Rhyme and Reason in Orange County : Life style: A poetry reading experiment is catching on. “People are tired of not thinking,” says one participant. “People really want this.”

It was a night of poetry versus the Big Chill on Monday, but despite temperatures that dipped into the 40s, this ancient art form showed it still carried heat for the human heart.

About 100 kindred spirits turned out for the third outing in a monthly series for which the courtyard of Diedrich’s Coffee & Espresso Bar is transformed into the ambitiously named Cafe of Dreams.

But according to audience members, poets and promoters, battling the literal cold is only half the problem facing the angel-headed hipsters of Orange County. Yet such hurdles as lack of community, growing pressures to conform, subtle forms of censorship, a steamroller mass culture and a lack of social alternatives for the smart and the cool may have helped to spark a resurgence in the local poetry scene.

“People are tired of not thinking,” said Lee Clark, a Long Beach musician and poet. “People really want this. There’s people here that I haven’t seen in years.”

Lee Mallory, a poet and professor for the Rancho Santiago Community College in Santa Ana, explained why he attended: “People are spiritually empty. Poets are the cutting edge of consciousness. The poet is a subversive, but always for the good.”

Because the organizers are hoping to foster a greater sense of literary preparedness, it is no small poetic coincidence that their logo for the Cafe of Dreams closely resembles that of the Civil Defense.

“It’s stuff you’ve never heard before,” audience member Jessica Iverson said. “You’re going to hear it for the first time and probably the last time. You’ll probably forget most of it, but some of it you will remember.”

Much was made Monday of the prospect of a freewheeling, uncensored poetry scene developing in a conservative bedroom community such as Orange County. Poet Joe Williams drew laughter and applause in proclaiming: “This is Orange County and the multitudes have come to a poetry reading. Orange County isn’t what it used to be.”

The poetry was as varied as the audience, which was made up of young and old, the colorful and the staid. In the course of the 2 1/2-hour evening, topics included lost love, alienation, social ills, humor, male foibles, parents and, naturally, freeway driving.

“This is essential in Orange County,” said Mark Carranza, of the Institute for the Prevention of Design, one of the event’s sponsors. A computer consultant by day, Carranza has organized poetry readings at laundromats, industrial complexes, the beach and other less likely places.

“Orange County is the land of the living dead,” said Carranza. “There is nothing else.”

Kathi Georges, a graphic designer and another of the series organizers, said she believes that the poetry readings fill a necessary niche in Orange County’s evolving culture. “I think it’s very important. There’s a new tendency to conformity. You need to have that other outlet.”

In contrast to the dark, smoky coffeehouses of beat-generation legend, there was an exuberance and lack of pretension at the Cafe of Dreams. Tables and chairs sat half the audience, while others made do on makeshift benches of wood planks across milk crates. Some listened from the second-floor balcony.

Flamenco guitarists John Schuster and Jon Bryant began the evening and were followed by featured poets Mitch Teemley and Joe Williams. The evening ended after several members of the audience volunteered to share their recent work, some of it written that evening.

“People can come here and find community sustenance,” said Martin Diedrich, host of the event, held the third Monday of each month at 8 p.m. “This is very much a community event.”

The owner of the bright, upscale Costa Mesa shop as well as a second location in Tustin, Diedrich represents the third generation in his family to enter the coffee business. He grew up on his family’s coffee plantation in Guatemala and missed the sense of community he knew there.

“In coming to Orange County, for years I really felt lost,” he said. “I feel I’m successful if people can come here and have a good time.” He said his goal is to capture the atmosphere of the traditional European coffeehouse, “not the fancy, artsy stuff you see in Los Angeles.”

Georges said she believes that the crowds are larger for Orange County poetry readings than those in Los Angeles, perhaps because there are fewer venues for poetry here, thus concentrating the audiences.

For those who read new cultural events like tea leaves, the success of local poetry readings may bode significant cultural changes ahead. “It’s nice to go someplace other than a (rock) concert,” Lee Clark said. “People can come together here, where you can’t hear each other talk at a concert. People are getting tired of rock ‘n’ roll.”

Cafe of Dreams will be held next on March 19 at Diedrich’s Coffee & Espresso Bar, 474 E. 17th St., Costa Mesa. Admission: free. Information: (714) 646-0323.