Cantab Recap for Wednesday, April 20, 2016

Happy April, Cantab. What a gift this month brings us: Ross Gay, our just-for-a-minute neighbor, presented to us from his award-winning book Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude –including the long-reaching title poem, a rare treat in our venue that so often holds us to three minutes. Truly, as excellent a feature as we could have hoped for, and maybe one of Ross’ last in the area before returning home to Indiana. What a lucky Wednesday night we are.

Oh, oh, and speaking of luck/curated by skill/underpinned by hard work: it’s time to extend your congratulations to the winner of the Champion of Champions slam! All eight of our previous speed slam winners showed up (HOT DAMN) to take a shot at reigning champ Mckendy Fils-Aimé… But only two of them made it to the one-minute doom-round-of-doom, where Nora Meiners defeated John Pinkham in a glorious tiebreaker in his first showing at the champs slam! Nora let her $50 ride and made a grand effort to take down Mckendy in the new poem round; unsurprisingly, Mckendy refused to roll over and came back with a brand-new memorized piece, polishing off the final round and walking away $100 richer and keeping his title. Holy crap, that makes FOUR WINS STRAIGHT for Mckendy as Champion! There are eight open slams between now and the next champs slam in August. Who will come at him next?

Wait, we said eight slams… But we meant nine. Next week, we offer the very last speed slam of the year: the Last Chance Slam to earn a berth in the 2016 World Qualifier Speed Slam. Dust off your two- and one-minute poems for the comp, and listen up for the Columbus powerhouse, the rarely-seen, rarely-touring Rose Smith, closing out National Poetry Month with the bestest Midwest bang.