*Ongoing until April 1, poems for Poetry Cram Volume 13 will be selected from the Contemporary American Poetry Prize entries, click here for details.
*Fri, Dec 16, 7:30 PM, Real Talk Live, featuring Lynne Procope, Chance tha Rapper, Scott Whitehair, and St. Moses the Black Santa, at Elastic Arts, 2830 N Milwaukee 2nd Floor, BYOB, $7, 18+
*Sat, Dec 17, 8;30 PM, support the open mic scene at the Bad News Bible Church with featured guest Stevie Edwards, West Side School for the Desperate, 3608 W. Wrightwood Ave, 18+, $5 suggested donation.
*Sat, Dec 17, 8 PM, 3rd Saturday Coffeehouse, Unity Temple in Oak Park, 875 Lake Street in Downtown Oak Park, presents and open mic for poets, musicians, and storytellers, with special guest John Hasbrouck & Matt Gandurski, $3-$5 donation.
*Sat, Dec 17, 3 PM, well the tacky promo poster for the show says "Don't Call Us Poets" and with that I'll simply have to agree. Two of the most egotistical people living in the city of Chicago will feature for this month's Café Mestizo (1738 W. 18th St.) event, but if you can put up with the same old shit from two of the trouble makers who managed to drum up last year's hysteria that scared everyone else away from the open mic scene so they can feature themselves over and over and over and yes over once again, the venue is otherwise a great space to perform your open mic poem.
*Sun, Dec 18, 1 to 4 PM, Celebration of Lee Groban's Life and Work, Packer Schopf Gallery, 942 W. Lake St., Chicago, IL 60607. Friends and family are encouraged to bring their stories about Lee, as well as artistic, written or musical tributes, and to dress in Lee’s style if you wish. If you would like to make a presentation during the event, please email dickolson@comcast.net and cc dgo@esoplaw.com to allocate time.
*Mon, Dec 19, 8 PM, one of the longest running open mics in Chicago, Mental Graffiti, continues it's rollicking good times at its new location, Cole's Bar, 2338 N Milwaukee Ave, with a slam and featured guest Kevin Kern, sign-up at 7:30, 21+
*Mon, Dec 19: The Waiting 4 The Bus "collective" is to the Chicago Poetry Scene what karaoke is to the Chicago Music Scene. If you perform, you'll probably get applauded regardless of the quality of your writing or performance; if you attend again and again it will become a social event where you can proudly wear the button of mediocrity that says "We Are ALL Chicago Poetry"; but no matter how many times you participate, the event is never going to magically transform into fine art--because, let's face it, when it comes to art, you either have it or you don't have it, and if you have it, you don't need to wear a button to prove it. and you have better places to share it than at a karaoke bar. After all, we AREN'T "all" Chicago Poetry, just like we aren't all Chicago Music. Like a karaoke bar getting a rare visit from an actual vocalist, once in a while someone who actually knows how to write is invited to read for W4TB. This time that someone is Jan Bottiglieri.
*Wed, Dec 21, 7:30 PM, put on an ugly Christmas sweater and come mingle with the Revolving Door Jingle & Mingle featuring Adam Jameson, 1825 S. Halsted Gallery
*Tue, Dec 27, 7:30 PM, Lylanne Musselman will take the TallGrass Writers Guild spotlight upstairs in the newly opened, right-hand side of The Bourgeois Pig, 738 West Fullerton, followed by one of the most respected open mics in the city, $6 / $5 for students.
*Fri, Dec 30, I've been biting my tongue about the self-proclaimed Chicago School Of Poetics because I've been waiting to see what comes out of it but allow me to speak frankly. The "school of poetics" is the brainchild of Francesco Levato, who has a real knack for making himself appear important simply by announcing himself the founder of really official sounding things. He did serve as Director of the Poetry Center of Chicago and despite quite literally running it into the ground, his position there didn't hurt his own writing career any and for some reason they still collaborate with him. Through abuse of that position, he managed to send himself to Berlin to feature his own poetry videos, and now he has that to brag about on his resume as well. He attempted to turn the center's formerly free Big Table workshops into high priced classes and then posted himself in the position of workshop leader. Then he announced himself founder of something called Plastique Press, with which he published his own book and now he claims to be the author of four books of poetry (another one of his books is available only as a free download from vanity publisher LuLu). Now he's announced himself as the founder of the oh-so-official sounding Chicago School Of Poetics, which is charging $400 per class and claims to offer an awful lot for something that hasn't even started doing anything yet. The scary part is, Levato's self-invention works for him. People are fooled by his impressive sounding credentials, not knowing they are totally self-invented, and they offer him real opportunities that he actually has no qualifications for. Anyway, today is the last day for registration for Levato's new "school" and here's a link to it so that you can decide for yourself if it's worth $400 or if it truly represents "Chicago poetics".
