The Cafe chicago poetry readings The Cafe hosts an open mic and a regular feature show at 5115 North Lincoln Ave. (just south of Foster) in Chicago, IL. Because recordings from recent years are so video-intensive, we have separated each weekly recorded listing into its own web page. In the meantime, feel free to choose a date to listen to sound clips from. Recordings are listed from most recent to oldest recordings.

Most recordings are of the host (J. Kuypers), but if you have questions about recordings from a certain person but do not know what date they may have read at the Cafe, you can contact Scars Publications to ask about the availability of any specific performer who appeared at the Cafe. There is also a very good chance that their name is listed on this page if they were recorded at the Cafe. (But keep in mind that the performers did give their consent for the recordings, so recordings only exist if they gave consent.)

(Also note that amongst all available audio files available on this page, all Macintosh .aif files, Linux .au files and Windows .wav files are low resolution versions of all of the poetry readings available. The only CD quality versions of these audio recordings are in the available mp3 files.)

10/06/09 09/29/09
09/22/09 09/01/09 08/18/09
04/14/09 03/10/09 02/24/09
12/16/08 09/09/08 with links to
the Janet Kuypers Feature

Seeing a Psychiatrist
08/26/08
07/08/08 02/16/08 07/10/07
06/19/07
with the Cathleen Schandelmeier feature
05/29/07 03/13/07
(unrecorded)
01/30/07
09/19/06
with the Jared Smith feature
12/13/05
11/22/05 11/15/05 08/09/05
06/07/05 {Stripped}
performance art show
05/03/05 04/2/05
04/12/05 & the Danny Boy
(Daniel McKeever) Feature
03/29/05 March 22, 2005
03/15/05 03/01/05 02-15-05
of the performance art show
How Do I Get There?
February 8, 2005 11/09/04 10/19/04
10/12/04 the Questions in a World
Without Answers
performance
art show, 10/05/04
10/05/04
09/28/04 09/21/04 09/07/04
08/10/04 08/03/04 06/22/04 with the
Janet Kuypers Feature
A Night of Firsts
5/18/04 with the
Kate Cullan Feature
the 4/13/04
or the 04/13/04 Nina Corwin Feature
4/27/04 & the
Maureen Flannery Feature
4/06/04 2/20/04 1/20/04
1/12/04 12/02/03 11/18/03
11/04/03 10/28/03 9/23/03

There is also a 3 CD set of performances from J. Kuypers at the Cafe, collected into this release. This 3 CD set of live poerformances are included in Live at the Cafe includes not only recordings from 2003, 2004 and 2005, but it also contains recordings of two performance art shows — A Night of Firsts from 06/22/04, and Stripped from 06/07/05. Bonus tracks in this 3 CD set even include live recordings from Coffee Chicago, Molly Malone’s, and even recordings from the Chicago Poetry Fest on both years, 2004 and 2005! You can order a copy of this all original music and poetry for only $12.95 by sending an e-mail to Scars Publications.

Real Music Guide
Rolling Stone
Napster
JB Hi-Fi
Live at the Cafe - 3 disc set


We have found that quicktime can view these basic and free movies, and you can get quicktime for free off of the Internet.

You can also download Media Player, for Macintosh or for Windows to see some video files.

to return to the previous web page, you can press the ‘back’ button, or you can also:
for Macintosh computers, press the alt key (they key next to the spacebar) and the [ - left bracket
for Windows: press the alt key and the left arrow key.

The following is a list of media players, their native playback media type, and where they can be downloaded.

  • Quicktime Player
    Plays compressed and uncompressed Quicktime v1, v2, and v3 files. (.mov)
    Visit Apple’s Quicktime site to download.
  • Windows Media Player
    Natively plays basic audio(.au), .mid, and .wav. In some cases, installation of the
    Windows Media Player will take over playback of media types without notification.
    To get the Player, visit Microsoft's free download site.
  • WinAmp
    Plays MP2, MP3, MOD, CD, .wav and other formats.
    Visit the Winamp site to download the Winamp Player.
  • Vivo Player
    Plays Vivo files natively.
    Download the Vivo Player from http://www.vivo.com.
  • Crescendo
    Plays Midi(.mid) files natively.
    Download the Crescendo player from http://www.liveupdate.com.