Cantab Recap For Wednesday, October 8th, 2025

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Please note: WE ARE NOT AT THE CANTAB LOUNGE THIS WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 15TH! This week Boston Poetry Slam is partnering with Middlesex Lounge (315 Mass Ave in Central Square Cambridge) to launch our YOUTUBE CHANNEL and celebrate archived Boston Poetry Slam footage!

Open Mic Highlights

• Mariana opened the mic with some blackout poetry read on their phone (!) which included some pauses as they scrolled down through all the blank spaces

• Newcomer Tyrone wrote a poem waxing heavy nostalgia for the 1990s, with a lot of references you don’t hear much about these days (Zima, anyone?)

• Dedicated listener Dan Malloy returned to the mic for the first time in 2 years to give us a couple of haiku and stories to go with them. Let’s hope we don’t have to wait 2 more years for 2 more of this former haiku slam winner’s work!

• Ember wrote about the extensive editing of Wikipedia page on The Ship of Theseus, and used it as a metaphor for their self over time

• David F told us why he prefers to write in miniatures (but not why he rhymes) before taking a hard left into how he remembers his Dad through writing

• Everyone on the mic was incredibly respectful of the time that the open mic ended a half hour earlier than expected, leading yours truly to wonder if he should read a half hour of haiku to make up for it (I didn’t.)

Feature

Our third annual HAIKU TOURNAMENT was a resounding success, and always one of the most fun nights of the year. This year, we added a new wrench to the format: a Wild Card/Second Chance Roud, in which poets who would have normally been eliminated get to battle against each other for the chance to move on to the next round. In the end, all 11 poets got read at least two times, and 8 got to read at least four times!

Some of the many highlights of the night:

  • Briana did a haiku in Japanese while unscrewing the microphone stand in two and then drew one of the two pieces of the mic stand out like a sword
  • Shawn did his haiku where he keeps reading the intro for as long as possible and the crowd acted very antagonistic (in a funny way.) He didn’t stop until yours truly walked on stage and made him stop.
  • Anna Geiger, who has only read on our mic a couple times, held her own against everyone else, showing a wide range of experimental, sexy, and thoughtful haiku
  • Keaton (who was reading the haiku of Logan Lopez, who had fallen ill) read a long series of crush haiku, which ended with giving audience members tiny cans of Crush soda that said “you’re my crush” on it
  • Aparna performed a group haiku where a different audience member said each syllable of the haiku in sequence
  • Gel did *more than one* series of haiku about JD Vance f***ing a couch. One was set to the tune of “Baby Shark!” 🦈
  • Kaitie D read a series of haiku in morse code intensely, as well as a series of poems examining Stephen King’s trashy horror novels
  • Oliver performed work that was simultaneously pastoral and deeply weird, and Sarah King used comedic timing, silences, and some intentional microphone fumbling to great effect.
  • March riled up the crowd with a lot of awkward-yet-brazen haiku about sex, gender identity, and queer politics
  • Jarvis’ haiku celebrated their queer identity, with tender and raucous haiku about gay clubbing, living with their partner(s), tales of their cat, and a set of “choose your own adventure” haiku that the audience helped decide the progression of the plot

In the end, our final round was between Briana, Aparna, and Jarvis, with Jarvis taking the BIG WIN, and Briana coming in 2nd place. They both will qualify for the 2026 Boston Poetry Slam team selection! Thank you to everyone who performed.

Coming Up This Wednesday

WE ARE NOT AT THE CANTAB LOUNGE THIS WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 15TH! This week Boston Poetry Slam is partnering with Middlesex Lounge (315 Mass Ave in Central Square Cambridge) to launch our YOUTUBE CHANNEL and celebrate archived Boston Poetry Slam footage! Come read on the open mic, then stay to eat popcorn and watch a set of videos on Middlesex Lounge’s projector screen from past and present Boston Poetry Slam team members. Then make sure to SUBSCRIBE, because our channel will start posting regular footage from our programming! (But never fear, our weekly Wednesday show will stay camera-free.) See you there!

See you soon!

– MFG 🚪

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Cantab Recap For Wednesday, October 1st, 2025

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Open Mic Highlights

• Ren’s poem examining the Chinese greeting of “Have you eaten yet?”

