Best of America Underground.
Momentum and interest were gathering behind Algebra Suicide and crucially for Tomkiw's identity as a poet, nearly all the critics recognized the fundamental poetic aspect of the project.
Algebra Suicide began booking performances beyond the Chicago circuit, playing in Milwaukee, Lexington, Cincinnati, and Pittsburgh, with favorable reviews accumulating in alternative magazines like Trouser Press and Option.
In 1987, the band released The Secret Like Crazy on the Massachusetts-based label RRRecords and in Europe on the West German Dom Elchklang imprint, essentially becoming Algebra Suicide's international debut.
Shortly after, another German label, Pursuit of Market Share, released a live recording from a performance at Chicago's Links Hall entitled Real Numbers.
The band returned to New York that summer for the 1992 New Music Seminar and Tomkiw participated in a reading curated by Richard Hell at the Poetry Project at St. Mark's Church.
She retained the same basic template as Algebra Suicide, but employed various collaborators and producers, including members of Sosumi, Reality Scare, Martin Bowes of Attrition, and Edward Ka-Spel of the Legendary Pink Dots.
The resulting record, Incorporated, while not far removed from her work in Algebra Suicide, broadened the sonic palette in interesting ways, inflecting her poetic delivery with fresh industrial, techno, and ambient touches.
She began booking readings and making connections in the New York contemporary poetry circuit falling in with the Unbearables, a circle of downtown writers and artists founded by Ron Kolm and Bart Plantenga.
However, finding it arduous and discouraging to plug into the insular, tightly knit world of New York City bohemia, Tomkiw's efforts began to sputter and she quickly soured.
In 2004, after a period of aimlessness, false starts & dissipation, Tomkiw's widowed mother asked her daughter to join her in Sun City, Arizona, where she now lived.
This collection presents all of her publications in facsimile editions, and gathers together more than 180 uncollected poems, accounting for all her Algebra Suicide releases as well as Incorporated, her final solo work.
It features an introduction by Paul Hoover, a recollection by Sharon Mesmer, and a consideration of Algebra Suicide by music critic/Trouser Press editor Ira Robbins.