Cantab Recap for Wednesday, May 11, 2016

Oh, we know: some of you have been waiting for all of 2016 for Anis Mojgani to come to the Cantab. And yes, we all held on through bitter cold, and driving rain, and that thing that happens on the first seventy-degree day where the heat turns on in the bar for some reason… And we were amply rewarded! Anis brought his latest work, the illustrated Pocketknife Bible to the stage, and interleaved its rich, child-voiced dream sequences with performative mash-ups of some of his best-known work. V. beautiful, v. exactly what we needed.

You might have noticed: The Pocketknife Bible is a pretty heavy book, and, due to its beautiful full-color illustrations, hefts a heavier price tag ($25) as well, which meant Anis only brought us a few and sold out rather quickly! SOLUTION: click through over at Write Bloody Publishing to buy The Pocketknife Bible from the famously independent Powell’s Books.

After Anis sold out of books, of course, we slammed! This past Wednesday marked the first open slam to qualify poets for the 2017 slam team selection process. With only four poets slamming, everyone was in for at least two rounds, but we could only take two to the final: Evan Cutts came loaded for slam on his last night in town before next semester, but Neiel Israel, reigning champ of the 2016 team series, took him down by just 0.1 points. Seems like a good omen for the competitiveness of our upcoming season if we’ve ever heard of one. Congrats to Neiel –and we’ll see Evan in the fall!

Next week: it’s our last big slam show until 4×4 team slams starts in June… Get ready for World Qualifier Final, wherein we welcome the top eight indy slammers to a grandly difficult obstacle course of literary greatness. Chloé Cunha, RebeccaLynn Gualtieri, Mckendy Fils-Aimé, Nora Meiners, Bobby Crawford, Neiel Israel, John Pinkham, and Marshall Gillson will be cut to six, then four, then two in a head-to-head final to determine who will represent the Cantab in Flagstaff this October! Pack $5 for the increased cover charge (it’s the last fundraiser until June 22, we promise), and come get involved in selecting who will represent YOU at the 2016 Individual World Poetry Slam.