Cops Raid Chicago Poetry Event!
This is beyond absurd and falls squarely into WHAT THE FILK?!?!
Cops Kick Lit Mags Out Of Private Art Gallery
The Zhou B. Art Center, 1029 West 35th St., turns into a poet's heaven for a few hours on Friday, June 20. America's ninety-year-old legend, Poetry Magazine, gets to strut its hip new strut with a free event called Printers Ball. This one promises to be the best Printers Ball of all, and I finally see that The Poetry Foundation is doing something good with the money it has inherited from Ruth Lilly. And there are free hotdogs!! How much more American can you get?
On the first floor there are tables stacked with magazines, books, anthologies, journals and small press zines, all of which are being given away free to whoever wants to grab one. Cool tote bags are given out while supplies last to carry the books in. There is a DJ spinning music in one room and a performance art exhibit in another. On the second floor a glee club sings new wave songs. The walls of the third floor are decorated with art. There are hundreds of people here, all celebrating literature and literacy peacefully. The Lumpen guys can be seen with the Chicago Review guys. Issues of Columbia Poetry Review sit next to issues of In These Times.
For the moment, I think I am in a poetry paradise. The party is only beginning.
And then a swarm police wearing bulletproof vests with badges on ropes around their necks like characters from The Shield illegally storm into this private art gallery. Without so much as a search warrant or even an explanation, five of them surround the DJ and demand he turn off Mark Morrison's "Return of the Mack." Issuing uncompromising threats, they force the DJ to announce over the microphone that without so much as a discussion EVERYONE MUST LEAVE THE PREMISES.
Like a scene out of Robocop, a small army, in ominous black bulletproof jumpsuits with CHICAGO POLICE in big white letters across their chests, arm the exits as hundreds of literate citizens file out into the night.
Continued...
Cops Kick Lit Mags Out Of Private Art Gallery
The Zhou B. Art Center, 1029 West 35th St., turns into a poet's heaven for a few hours on Friday, June 20. America's ninety-year-old legend, Poetry Magazine, gets to strut its hip new strut with a free event called Printers Ball. This one promises to be the best Printers Ball of all, and I finally see that The Poetry Foundation is doing something good with the money it has inherited from Ruth Lilly. And there are free hotdogs!! How much more American can you get?
On the first floor there are tables stacked with magazines, books, anthologies, journals and small press zines, all of which are being given away free to whoever wants to grab one. Cool tote bags are given out while supplies last to carry the books in. There is a DJ spinning music in one room and a performance art exhibit in another. On the second floor a glee club sings new wave songs. The walls of the third floor are decorated with art. There are hundreds of people here, all celebrating literature and literacy peacefully. The Lumpen guys can be seen with the Chicago Review guys. Issues of Columbia Poetry Review sit next to issues of In These Times.
For the moment, I think I am in a poetry paradise. The party is only beginning.
And then a swarm police wearing bulletproof vests with badges on ropes around their necks like characters from The Shield illegally storm into this private art gallery. Without so much as a search warrant or even an explanation, five of them surround the DJ and demand he turn off Mark Morrison's "Return of the Mack." Issuing uncompromising threats, they force the DJ to announce over the microphone that without so much as a discussion EVERYONE MUST LEAVE THE PREMISES.
Like a scene out of Robocop, a small army, in ominous black bulletproof jumpsuits with CHICAGO POLICE in big white letters across their chests, arm the exits as hundreds of literate citizens file out into the night.
Continued...
posted by Rick Klaw at
10:34 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home