What happens when FreeGeek, a nonprofit organization in Logan Square that reuses and sells old computers among other community initiatives, and a community organization that features poetry/story readings and performances combine forces? An event is born that features poets speaking about people in the technology age. The event has become a great outlet for Chicago’s poetry scene.
FreeGeek, located at 3411 W. Diversey Ave., sits in a basement next to a strip mall. It’s discreet, with a big, gray door for entry located on the side in the alley. Downstairs, white Christmas lights adorn a chain link fence that serves as walls surrounding numbers of old computers, hard drives and network routers. Uncovered light bulbs hang from the steel gray ceiling, and a small workspace with a coffee pot and reusable mugs sits in one section of the basement.
Towards the back of the basement, about 30 people, all adults, sat in plastic yellow chairs facing a wire music stand placed alone against a backdrop of network routers. The crowd awaited the featured poets and special guests of Notes from the Mainframe, the event that is part of the Guild Literary Complex’s Applied Words program, which, according to their website, combines applied art and applied word to “explore creative writing’s intersection with an artistic discipline.”
For Wednesday’s event, the intersection was technology with art and science. All poems read focused on technology, whether in a positive light or a negative one.
According to John Rich, who curates programs for the Guild, the goal is to find interesting and compelling intersections. “I wanted to move from language on the page … it just made sense in the end,” he said.
The theme of technology worked well for Wednesday’s program, as the crowd clapped enthusiastically, laughed wholeheartedly and nodded appreciatively throughout. Catherine Halley, advisor of all digital programs at the Poetry Foundation and editor for Poetry Foundation’s website; Daniel X. O’Neil, author of three poetry books; and Stephanie Plenner, communication and object designer at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, provided the audience with poetry that perfectly exemplified the theme of technology.
Halley shared a piece entitled “See Friendship,” which selected several of her Facebook friends as she described them and told personal and humorous stories of them. The poems included topics of life in Chicago and Brooklyn, sex and her teenage years.
In terms of technology, “I can watch people’s attention spans disappear,” Halley said.
O’Neil, who calls himself an “internet artist,” joked about hyperlinks and told the crowd it’s boring to have a hyperlink that, for example, says “Bill Clinton” and actually leads to a page about Bill Clinton. What if it led to something about Osama Bin Laden instead, he asked.
Plenner used the theme of technology to write seven case studies about Bruce Springsteen, Madonna, Vampire Weekend, Tupac, Notorious B.I.G., Radiohead and Daft Punk.
However, for Plenner, writing is something that takes work.
“Being able to write long form is very difficult, when I’m so connected to technology,” she said.
Andrew Huff, co-founder of and editor at Gapers Block, also attended and performed several haiku poems also with the theme of technology in mind. Gapers Block is a website focused on Chicago and its news and events with the goal of slowing down and enjoying the city, according to the website.
Stephanie Levi, graduate student at the University of Chicago, spoke to the crowd about her upcoming event that narrows in on the science of sex and attraction. The event will feature J. Michael Bailey, professor at Northwestern University, who has extensively studied the biology of sex, attraction and homosexuality.
The Guild Complex is celebrating its 25th anniversary in May and has many more upcoming events focusing on poetry and literary expression in Chicago. The event by FreeGeek and Guild Literary Complex brought poets and poetry fans together, discussing the extremely relevant topic of technology in a very successful night.
