Hello poets and friends, we had a unique show last week at the Central Square Theater! Thank you to everyone who came out to read and support our venue-for-the-night, especially first-timers Christopher, Zack, and Natalia. We got to hear from our longest-tenured open mic readers Sue Savoy and Charlie R, new favorites Erica Garcia and Lily K, and those irregular regulars who we don’t get to hear from that often like Lawrence, Sam O, and AK. Shout out to Cameron and Will L, who unexpectedly went back-to-back with memorized pieces that were out of their comfort zones, with Cameron going dark and Gothic, and Will L dealing in the intense and swirling repetition of key phrases.
Then it was time for the COSTUME SLAM, hosted by Nayeli, with plenty of showstopping poems! Early highlights included March Penn doing two poems detailing 20 different types of zombies, Ericka Ainsley with a gender-swapping Obi-Wan Kenobi, Daniel Letona writing in the guise of MF Doom, and Kaitie D as Velma from Scooby Doo. Chris Rye also did some of their best work with two impassioned, memorized-and-a-little-improvised pieces about cowboys being a metaphor for yearning. While Mary Schwabenland won the slam outright with a first poem about sleeping with your clone, and a subsequent response poem from the clone themselves, the TRUE SPECTACLE of the night was Gel, under the name MÜRDERHØRS. It was not only the horse mask, it was not only that they sang/growled their two poems in the style of death metal, it was the sincere committment to the bit that had the audiences spellbound in laughter and complete attention. Gel’s non-chalant intros and outros also showed impeccable comedic timing, and this recapper was literally in tears laughing at both performances. Bravo to all who slammed!
This week! We’re back at the Cantab Lounge! We’ll have an early bird workshop with Ed Wilkinson at 6:30 PM. Workshop attendees will have first access to the open mic list.
Then, our feature this week is Kenny Bradley! Kenny Bradley is a poet and graduate student at Rockefeller University, based in New York City, where he travels the boroughs to perform spoken word poetry. He utilizes concepts in both music and biology to influence and shape his poetry to discuss topics ranging in self-love, identity, dissecting trauma, and being a black person in STEM. He was a member of the Provslam 2023 slam team, where he and his teammates won the 2023 NorthBeast regional slam competition and self-published a co-authored team chapbook, “Dear Kid, Monster”. He and his teammate Ren L[i]u were finalists for the 2023 Button Poetry Video Contest with their joint poem “Love, Monster.” He was a finalist for the Luminaire Poetry Award and his work can be found on Button Poetry, Frontier Poetry, Empty House Press and etc. His debut chapbook, “Night Science” was recently released with Garden Party Collective. When he is not writing, you can find him in a record store with a steaming fresh cup of hot chocolate in hand, spotify in the other as he researches new artists to introduce to his homies. To find more of his work, you can find him on instagram @hotchocolate_poetry.
See you soon,
– MFG 🚪
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