• “Unrequited Love is Like Organized Religion” – Mica Rich on the unreachable and promises people make to us

• “Don’t talk to me, I need time for my sublunar calculations” – Charlie R

• “I come from a land of a thousand splendid suns” – Arneaz

• “You love me through my womb shedding” – Hanan

• Keaton’s poem opening up with someone saying, “Have you been writing lately?” and so many audience members groaning in response

• Greg M WHOLESOME POEM ALERT (“the official Dad of the Cantab–the Dadtab” – Amy)

• “In America violence is an escape from violence” – Kaitie D fleetingly on video games and injuries

• Sue Savoy’s “I can’t write a poem about a vibrator” that was too embarrassing and personal to finish, but did later inspire host Briana to read her own somewhat-embarrassing vibrator poem later on the mic

• Will S writing about tarot and a lyric from Sabrina Carpenter’s “Lie To Girls”

• Amy texting me to include Rasheen’s whole poem in the recap, and while I can’t, I will say it was the best poem I have ever heard to reference an ancient GUSHERS commercial

• The LAST CHANCE HAIKU SLAM which featured long-time listener Matt M’s first time on the mic, plus several contestants swaying audiences (ironically or not) to vote for their competitors. Kaitie D won in the final round over Edie C!

Feature

Quentin Collins gave us a very craft-driven yet accessible feature that felt like an old friend sharing with you everything that is going on with their life right now. Reading from three distinct manuscripts, we got to hear detailed descriptions/deconstruction of the Chicago suburbs where he grew up, his family’s strong competitive history with bowling, detours into Afrofuturism, tales of riding on the el and causing ruckus, and an enthralling new poem entitled “Every Day I Wake Up and Get Dressed Like A Funeral,” that detailed how to be prepare for the unexpected bout of unconsciousness. All this is only scratching the surface of his great feature, so be sure to check both of Quentin’s books, or watch the replay of the livestream on our Instagram!

Coming Up This Wednesday

The feature this Wednesday is the third annual HAIKU TOURNAMENT! Myles is away and Michael F. Gill has taken the reins, bringing us a high-energy multi-tiered double elimination tournament with all of our previous haiku slam winners. At LEAST $170 is available to the winner who can navigate though a haiku suite round, a themed round involving dirty and experimental haiku, and a head-to-head-to-head final round! You won’t want to miss it!

See you soon!

– MFG 🚪

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Cantab Recap For Wednesday, September 24th, 2025

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Open Mic Highlights

• Mary’s poem about writing a commissioned song for a 7-year-old kid named Paulie that turned out to be a scam, and how the idea of Paulie lived on

• Ember’s poem re: the FBI’s claim to categorize trans people as “violent extremists”

• Kelsey’s new piece “My mother unburies her trauma” which featured the cutting line: “I am my mother’s mother before her daughter”

• Will S’s moving reflection on his Jewish root and his prayer for both peace and a free Palestine

• Jen’s striking “When Black Bodies Fall / Does Anyone Even Hear Them” and Brynna’s rebuttal to her professor: “Not all of us descended from Royalty”

• Myles just casually mentioning the documentary “Listers: A Glimpse Into Extreme Birdwatching” on the mic (where is the poem, Myles?!)

Feature

For this month’s community night, Zeke Russell hosted a series of poems and poets discussing work about and inspired by their favorite music albums. Zeke himself bookended the set with homesick poems about the Grateful Dead, Tom Petty, and Nirvana’s Nevermind, featuring the brief and excellent “Self Portrait As The Major Key Remix of Smells Like Teen Spirit”. Amy reflected on her Dad’s classic rock favorites that she grew up, and through a series of ongoing revelations ended up with the line “The day I learned to call it love / I learned to call if grief.” Keaton wrote about growing up with the band Bastille (of which they were once in the top 0.1% of spotify listeners) and also about the lyrics of Matt Mason. Kai told us how they were a tumblr teen and were inspired by Marina & The Diamonds. Navah The Buddaphliii deeped into their deep well of paisley reflections, fever dreams, and Prince poems to speak about 1999. And Myles Taylor read a series of mini poems inspired by the band The National, centered around the theme of a post-college depression. The whole show was such a unique and striking look in to how our local poets interact with music, so we may have to do it again in the future!

