Dispatch: Tangible Books Reading Series (Bridgeport, Chicago), Unicorn Zombies

A Night of Serial Killers, Sketchbooks, and Second Chances

Chicago is a city that refuses to let things die. Like river walks, punk bars, water towers, and even bookstores. It resurrects them like willful specters with better rent control. Before Tangible Books in Bridgeport, there was the mythic Myopic Books in hipstery Wicker Park, a chaotic labyrinth where you only find the book you need if it wants to be found. SO why the fuck am I talking about two bookstores in entirely different areas? The same guy built both places with his own two hands. Joe Judd. Chicago basically said, come home and do Myopic again. And he said, bet. Now we have another sanctuary for weird lit people to disappear behind stacks of books without the yuppies and hipster tourists. A place to read. To write. To buy great books. To attend lit events. To love literature like a problem we refuse to solve.

This night started with me and Bulent meeting Dmitry at Jackalope Coffee around the corner because I needed liquid warmth to steady myself before watching strangers spill their earnest hearts about what I imagined would be weather metaphors and sentimental things we only whisper to ourselves at night. As per usual, Dmitry beat us there with his sketchbook and almost already finished coffee. As I downed my mocha, I could tell Dmitry was already questioning his life choices. Even though he helped Joe organize the books and put together the shelves, he didn’t do poetry nights. Just the aftermath. He only came this time because I asked. That’s what true friendship is.

We decided to get to Tangible early because I needed a White Elephant gift that will make my weird family absolutely lose their minds laughing and decided an outlandish book would be the perfect thing. Not cursed or ironic or tasteful. Dumb. Dumb is a love language in my family. Again, Dmitry helped design this store, so he immediately moved like he had a treasure map. Bulent follows him around like he is learning a new terrain before they eventually decide to do the horror movie thing and split up. I hang back and talk to the host of the poetry event, Vittorio Carli, because someone has to pretend to be a real person who wants to be there and sadly we were the first to arrive.

Dmitry mentions this is also an open mic and people could read if they signup and that I should. Since I’m promoting my chapbook, Bonfire Gospel, I think “why the fuck not” and do so, knowing I very likely won’t since this probably isn’t my best audience.

The guys find the perfect stupid book and join me in the performance space. I buy the book. Zero spoilers until after Christmas. Chaos must be protected.

Dmitry threw his coat, scarf, and hat over a row of chairs close to the setup but not close enough to get covered in metaphor spit. He sits to my left with a sketchbook already open like he is getting paid. Bulent sits to my right gripping his phone like a paparazzi for the poetry gods. I take notes like an ace reporter on assignment. We are the most well prepared disaster trio in this entire store.

As people trickle about, some of the poets around us talk about the BTK killer like he is a neighbor who just moved out. Say he was a family man. Discuss how he got his nickname.

Midwest small talk is fully unhinged and I kind of love it.

Any worries I had before about my writing not being fine there were immediately erased because I knew that I was going to read a “true crime” poem about small town serial killers and that these were my people.

The host got everyone to quiet down. Dan Godston opens the night. He pulls out a trumpet. Just whips it out and sometimes sputters what I think might be dramatic notes to make a point. It works. It’s like we suddenly shifted into a David Lynch scene and I didn’t get the script.

Sketched by Dmitry Samarov

Eventually they called my name. I introduce myself, tell them this is from Bonfire Gospel, and casually mention the book is only available for seventy two hours because chaos is my brand now. They laugh just enough that I feel safe. I read Making a Murder. They get it. They laugh in the right spots and a few wrong ones too. The Midwest has serial killers in the family tree. I sit down trying not to look like I am floating.

Dmitry sketches me the whole time. He doesn’t say anything. He just draws. That’s his approval.

A familiar poet, Myron, reads sometime after me. I know him from Gallery Cabaret. Black Wall Street shirt. Great timing. Smooth voice. He’s reassuring in a way that makes me feel like maybe I belong here and not just because I’ve been trying to dabble all over the Chicago literary scene.