*Wed, Jan 18, 7 PM, tonight Janet Kuypers will attempt to launch a new poetry open mic at Gallery Cabaret, to be held on the 1st, 3rd and sometimes 5th Wednesday of the month. What does this have to do with "The Café"? Well, nothing, of course. Just for the record, "The Café" open mic was a Tuesday night open mic hosted by David Rubin that started off at Café Aloha, which was once at Montrose and Lincoln. Café Aloha had some sort of kitchen fire and some time after that the guy who owned it, Baci, moved his business up the street to 5115 N. Lincoln. But host David Rubin had to leave Chicago, so he handed his Tuesday open mic to Charlie Newman, who had a lot of success with it for years, really, they were good years for Chicago Poetry, until a regular named JJ Jameson turned out to be an escaped fugitive named Norman Porter, and after that it kind of went to shit. Next thing you knew, Charlie handed The Café to Janet Kuypers, a poet who claimed she had been published nearly 10,000 times, and a required two dollar cover and a two drink minimum was added to the pass the hat donation. The event then got bumped to Sunday afternoons and finally it was cancelled altogether. So, really, the only thing that a Wednesday night poetry open mic at Gallery Cabaret has in common with The Café is Janet Kuypers. Now, I remember back in the early 90s when there was a really cool Wednesday open mic at Gallery Cabaret, hosted by Gregorio Gomez. He would pack that place, sometimes with 50 or 100 people. It was open to all and there weren't any W4TB goons plotting to turn you into the IRS or whatever. But then Gallery Cabaret got cockroaches. Seriously. There would be dozens of cockroaches just crawling around on the bar and tables. Years later, I hosted an event there for the Bucktown Arts Fest and to my astonishment, it STILL had cockroaches. I had to wonder if the owner Kenny ever heard of a freakin' fogger, but he didn't seem to mind them. As a matter of fact, he even had a cockroach shrine of sorts, as if he was proud the place had cockroaches. But, dude, having cockroaches isn't cool, you know, because they get in your backpack and up your pants leg and then you bring them home with you and then YOU have cockroaches. Now, granted, I haven't been to The Café since Kuypers took it over and I haven't been to Gallery Cabaret for just as long, so I'm just sayin'.
*Fri, Jan 20, 7:30 PM, The Book Cellar, 4736 N Lincoln Ave, hosts “Drowning in Paper” themed reading by Tallgrass Writers Guild poets.
*Sat, Jan 21, 8 PM, 3rd Saturday Coffeehouse, Unity Temple in Oak Park, 875 Lake Street in Downtown Oak Park, presents and open mic for poets, musicians, and storytellers, with special guest Randy Brooks, $3-$5 donation.
*Sat, Feb 18, 8 PM, 3rd Saturday Coffeehouse, Unity Temple in Oak Park, 875 Lake Street in Downtown Oak Park, presents and open mic for poets, musicians, and storytellers, with special guest Carlos Cumpian, $3-$5 donation.
*Fri, March 2, 7 PM, Tonight is a night of lit parties to kick off the AWP conference. Zenith Beast presents Reading Between the Lines: An AWP Offsite Event featuring a bunch of poets including Fred Arroyo, Sarah Carson, Larry O. Dean, Ben Tanzer, Snezana Zabic, and many, many other poets, at The Horseshoe, 4115 N. Lincoln Ave.
*Fri, March 2, 7 PM, The Beautiful Words AWP Event will take place at The Beauty Bar, 1444 W. Chicago Ave, and it also will feature a slew of poets, including Kim Addonizio, Vanessa Veselka, Stacy Bierlein, Tod Goldberg, Shannon Cason and many more, sponsored by ten great lit orgs including The Nervous Breakdown, Bookslut, Curbside Splendor, and Sunday Salon Chicago.
*Fri, March 2, 8 PM, and the night of lit parties continues at Lincoln Hall, 2424 N. Lincoln Ave, with a party benefiting Young Chicago Authors, featuring Tim Kinsella, Dorothea Lasky, Mary Miller and more with hosts Zach Dodson and Lindsay Hunter and sponsored by School of the Art Institute of Chicago Writing Program, featherproof, Wave Books and a bunch of other great orgs
*Sat, April 28, ChicagoPoetry.com celebrates its 13th year with the release of Cram Volume 13 at the Poetry Fest at Harold Washington Library, details TBA.
*Coming in 2012: City of the Big Shoulders: An Anthology of Chicago Poetry (University of Iowa Press)
