Cantab Recap for Wednesday, August 13, 2014

A pretty sweet night at the Cantab went down last Wednesday, folks: we got to celebrate the triumphant return of most of our top-twenty 2014 Boston Poetry Slam Team, a killer feature from Jacob Rakovan, and a field of very serious NPS-caliber poets duking it out for the chance to challenge reigning Champion of Champions Ellyn Touchette for the venue title.

An open mic packed with veterans (and new work!) got us started, definitely impressing our feature and Poetry and Pie co-curator Jacob Rakovan. Jacob took the stage for a full feature afterwards, bringing us work from his first full-length publication, The Devil’s Radio, as well as excerpts of his latest long-form work. Very nice! If you find yourself in upstate New York, don’t hesitate to look up Jacob and the monthly reading he helps run.

The big close-out for the night was a highly competitive Champion of Champions slam. Sometimes, the week after the National Poetry Slam, we see a little dip in how competitive our local poets are feeling… Not this year! Six top-notch poets showed up to fight for a shot at the title, all of them bringing highly polished work and playing off one another’s pieces in the slam. The final pairing for the season championship came down to Nora Meiners (returning from repping the Lizard Lounge at NPS) and Bobby Crawford (a returnee for Slam Free or Die). Bobby proved the judges’ favorite and decided to let it ride to the ultimate champion round, facing off with reigning champ Ellyn in an all-new-to-the-Cantab-stage round! Bobby took the championship on a tight decision between the judges, earning the title and the $100 prize. What a great show!

Next week: WE HAVE A SCHEDULE CHANGE. Our original bookings, Tova Charles and Zai Sadler, are unfortunately not able to make it to New England this week. On such short notice, we are super-sad about the double feature we booked to fill: we’ll be waving a permanent moving farewell to both Melissa Newman-Evans and Alex Ehrhardt this week, so the two will take the stage for a tearful and not even sarcastic farewell from them both. Hope to see you there!