(Java) Monkeys With Typewriters

One interpretation of French mathematician Emile Borel's "infinite monkey theorem" purports that a large collective of monkeys is locked in a room with an equally large number of typewriters at which they promptly throw their own poop before demanding more bananas. But then their handlers tell them, "No more bananas until you type up one of Shakespeare's lesser comedies, say Twelfth Night," at which point the monkeys start drinking lots of coffee and beating their chests in pentameters. Or something like that.

It's never been clear to me whether the theorem is a slam against Shakespeare's academic exaltation or a tribute to the underappreciated writing skills of common primates, though I don't think there's any doubt who makes the better daiquiris. Slam ... monkeys ... oh, right, I'm supposed to be writing about Java Monkey Speaks, an anthology of the spoken word poets who have been featured guests at the populist (and popular) open-mic night hosted weekly at Decatur's Java Monkey by Kodac Harrison. (Don't try these transitions at home, kids.)

It's an oft-neglected artifact of the infinite monkey theorem that the monkeys don't just write Shakespeare. They do Hemingway when they're hungover, maybe a little Danielle Steel in the summer months. And plenty of them churn out endless pages of "q*jjiIB!Afj;SaNaNaBeRoMdNeS*)".

Which is to say that, no, not all of the performance poems herein hold up well to the silent treatment they're given on the page. There are some corny confessions, ego-overblown self-expressions and tin-eared political polemics. Some of them sound a lot better when performed, but the book doesn't come with MP3s.

Quite a few of the poetic performance primates read surprisingly well on the page, however. Art critic Jerry Cullum's "Through a Glass Darkly: Notes Toward an Elegy for Norman O. Brown" takes a smart trip through false but appealing prophecies. And David Schuster's "Walking the Black Mountain College Grounds (now a Summer Camp) with Gwendolyn Knight: Four Simultaneous Versions" wanders the diminished site of the North Carolina experimental college that was home to "Bucky's dome collapsing/Cage's first happening/and the Gropius manifesto."

And now, in closing, let me say thhhh ... .

Monkeys, take CL's word man. Make word man type all day. See how he like. Type, word man, type! Ooh, ooh.

thomas.bell@creativeloafing.com

Kodac Harrison and Poetry Atlanta launch Java Monkey Speaks, Volume One, edited by Kodac Harrison and Collin Kelley, with readings by many of the poets Sun., June 19, 8 p.m., at Java Monkey, 205 E. Ponce de Leon Ave., Decatur. Book: $10. Poetry Atlanta Inc. 91 pages.