Chicago poet and Austin resident Janet Kuypers returned to Chicago for the beginning of spring in the end of March 2022, and by the finalé of her stay she was honored with the opportunity to feature multiple ties in one night with poetry features/shows at the open mic bar location that she ran for over half of a decade in Chicago (then titled “the Café Gallery” at the Gallery Cabaret). Her feature was held for Poetry & Open Mic at The Gallery Cabaret 3/30/22 (2020 N. Oakley Ave. in Chicago - one block east of Western Avenue and one block north of Armitage) Wednesday, March 30^th 2022.

    To start the evening, Janet Kuypers started the “Poetry & Open Mic at The Gallery Cabaret 3/30/22” with a feature reading of 36 select “Twitter Verse periodic Table Poetry” poems (with chemists and engineers in the audience, there was a vocal positive response to these readings too). When one Chicago chemist friend (who know Janet Kuypers had written a poem fro every element in the Periodic Table) suggested to her to enter the C&EN Twitter Poetry periodicTable contest, she decided to write one for every element (even after C&EN closed their contest and she won 3rd place). There was only 1 unfinished proof copy of the book “Twitter Verse periodic Table Poetry”, which was purchased after the show. (Music in the background during her readings were assorted instruments played by John Yotko as a long-running song compiled outside of Nashville, TN.)

    After the first round at the poetry open mic, Janet Kuypers then performed her feature “Taking off the Mask”, which contained new poetry, as well as poems from the Janet Kuypers books “Every Event of the Year (Volume Two: July-December)” (with poems about events specifically related to Illinois and Chicago) and the brand new CyberWit.net Janet Kuypers poetry book (on women’s issues released this month, during women’s history month) titled “Shattering the Glass Ceiling”. (Music in the background during her readings in this feature was “closing leaves” Hotel Music from the HA!Man of South Africa, with an overlay of whisk percussion from John Yotko.)

    Enjoy the video links and poem writing links below for recordings from this live evening, including before the show of individual poems readings, as well as the entire show performance!