Cantab Recap for Wednesday, October 23

Last night, Omaha poet Andrew Ek knocked it out of the park at the Cantab. If you missed his series of perceptive, poignant, and scientific stories, you may be out of luck: this was his one and only show on his trip to New England! He’ll be in Manchester on the open mic tonight, but if you want to order one of his sold-out chapbooks, you can contact him through his blog.

After Andrew’s feature, we rolled right into a crazy-all-star Champion of Champions Slam! It was a full line-up waiting to challenge returning champ Tom Slavin, including Bobby Crawford, Marshall Gillson, Meaghan Ford, Melissa Newman-Evans, Mckendy Fils-Aimé, Sophia Holtz, Ed Wilkinson, and Kieran Collier… With more than a few not-so-secret grudge matches in that mix. Marshall and Ed rose to the top of the big eight, with Marshall taking the season championship! His triumph was short-lived, however, when despite a great new-poem effort in the title round, Tom Slavin dispatched him on a unanimous decision. Tom retains the title until his next match in January of 2014: in the meantime, we’ll start up a new 8×8 series, the last before our team selection slams for next year.

Next week: we’ll close out our Sober October with our very favorite sober artist… It’s the first-ever Jack McCarthy Memorial Slam. Some of our favorite locals will be slamming Jack’s work in this show, including Brian Comiskey, Richard Cambridge, Kemi Alabi, Mark Palos, Cassandra Euphrat Weston, Alison Truj, Sue Savoy, Kevin Spak, and our recently re-crowned champ, Tom Slavin himself.