It’s May already, Cantabbers, and that means a five-payday-month: we kicked off our bonus Wednesday this week with a really sweet open mic, welcoming some very strong newcomers to the stage, and setting up Kieran Collier for a glorious journey of a feature. What a joy to see this longtime reader owning the mic for himself and selecting poems from the whole arc of his story. If you missed it? Your best bet is to come to the Cantab for the next, say, fifty Wednesdays, so you can really get a feel for this local community leader and educator’s work.
You may have heard, by the way, that we finalized our Champion of Champions with a speed-style 8×8 this week, too, the penultimate of the season. Four poets arrived to take a shot at reigning champion Brandon Melendez, who’s been making a name around town for himself in the intervening weeks (hey, House Slam team!). Previous slam winners RebeccaLynn, Lip, Evan, and Sam battled it out two rounds to leave RebeccaLynn and Lip in the top spots: on a roll with some fresh performances, RebeccaLynn claimed the season championship and let the cash prize ride to challenge Brandon to a rematch of their previous epic Champions battle! These two poetic friends and rivals were toasting tequila with each other when the scores went up, so maybe they didn’t notice, but the news is this: Brandon took the final, new-poem round, defending the title to safely retain until August’s rematch.
Next week: listen, you can’t tell anybody, but Chen Chen is going to be our feature on May 9, and it’s kind of a big deal(!). We’ll also enjoy the very last speed slam of 2018, which is, coincidentally, our Last Chance Slam to get into the World Qualifier on May 16.
Last bit of news: if you didn’t hear the announcement at the Cantab this week, here it is again… We are proud to report that our spring and summer bookings are being conducted by tumblrinatrix, co-host, and badass organizer Cassandra de Alba. Be sure to thank Cass (alert: whiskey is one good thanks) when you see a poet you love on the schedule!
Boston Poetry Slam Online