Recaps from the Boston Poetry Slam @ the Cantab Lounge's weekly show.
Send us feedback anonymously or via email
Open Mic Highlights
• Kyle M’s poem reflecting on the discovery that their grandfather was a queer photographer, which they only found out after they also became a queer photographer
• First timer Aanchal’s memorized bread & cheese piece. Aanchal also stayed late to judge the slam!
• TJ Jones’ …
Send us feedback anonymously or via email
Open Mic Highlights
• Max, Lou, and Will S started a (meta) theme as they did open mic poems about….local open mics! The Boston area is full of great ones, like Trident, Just Beloved, The Boston Liberation Center, and BPS. “These rooms save lives” – Will S
• March wrote a …
Send us feedback anonymously or via email
Open Mic Highlights
• Shout out to the large group of newcomers who signed up early on the mic this week, including 2nd-timer Shy and Sydney from West Tennessee, and Alyna from Ann Arbor, Michigan.
• Some unexpected onomatopoeia, whispering, singing, and other dynamic “Freak shit” (© Myles Taylor) from Julian
…
Send us feedback anonymously or via email
Open Mic Highlights
• Bailey and Artemis led off the open mic with love poems to each other, warming everyone’s hearts and inciting the ire of our apparently anti-love host Myles Taylor (full disclosure: they met before coming to the Cantab)
• “My sister’s pain is empty eggshells” – Edie writing …
Send us feedback anonymously or via email
Open Mic Highlights
• Eri’s “If I had to f*%k one of the four horseman…”
• Bailey’s fourth-wall breaking poem including lines like “Whatever happens between us we need to still be able to go to the poetry show”
• Noel’s pastorally lush and lyrical ode to a specific tree in …
Send us feedback anonymously or via email
Open Mic Highlights
• It was a great night for newcomers, with the first 6 people on the mic reading for first or second time!
• “It’s a miracle to me to speak into the dawn / ponder away a broken heart” – Christina
• Sahfa’s repeated their poem “I …
Send us feedback anonymously or via email
Open Mic Highlights
02/04/26
• Bobby’s C riffed on gatekeepers and Harold Bloom’s out-of-touch remark that “Poetry slam is the death of art”
• Emmanuel’s “Standing in front of a mirror trying to know what love is”
• Nick Roberts’ “My Curated Pandemonium” and “Lament Of The Finnish Bird Seller”
• …
Send us feedback anonymously or via email
Open Mic Highlights
01/21/26
• Tyrone’s short and wild ode to flying toilet paper that took a lot of detours within one minuted
• Apologies to Artemis if this does not describe their poem appropriately, but I have written down “gay sex set to the sound of protests” in my notes …
Send us feedback anonymously or via email
Open Mic Highlights
• Mary’s Heated Rivalry poem and “I have no one I can give my power to who can also protect it”
• Jennifer’s “Confession of An Emotional Intelligent Avoidant” (great title / relatable!)
• Ember wasn’t supposed to be in town but got to say goodbye for a …
Send us feedback anonymously or via email
Open Mic Highlights
12/30/25
• Our regular Worcester contingent had Bailey rattling off several sonnets in 3 minutes, and the actual/bonus last time on the mic from Ember before they move out of town!
• “[My father’s anger] is an expensive palette / more silence than I can afford to swallow” …
Boston Poetry Slam Online