Coming Up This Wednesday

This week’s feature is Quintin Collins! We also will have a last chance Haiku slam to qualify for next week’s tournament, and an early bird tarot-themed workshop by New England poet/former Cantab feature Mica Rich! Workshop at 6:30, Show starts at 8, feature begins at 10!

Workshop info: Learn how reading the tarot and writing poetry intersect at the art of storytelling. In this workshop, participants will read examples of poems inspired by the tarot, learn about archetypes within the tarot, and practice doing tarot readings for inspiration. Poets will have time to write their own tarot-inspired poems and to share with the workshop group.

Feature bio: Quintin Collins (he/him) is a writer, associate director of the Solstice Low-Residency Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing Program, and a poetry editor for Salamander. His work appears in many print and online publications, such as Sidereal Magazine, Superstition Review, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Solstice Literary Magazine, and others. Winner of a Pushcart Prize and the 2019 Atlantis Award from the Poet’s Billow, Quintin’s publishing accolades include multiple Best of the Net Nominations, and he was a finalist for the 2020 Redivider Beacon Street Prize.

Quintin’s first full-length collection of poems, The Dandelion Speaks of Survival, which was a finalist for the 2020 Alice James Award and the 2021 Sheila Margaret Motton Book Prize, is available from Cherry Castle Publishing. His second collection of poems, Claim Tickets for Stolen People, selected by Marcus Jackson as winner of The Journal’s 2020 Charles B. Wheeler Poetry Prize and Honor Book for the Black Caucus of the American Library Association’s 2023 Best Poetry Literary Award, is available from Ohio State University Press/Mad Creek Books.

See you soon!

– MFG 🚪

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Cantab Recap For Wednesday, September 17th, 2025

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Open Mic Highlights

• Kaitie D’s “This Is My Fat Girl Poem” inspired by True Kwene

• River’s love poem that was both approved by his partner and rejected by his poetry teacher

• Shenanigans: the audience snapping their fingers in rhythm while waiting for Myles to open in the show (he was in the bathroom)

• It was a great night for first timers! Feng Yee brought us a piece set to movement that brought to mind the rhythms and inspirations of water, Adel (from Dubai) included us on his trip across poetry shows in America, Gaby told us why they started believing in the train, and Erika responded to their friends’ inquiries on why they should even write poetry

• Connor’s extended “Chicken or Beef” metaphor that confronted their family’s biphobia

Feature

Our feature was Tatiana Johnson-Boria, who graced the feature stage for the third time at the Cantab! Taken a note of inspiration to write poetry in 2025 to “drown the universe”, we heard an expertly-crafted set of poems on motherhood, Palestine, black joy, and, in what has been a common theme this year, the aftermath of elections in the U.S. (including a poem where her child wakes up screaming right after the election results were given). Other highlights include meditations on intrusive thoughts while post-partum, how to make love while the world is burning, and possibly the only poem in existence to talk about approaching placenta in the freezer a year after giving birth, and then burying it in the backyard. Tatiana also gave us some form work too–with a ghazal about a miscarriage and her own take on a erasure poem/Burning Haibun form. Thank you so much Tatiana!

Coming Up This Wednesday

This Wednesday is our monthly Community Night, where the community becomes the feature! This week, local legend Zeke Russell will be hosting a celebration of the 36th anniversary of Nirvana’s album Nevermind with a night dedicated to poems after our favorite albums. Zeke will be sharing work after/inspired by Nirvana, and then will open the mic to community members who want to share work inspired by the music that surrounds them.

See you soon!

– MFG 🚪

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Cantab Recap For Wednesday, September 10th, 2025

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Open Mic Highlights

• Ember’s “My Body Is Not A Temple—It’s A Dive Bar Bathroom”

• Jack’s “Health Scare Boyfriend” who may or may not have erroneously convinced him that he had cancer

• Roxy’s returned with an advertisement for their coffee roaster cafe that turned into a poem, and Cameron came back in persona as a Charles Bukowski-esque character

• Elaborate contrapuntal-ish work from Mugs Myers and Kelsey Kessler

• First timer Victor’s funny poem about being on a Greyhound bus while someone was having sex in the background that resonated with a lot more audience members than you would have thought

• We had our penultimate haiku slam of the year! There was fun stuff by Will S, who wrote haiku about their competitors, and great written-on-the-spot haiku by first-timer Victor. The final round was led by the sensual-and-stinging work by Briana, and the off-kilter quietude/freakiness by Oliver, both longtime regulars. Oliver took the win, and both finalists qualify for next month’s Haiku Tournament!

