"the Chosen Few" is a 2015 poetry and performance art collection book from Scars Publications (http://scars.tv) of select writings as a snapshot of some of the live performances/readings during features at "the Cafe Gallery" open mic, which ran every other Wednesday evening (plus bonus weeks) at the Gallery Cabaret in Chicago, with weekly podcast videos and YouTube videos, from 2012 through 2015. Performers appearing in this collection chose one piece of writing from their shows for this collection book. On (very occasional) weeks where there was no scheduled feature, all open mic poets had 10 minute "mini features", and some writers had features over multiple years, so some writers appear on a few dates in this book. This collection book groups poems by author, and the date of the reading appears on the headers of this book. Because this open mic was also usually video recorded for weekly podcast videos and permanent YouTube clips; each show date with a YouTube video will have on line video links accompanying the writing. This collection does not include poems from every feature poet during the 4 years this open mic ran with YouTube videos and weekly podcast videos — features were asked to include their writing in this collection, and this collection only contains writings from performers who sent their writing to this collection book. This open mic has run in Chicago since December 1996, but this is the first and only open mic collection anthology of this nature to highlight the Chicago poetry scene. Writers and artists included in this book (listed in the order they appear in the calendar) are Ned Haggard, Elizabeth Harper, David(Buddha 309) Hargarten, Christine Swanberg, Tom Roby, Jenene Raveslootv, Robert Lawrence, Jeff Helgeson, Annabelle Echo, Marianne Schaefer, Patrick Hurley, Bill Yarrow, Dan Cleary, Oz Hardwick, CousinBones, Wes Heine, Susan T. Moss, Jim Davis, Daniel Weinberg, ViriginiaHunt, Pamela Miller, Esteban Colon,Paul J. Ryan, Deborah Rosen, Elizabeth Marino, Kottyn Campbell, Jackie Wolk, Dalice Malice, Jerry Pendergast, Eric Esden, Vittorio Carli, sidekick Bob Rashkow, and host Janet Kuypers.