David Schneider

"Front to back, bottom to top," intones poet Tara Banks in a solemn rhythm echoed by a trio of knitters. At the Guild Complex's Wednesday open-mic night at the Chopin Theater, this evening's thread is Chicago poet Renée Moore's "Poetry and Knitting" class. Knowing chuckles are traded with flourishes of scarves in fuschia, indigo and crimson, the produce of Moore's eight-week experiment (a second session begins October 2). With so much free verse unraveling the distinction between the literary arts, Moore's project concentrates on primary poetics--rhythm, repetition, form and revision--and tying them to a physical activity which itself creates a personal work of art.

Applause and a murmur of "mmm"s of satisfaction greet each knitting poet's closing line. "What helps you enjoy the piece is the specific and the personal," Moore advises, but without needle and thread, I'm all in knots. This isn't so much about creating art as about creating a commonality of experience--a weaving together of people, much less words or thread, in an age of bowling alone.

During the open mic that follows, there's the obligatory Jewish-conspiracy theorist who shouts at the top of his lungs, "Israel is the enemy!" There are political rants and Beat-inspired litanies. Just as I'm about to stifle a yawn, a young bearded writer named Daniel Johnson takes the stage and recites his poem "Still": "Though you wait in the dark only for greater/ dark,/Though you wait in the cold only, Mother,/ or greater cold,/ I am your afterbody;/I'm still your afterbirth."

And I want to ask one of the knitters for a scarf to ward off the chill from this poem that needs no knitting.

(2003-10-02)

Also by David Schneider

Man at Work
The current print edition of Newcity features a photo-essay featuring the work of photograher John Stamets as he documents the construction of the works of Koolhaas and Gehry
(2003-09-17)

Coming up dry
"I want you to think about your last sexual experience," says the lithe Asian dancer, swirled in gauze and wire and magnetic tape...
(2003-09-10)

Sensuous Chicago: Taste
I was famished for excitement in a relationship gone stale, and consequently whipped up this bad hash of an idea that an `amuse bouche' would curry her favor
(2003-08-05)

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