Who: Reconstruction Room
What: Don’t Call Me Mother, curated by Ellen Placey Wadey
When: Wednesday, June 3, 8:00 p.m.
Where: Black Rock bar, 3614 N. Damen Ave. – FREE

When Morley Safer interviewed Helen Mirren on 60 Minutes, he asked, “Do you ever regret not having children?” She answered, “No. Absolutely not.” Did Safer ever ask that question of a male interviewee?

In typical Rec Room fashion, the upcoming event on Wednesday challenges our dominant culture – this time questioning why our society doesn’t like to think about women who choose not to have (or didn’t get around to having) children, and are as happy as a dry baby’s butt with their decision.

“We’ve got the virgin narrative, the thank-god-I-found-a-partner-before-I-got-too-old-to-have-babies narrative, the infertility narrative, the single-by-choice mother narrative, the all-became-right-with-me-and-the-world-when-I-had-my-child narrative and the adoption narrative all firmly established with a spot on our how-to and even literary bookshelves.”

Statistics show the numbers of women not having kids are significant and rising, but it’s still hard to find books on the subject. Props to the Rec Room brains for birthing this topic into light. Readings by Lisa Alvarado, Carl Marcum, Allison Gruber, Miki Howald, Kelly Kleiman, Sadie Pfannkuche, and Ellen Placey Wadey – all unafraid to stand up and be counted as childless and guilt-free, proudly reporting, “We’re not broken. We’re not selfish. Don’t call us mother. We’re fine with it.”

Title: The Chicago Poetry Tour Premiere

Date: June 6, 2009

Time: 5:00 PM

Location and Address: Arts and Poetry Stage at Printers Row Lit Fest

Participants: Danielle Chapman, Marion Coleman, Stuart Dybek, Reginald Gibbons, Bucky Halker, Gretchen Kalwinski of Literago, Quraysh Ali Lansana, Haki Madhubuti, Molly Meacham, Peter O’Leary, Bill Savage, Marc Smith, Ellen Placey Wadey, Christian Wiman, and Stephen Young. (photo: Karen Hoyt)

So the Poetry Foundation website has this great page where you can download neighborhood poetry tours – including photos, songs, and archival recordings – for free and play them on your MP3 player.  The series’ official debut (note crackerjack lineup above) is at Printers Row Lit Fest next Saturday. Participants will read both new work and covers. The only thing we can think of that might be better is if everyone piled on an actual bus and actually toured the neighborhoods while reading and maybe caught up with a popsicle truck or two. For now, we are excited to listen.

What: Neighborhood Writing Alliance Gala

When: May 27, 2009; 5:30 – 8 pm

Location & Address: Chicago Cultural Center, GAR Rotunda; 78 E Washington Ave

Participants: Stuart Dybek, NWA writers Helena Marie Carnes-Jeffries & Kenneth Johnson, Chicago Tribune’s Rick Hogan, some lovely Literagoans, you

The Neighborhood Writing Alliance (NWA), publishers of the Journal of Ordinary Thought (JOT), announces this year’s gala, “Every Person Is a Philosopher.”

The evening features readings by NWA writers Helena Marie Carnes-Jeffries and Kenneth Johnson, who will share a piece about being ten years old, reading about the Black Panthers while living in a Chicago Housing Authority apartment on the West Side.

The evening will close with an engaging fireside conversation between Rick Kogan, Senior Writer at the Chicago Tribune and host of WGN’s Sunday Papers with Rick Kogan, and Stuart Dybek, award-winning author of The Coast of Chicago and I Sailed With Magellan, among others.

Throughout the night, Blue Plate restaurant will be serving hors d’oeuvres, including saffron-poached chicken, red grape truffles, sweet corn succotash, and mini pizzas. There will be an open bar with drinks including the delicious JOT ink martini.

The event takes place on Wednesday, May 27th from 5:30-8:00pm at the Chicago Cultural Center GAR Rotunda (78 E Washington Ave). Individual tickets cost between $30 and $100, and all include food, drinks, and the performance.  To purchase, visit www.jot.org/Benefit2009.php or call 773.684.2742.

NWA provokes dialogue and promotes change by creating opportunities for adults in low-income Chicago neighborhoods to write, publish, and perform works about their lives. We hold free, weekly, and ongoing writing workshops in libraries and social service centers across the city. Pieces written in these workshops are published in the award-winning Journal of Ordinary Thought and performed at 25-30 events each year.

www.jot.org

Wednesday night, the anthology The Wind Shifts: New Latino Poetry presented the Chicago reading of its ongoing national tour, in collaboration with the Guild Complex, Letras Latinas, and Poetry magazine, at Pilsen’s Décima Musa, which is a fantastic space—high ceilings, stucco walls, tall plants, Frieda Kahlo images, and, my favorite, the unicorn statue rearing on top of the piano. Surroundings aside, the real delights of the evening were the three readers from the anthology, Rosa Alcalá, Kevin A. González, and Carolina Monsivais, who read their own work and selections of other poets featured in The Wind Shifts. The ever-delightful Johnny Vázquez Paz emcee’d, lending her sass and enthusiasm, and completed the evening by reading a poem by Brenda Cárdenas.

