Cantab Recap for Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Well, we don’t call it slam for nothing; last night’s event was boisterous, rollicking, edge-of-your-seat kind of fun, all tied together with that silly scoring system we informally use to reduce art to cold, hard numbers. That’s right, the World Qualifier Semi-Finals rocked the house from beginning to end, with competing poets rolling out their highly anticipated 2- and 1-minute performance poems. Congratulations to the poets in bold, who have qualified to advance to the World Qualifier Finals on February 1:

Melissa Newman-Evans, top scorer for the night, laying down "The Shame Machine." Photo by Marshall Goff.

Melissa Newman-Evans, top scorer for the night, laying down "The Shame Machine." Photo by Marshall Goff.

1. Melissa Newman-Evans 54.4
2. Mckendy Fils-Aimé 53.0
3. Meaghan Ford 51.8
4. Nate Leland 51.8
5. Kevin Spak 51.5
6. Paulie Lipman 51.3
7. Matthew Richards 50.1
8. Sam Teitel 49.0

9. Bobby Crawford
10. Sophia Holtz
11. Z
DNS: Adam Stone, Carlos Williams, Tatayana Brown, Antonia Lassar, Sean Patrick Mulroy, Brian Omni Dillon, Simone Beaubien, Christian Drake

We’ll have a quick break from the tough competition next week to bring you Megan Falley, Write Bloody author and SUNY New Paltz grad. We’ll also hold the third open poetry slam in the current 8×8 series.