I spot Westley Heine, who is the reason I even knew about this thing. He sent me a Facebook invite like this was a punk show in 2009. His vibe is slightly unhinged in the best way. I am instantly relieved he is here.

Then the host pauses everything to pass the hat. Dmitry barely looks up from his sketch pad. I lean over and whisper, “What is this, The Gaslight?” He blinks at me like I’m the only one here who didn’t get the memo. He’s used to it. I’m not.

Now the open mic chaos starts for real. You can tell most of these people have been reading together for decades. They are a tight squad of ex professors and retired punks who know each other’s beats and inside jokes. I get the vibe that if I had ever taken a class with any of them, I would have failed it, but tonight they’re excited I exist. Chicago’s literary underbelly is weirdly welcoming once you stop trying to impress anyone.

Someone is reading off a crumpled MapQuest page like he found poetry in his glove compartment on the way here. Another dude legit brought his own photographer which feels like a lot for a lowkey indie bookstore vibe. Then someone mentions “Unicorn Zombies” in a poem in a way that grabs my brain like a raccoon grabbing shiny trash. I remember several of the other lines he said but Unicorn Zombies just stood the fuck out. Maybe it is the cold still stuck to me or how tired I was or the fact I am literally working on a book about zombies right now, but for one weird second I was like damn, yeah, we are all Unicorn Zombies. A janky lil Midwest tribe refusing to die in a bookstore built out of second chances.

Then there was the punk guy casually mentioning he was friends with someone Jeffrey Dahmer killed and I basically tried to disappear myself into my coat because like, I just joked about Dahmer earlier. The words “please do not make the connection” raced through my mind the entire time. At the end of the show he ends up telling me he liked my poem which sends me into some strange swirl of gratitude and panic.

At one point someone snaps instead of clapping and I get whiplash back to 2012 when Steve Roggenbuck convinced us that poetry could be a live-action meme. It’s weirdly nostalgic. Like the internet showed up wearing bifocals.

Kim Berez walks up with a cane made out of a stick like she’s in Twin Peaks and has the presence of someone who never needed anyone’s permission. First word out of her mouth is “bitch” and she owns the room immediately. She goes deep into violence and intensity and theory. I want her confidence and maybe her cane. A poet starts talking about poetic structure and form and how some pieces might actually count as cubist poetry. She says it like a revelation. I admire the confidence but personally, I think genre is just a cage academics build so they can argue about who deserves to be taken seriously. Still, she owned it. And honestly, maybe chaos is a form too.

Later, Lynn Fitzgerald reads to promote her new Dancing Girl Press book. Dan jumps in with trumpet backup again because of course he does. The room goes from bookstore to low budget jazz opera and somehow it works.

Dave Gecic closes with poems about Nebraska and trees and disappointment. Midwest rot poetry. The real stuff. He reads from the back of printed out pages with coffee stains. It’s almost too poetic to describe. He ends with “Omaha” in a way that makes Omaha feel like a revelation.

Applause. Coats rustle. People start deciding whether they are leaving or talking for another hour.

The host, Vittorio, asks for my info so he can contact me to read for a feature event. I dig in my backpack for a pen and come up empty because I am apparently a full grown adult who never carries one. Shockingly, a room full of writers were also left a tad clueless for a moment until Dmitry chimed in. He hands his over like he has been waiting for this exact moment. I write down what is needed. Someone taps me to remind me to give him his pen back. I return it like a kid returning borrowed crayons.

I thank him for coming. He gives me a small shrug that reads as, “This was cool.” We hug. He heads out. No speech. No spotlight. Just gone into the night.

And then I’m still there. Actually still talking. Laughing. Being part of the room. Surrounded by people who in another life might have failed me in a class but tonight wanted to hear more. I don’t fully trust it yet. But I feel it.

Chicago resurrects bookstores because it refuses to let them die. And I guess sometimes, one of those bookstores resurrects a poet too and we all become Unicorn Zombies.

Sketched by Dmitry Samarov