In stark contrast to the usual poetry reading, i.e. the politely tolerated snore, Lisa Jarnot's recent reading at the University of Chicago rattled plenty of ch'i. The first half of the reading Jarnot offered selections from her most recent book, BLACK DOG SONGS, and read poems like "Seal Ode," "Hound Pastoral," "On the Sublime" (a favorite of mine), and "Greyhound Ode." Certainly an opening line like "A person with a strong neck is a strong person" (from "Seal Ode") earned some laughs: anyone with even a passing familiarity with her work well knows how deftly Jarnot can turn a comic corner, but what underscored the reading from the start was a much deeper emotional register, an extremely palpable sympathy and sadness.

As a reader, Jarnot is unassuming; her voice warm yet steady. There was no doubt she held the full attention of the sizable audience -- nearly a hundred people I quickly counted -- in the rather Germanic looking room in the University's Classics building. For in as much as the audience had their humor reflexes ready and were warmed up with the selection of poems, the tenor changed almost instantaneously when Jarnot began reading from her forthcoming novel, PROMISE X. There were still some laughs, sure, but they tended to come from the front of the mouth, nervously relieved.

PROMISE X centers around a young woman terrorist and her relationship with her therapist. The figures that inhabit this woman's life bring to mind Gilbert Sorrentino's IMAGINATIVE QUALITIES OF ACTUAL THINGS, if Sorrentino allowed himself an occasional moment of sympathy, and it was flashed forward into the post-9/11 New York. Instead of being some standard victim narrative, PROMISE X looks through the eyes of a terrorist, a young woman "dancing on her rooftop in Brooklyn as the Twin Towers burned and eventually fell," a young woman who loves and worries about Osama Bin Laden's safety. Discomfitting? You better believe it.

An awful lot of lip service is given to the term "experimental" or "innovative." Ho hum. Jarnot takes unapologetic, emotionally and formally complex risks in her work second to none. And with her novel, she adds a level of social critique into the mix -- with gusto. While PROMISE X's heroine might worry about Osama, I must confess concern for Jarnot when the book is released (perhaps later this year or next?): this book will NOT go unnoticed. Doubtless the hundred or so people in attendance were privy to something of real literary significance, and I'm certain I'm not the only one who is grateful and still processing the immensity of it. I was frankly amazed at the robust turnout -- to a poetry event no less! Kudos. However, I wouldn't have been there at all if it weren't for the fact that I work in Hyde Park and could walk to the University. The time is willfully uncooperative to anyone outside the University.

I know it's hard to believe, but not every person in Chicago that is interested in literature works in academe. Though Hyde Park was the first suburb to be incorporated into the City of Chicago, that was a long time ago. How about a little Midwestern hospitality, dare to welcome people from other parts of the city, and have the readings a scant 90 minutes later at, say, 7:00 p.m., when more people can make it? Unless of course the reason the events are held at such an unusually early hour is the same reason that virtually no one in Hyde Park ventures west of the Red Line?