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Open Mic Highlights
This week’s open mic kicked off with a few first timers who brought great energy, including the legendary “If you can feel it… you can speak it” call and response by D. Ruff. The audience was especially attentive, listening to each and every line, such as Carl’s question, “Why do I feel so safe in my fear?” A major theme of the night was about healing, epitomized by Kai’s query, “Can I un-grow the scars baked into my skin?” or Eli’s mystery, “Shell is something I don’t know the taste of.”
Aparna announced that there will be spotlight features next week to celebrate Asian American and Pacific Islander Month. Kaitie D had us hanging on every word with a moving piece about colonization and language that also teaches about vulnerability and love. The last line really hit: “I lick the last piece of oblivion like an ending that will always come back.”
Otto made us reimagine the world for a second week in a row with lines like “Every currency is a made up crypto currency.” Caroline shared a piece about being in line at the Cantab and how the experience of meeting folks inspired a new poem.
Myles said we need Michael F. Gill to come back to calculate how many Pagliacci and Luigi poems have happened on the mic. Michael is in Italy but will be back this upcoming week.
Ed keeps us grounded with an honest take on how “what gives me strength is a wound.” Katya introduced a poet on the express lane as having the name of a goat in Scandinavia. The poet replied, “I am three goats in a trench coat.”
Aparna covered a poem by Sam Cha who moved to New York but we miss him, and also we miss Kat Anderson who moved to New York as well! Brenna’s poem responding to the burning of a plantation moved the audience deeply, with devastating lines like “one man’s grave is another man’s mansion.” Aparna and Amy performed a classic piece called “Hot Girl Summer” that was an audience favorite, getting folks to chant, “hot girl keep walking.” Myles is in a basketball era and shared a fresh poem about Achilles, highlighting how one tends to focus on the things that don’t hurt as much to process what hurts so much more.
Feature
Our feature, Diannely Antigua, was present for the whole open mic and was an active listener. Diannely didn’t speak in the expected “poet voice” but rather in vivid experiences as they are lived, a specificity that was totally engaging without needing overemphasis. The variety of forms, from sonnet to aubade to pantoum, took us on a journey merging construction and content wonderfully. Definitely purchase their book, Good Monster, if you haven’t already done so.
Coming Up This Wednesday
We will have a feature from former regular and 2017 BPS slam team member, Brandon Melendez! There will also be an AAPI month spotlight throughout the open mic. A collaboration between BPS and @narrative bookstore Flow State, we will be featuring local poets Kris Cho, JP Legarte, and Munawwar Abdulla!
Bios:
Brandon Melendez is a Mexican-American poet and software engineer from California. He is the author of Gold That Frames The Mirror (Write Bloody, 2019). He is a National Poetry Slam finalist and two-time Berkeley Grand Slam Champion. A recipient of the 2018 Djanikian Scholarship from The Adroit Journal, and the 2018 Academy of American Poets Award, his poems can be found in Black Warrior Review, The Journal, Shenandoah, and elsewhere. He lives in Philadelphia.
Munawwar Abdulla is an Uyghur advocate, poet, and scientist born on Kaurna land and based in Massachusetts. She co-founded The Tarim Network, runs Uyghur Collective, and enjoys translating Uyghur literature into English. Her work has been published in places like The Margins, Asymptote, and Cordite Poetry, and she is currently working on an anthology of Uyghur diaspora arts.
Kris Cho (any pronouns/형) is an poet, performer, and educator hailing from Mid-Missouri. Since their start with the Brown/RISD collegiate slam team, their written work has been featured in Visions Literary Magazine, The Rising Phoenix Review, and Glass Mountain Magazine. They are a 2023 Best of the Net nominee, a 2024 RWW Poetry Fellow, and 2025 Periplus Fellow. Their debut chapbook Chosun Cowboy (Abode Press) will be published in 2026
JP Legarte (he/him) is a Filipinx American graduate student at Emerson College pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing (Poetry). Outside his studies, he serves as a senior editor and the Community and Grant Development Assistant for Brink Literacy Project and F(r)iction, as a senior poetry reader and the Digital Director for Redivider, and as the Director of Creative Operations for Collections of Transience. His in-progress manuscript of visual, experimental poetry focuses on exploring colonialism as extinction and how Filipino, Filipina, and Filipinx Americans survive and rebel against extinction and its different forms. You can follow him on Instagram at @jpl091.
See you soon!
– March Penn 📒
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