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Open Mic Highlights
Longtime veteran Ed Wilkinson came up to me at the end of last Wednesday night and said, “that was one of the best open mics I’ve heard” and I would agree, there was a sense of flow, unity, and high-quality work throughout the night that makes it hard to pick out individual highlights! Our three spotlight features (Kris Cho, JP Legarte, Munawwar Abdulla) celebrating AAPI month made for a nice change of pace (and each got a long intro by host Brynna), with each poet leaning towards a relaxed-but-intimate set. We also got to hear new work from the returning Sam Bucci and Sarah King, as well as first-timers Sabrine from Maine, I/O, and John. Yours truly also did another in the Cantab’s ongoing series of Pagliacci poems, without knowing that Ilse has done a poem on a very similar theme last week!
Feature
This week, former BPS and House Slam team member Brandon Melendez was back on the Cantab stage for the first time in years, touring the re-release of his book “Gold That Frames The Mirror”. Brandon caught us up on what he has been doing since he moved to Philly (and about his upcoming move to Seattle), read some old slam favorites, and revisited his series of persona poems as Pokémon. Despite his admission that he felt a little nervous, his charisma, performance chops, and excellent material really had the audience captivated, and lining up to buy his book at the end of the night. Thanks Brandon!
Coming Up This Wednesday
This week we will have the return of former New England slam veteran Julie River, and an early bird workshop by Keaton Howl! Workshop starts at 6:30 ($10+ suggested donation to workshopper, sliding scale) and open mic sign up starts a little after 7:15.
Workshop info: The childhood favorites food writing workshop is a generative workshop designed to engage with our earliest memories of food as a means to connect with the larger stories in our lives. Through selected quotes, cookbooks and other media we hope to create work with curiosity and excitement, like a kid in a candy store. Come join us at the table!
Feature Bio: Julie River is a slam poet, an award-winning journalist, and a personal enemy of Ronnie Radke. Her journey in slam poetry began in 2002 as a 17-year-old punk rock enthusiast on the AS220 stage in Providence, Rhode Island. Over the next two decades, she competed on 10 poetry slam teams across Providence, Worcester, and Denver, earning grand slam champion titles in all three cities and representing Denver at the Individual World Poetry Slam in 2011. Despite many of her peers retiring, Julie continues to evolve her craft. After coming out as a transgender woman in 2016, she embraced reinvention, transitioning to freelance journalism and magazine editing for publications such as OUT FRONT Magazine and Yellow Scene Magazine. Shifting away from her old chapbooks bearing her deadname, Julie’s poetry will reach a wider audience in 2025 with Punk Rock and Science Fiction, published by OUT FRONT’s Q Publishing. The collection blends the best of her past and present work, capturing her growth as a poet and her enduring creative spirit.
See you later!
– MFG 🚪
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