Kevin González was next, and delivered his jaw-droppingly good lines. His poems and stories have appeared from Poetry to Playboy, as well in Best New American Voices and Best American Nonrequired Reading. He had a terrific reading style—earnest but savvy, at ease but arresting. Listen to him read “Skin” at From the Fishhouse; here’s an excerpt:

When you see
your father’s name on the Caller ID,
a shot of whiskey spills suddenly
inside you.

Carolina Monsivais finished out the evening; her poems often address the inner workings of family. Her infant son happened to be in attendance, and clearly enjoyed hearing his mother’s voice in stereo. Her imagery gains accumulative strength throughout each poem, and her endings often veer off into directions foreign to the rest of the poem. Here’s the end of “How the Eye Works,” which is included in The Wind Shifts:

The next Palabra Pura will be June 17, featuring Emma Trelles, a poet from Miami, and Jacob Saenz, one of Chicago’s finest. Come to Décima Musa for another fine evening of poetry.

Title: Another New Calligraphy Showcase
Date: June 2, 2009
Time: 9:00 PM
Location and Address: Ronny’s (2101 North California)
Participants: Megan Milks and Tobias Amadon Bengelsdorf (writing); A Light Sleeper, Found Objects, and Love Raid (music)

Another New Calligraphy is a new rainbow website and a new Chicago nonprofit, producing music and literature by unsigned, uncorporate artists. This, their debut event, is the official release party for A Light Sleeper’s album Amicability, the unofficial release party for Megan Milks’s chapbook “Kill Marguerite,” and the pre-release party for Tobias Amadon Bengelsdorf’s story collection An Implausibility of Gnus. Phew! For more information, check out ANC’s website, which  includes promising phrases like “renaissance spirit” and “you should hear from us within the week.”

Who: Zach Dodson, Gina Frangello, Kyle Minor, & Kathleen Rooney
When: Monday, May 18th at 7:00pm
Where: The Book Cellar (4736 N Lincoln Ave)

“Boring Nude Girl in the Boring Devil’s Boring Territory” is the awesome name of this, the twenty-fifth stop on the 25-city tour Kathleen Rooney and Kyle Minor took to celebrate their new books, In the Devil’s Territory and Live Nude Girl – a short story collection and a memoir, respectively.

Tonight they’ll be joined by Zach Plague, reading from his novel boring boring boring boring boring, and Gina Frangello, reading a surprise. 

Stop by after work – sunny evening spring readings at Book Cellar  are kind of the best way to remind yourself that you are not an android and summer is coming soon.

Who: Me, you, books hoping for new homes
When: Thursday, May 14, from 6-9 PM
Where: Black Rock Pub & Kitchen, 3614 N. Damen

The Gapers Block Book Club joins with non-profit Open Books for a book swap and book drive.  It operates under the loose rules of bring as many as you’d like and take as many as you please, and any leftover books are donated to Open Books to aid their literacy programs.

Pull on those rubber boots and come out to Danny’s for what will surely be a fine evening:

Who: Noelle Kocot, Eirik Steinhoff, & Miranda Mellis
When: Tonight! Wednesday, May 13, at 7:30 PM (sharp!)
Where: 1951 W. Dickens

Kocot, a Brooklyn poet, is the author of four books of poetry, including mostly recently Sunny Wednesday (Wave Books, 2009), a book centered on the death of her husband, the composer Damon Tomblin; Harp & Altar has a great profile on her.  Steinhoff, who’s writing a dissertation on 16th- and 17th-Century English poetry at U of Chicago, edited Chicago Review from 2000 to 2005. Mellis’s novella, The Revisionist, was short-listed for The Believer 2007 Book Prize; she is a founding editor at The Encyclopedia Project and is currently on faculty in the department of Creative Writing at U of Chicago. Hope to see you there . . .

Title: Even Launch Party
Date: May 12, 2009
Time: 7:30 PM
Location and Address: Barnes & Noble Clybourn (1441 West Webster Avenue)
Participants: Andrew Grant

Jon Resh with his assistant (and wife) as he entertains a packed house with his “Chronology of Lesser Phobias,” most notably, his fear of animals with three legs and King Tut.

Jonathan Messinger reading from Hiding Out, his collection of short stories. His chosen piece, fitting for Mother’s Day weekend, featured a strained relationship between a mother and her older son, held together by their mutual interest in the narrator and younger brother.

Messinger and his musings on the intricacies of familial relationships kept smiles on these faces for the duration.

Joe Meno and Charles Kim of The Astronomer weave their respective mediums together.

Squeezing between the shelves.

Literago attended Joe Meno’s release party for his new novel, The Great Perhaps on Thursday, May 7 at Quimby’s Bookstore. Joined by friends and fellow writers Resh and Messinger and musican Kim, Meno unveiled what all three friends claimed as their favorite Meno piece yet.  Meno was gracious as he shyly took the microphone after Messinger’s introduction touting his friend’s recent success. Dramatically accompanied by Kim, Mr. Meno read an excerpt from his latest novel that placed the novel’s central characters, a family of four, at the Lincoln Park Zoo, the parents in search of a day of normalcy with their two polarized teenaged daughters.

All in all, it was a low-key night at a kickass bookstore with some humorous and talented writers, an audience tending towards participation and laughter, and bright little moments like Kim’s musical interpretation of a seizure and Messinger’s story’s closing line:

“I hoped that this was the kind of thing families are meant to withstand.”