Cantab Recap for Wednesday, January 5, 2014

Happy Black History Month, poetry fans! We hope your February has so far been packed with maximum learning and respect. There are a ton of great shows going on around the city this month, so check your event invites and get yourself in the habit of showing good support all year round.

Our plans for the first show of the month were very nearly crimped by a nasty snowstorm. Fortunately, not even the elements can withstand the refined brilliance and unshy power of the amazing Porsha O! Porsha brought us a roller-coaster of a feature filled with both brand-new and polished work, ranging from highly personal to outside-the-box persona. Folks all over the country wish they had Porsha performing in their town, so don’t forget to check out her other shows in the area when you get a chance.

After a slow start (does snow repel slammers from the Cantab?) the hosts heckled a total of six poets into slamming for the ten-dollar prize. Oddly, after being sassed into performing, everyone seemed ready to slam off-page, even with some new work… The big winner was Nora Meiners, who knocked out the on-fire Michael Monroe in the final round.

We’ll be back next week without a feature, but with the highly controversial annual Erotic Poetry Night, capped off by an on-theme Box of Doom Slam produced and hosted by bartender Adam Stone. Come by and take some notes for Valentine’s Day… Or partake of the bar in order to forget it’s coming.

Oh, and by the way: this month’s iteration of The Encyclopedia Show takes place this Monday, February 10. The theme will be Obsolete Diseases and you can catch some of your favorite poets reading brand new work there: come enjoy poems from Emily Carroll, Jeff Seigrist, and Catherine Martin, as well as a hula hoop routine by Catherine and a short film by Gary Hoare. Good fun ahead!