Early on a cool July evening several Wednesdays ago, sunlight streamed into the front room of Danny’s Tavern in Bucktown. Around the bar, small knots of people sipped their beers and chatted with the bartender, who rang up their pints on an old-fashioned register that responded with a satisfying clatter. In the darkened back room, candles in little glasses flickered yellow, barely illuminating the low stools and ottomans, a pair of turntables, and a large speaker covered with neat piles of the free literary broadside The2ndHand. At 7:40 Greg Purcell stepped up to a mike that stood next to a rickety table. “OK, people,” he said. “You have five minutes to get your heads together, and then we’re going to start.”
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The tavern was hosting the 23rd installment of the Danny’s Reading Series, an event launched in August 2001 by poet Joel Craig and Purcell, a poet, fiction writer, and art critic who runs the online journal No Slander. Craig and Purcell met in spring 2001, when Rebecca Wolff, publisher of the New York-based literary journal Fence, came to town to speak on an Art Chicago panel Purcell had organized on writers and small presses. Wolff was a friend of Craig’s, and after the panel she and Purcell wandered over to Danny’s, where Craig was deejaying. The next day, following a reading Wolff did at Quimby’s, Craig and Purcell got to talking, and Craig mentioned that Danny’s managers Ken Kordich and Kevin Stacy had offered to let him use the bar for readings.
The first night, says Purcell, was “an August scorcher–really hot.” Still, 40 to 50 people showed up to hear Chicago Review editors Matthias Regan and Eric Elshtain read their poetry. Since then readings have taken place more or less monthly, with word going out via e-mail, flyers, and the No Slander site and participants ranging from established local names like Aleksandar Hemon and Alex Shakar to out-of-towners like Mary Caponegro, Joe Wenderoth, and Sam Lipsyte. (Former U.S. poet laureate Mark Strand is lined up for some time in the fall.) The Baffler packed the place one winter night with a lineup of its own contributors; another night a squad of music writers, including Sun-Times critic Jim DeRogatis and the Reader’s Monica Kendrick, wrapped up an evening of their own work with a rambunctious free-for-all discussion on the state of local rock criticism.