• Heartbreaking poems by Kai (on familial neglect) and Amy (meditating on the middle of their body)

• Myles’ dumpster-diving/Allston Christmas poem that some serious swift flow/rhythmic cadence to it as it went on

Feature

Our feature was local poet/teacher/open-mic & slam regular Otto Vock! Reading from their new chapbook as well an older “angstier” one (by their own admission), Otto Vock ran through both established performance favorites and some great new material. Highlights include persona poems in the voice of Plastic, a conversation between humankind and The Sky (told from the voice of the Sky), and a poem in which they become an architect instead of a poet. We also heard moving material about the aftermath of being positive during the 2024 election cycle, the experience of trying to get a gig / be a teaching artist in 2025, and an ode to Yukie, a rather scrappy and not-always-so-nice dog (“she was easier to love when toothless”). Thank you Otto!

Coming Up This Wednesday

This week’s feature is poet and friend-to-BPS Tatiana Johnson-Boria!

Tatiana Johnson-Boria (she/her) is the author of Nocturne in Joy (2023), winner of the 2024 Julia Ward Howe Book Prize in Poetry. As an educator, artist, facilitator, and mother; she uses her writing practice to dismantle racism, reckon with trauma, cultivate healing, and to explore the complex magic of mothering. She has received fellowships and awards from Tin House, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, MacDowell, the Brother Thomas Fellowship, and St. Botolph Club Foundation, among others. Tatiana is a 2017 Pushcart Prize nominee, and teaches at GrubStreet and Framingham State University, among other institutions. Find her work in The Academy of American Poets, Ploughshares, Kenyon Review, and more.

See you around!

– MFG 🚪

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Cantab Recap For Wednesday, September 3rd, 2025

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Open Mic Highlights

• It was another great night for first-timers! We heard great subtly rhyming work from Isaac and Kay brought us the words of other poets who are consistently speak to her

• Helena’s striking poem about trying to learn how to draw and sketching their partner the way they see them during unseen moments

• TJ Jones’ first memorized poem, which was “experimental…because Myles is not here tonight!”

• Jan’s poem about the “pain and sleep aisle” you find in stores/pharmacies

• Edie’s “I Wrote My Pain a Letter Again” and Will S revisiting the experience that is the combination Pizza Hut/Taco Bell

• Keaton’s poem titled “A Vampire named ‘Daddy Issues'”

Feature

We had a full open poetry slam this week! It was a throwdown of many established poets, with scores very tight throughout. Shawn opened up with his meta “This is the first poem of the poetry slam” piece, and we also heard good work from first-time slammer Ember on queerness and familial acceptance. The dreaded time-penalty reared its head for Isaiah and Otto, preventing them from moving on, as second round ties pushed us into a three-person final round. Kaitie D and Kelsey brought highly polished, explosive work, which was in contrast to Roxy Luis Martinez-Dobbs, who did 3 ramshackle manifestos all under 2 minutes that were fuming on attitude, style, and the complications of gender identity and relation/situationships. In the end Kaitie took the win, with Roxy coming in second! Both will qualify for the 2026 Boston Poetry Slam Team Selection slam next year!

Coming Up This Wednesday

This week we have a surprise treat: a feature from regular open mic and slam favorite Otto Vock!

Bio: Otto Vock is a Jewish, non-binary poet and educator from Jersey City, NJ, now based in Somerville, MA, whose work explores the role of play and rebellion in all the nooks of life. Their work has appeared in The Offing, Pigeon Pages NYC, and the Quinobequin Review and their manuscript in progress, They Did Not Comply, recently received an honorable mention from Game Over Book’s 2025 open reading period. Additionally, they are the primary author of the companion curriculum for Phil Kaye’s book of poems, Date & Time, published in partnership with Button Poetry and Project VOICE. Recently, Otto began holding it down at Mass Poetry as their Teen Spoken Word Programming Coordinator and has previously taught at Urban Word NYC, 826 Boston, Grubstreet, and across several Boston Public Library branches providing free and open to the public poetry and personal essay workshops with the BPL’s Community History Department. They are pursuing a Master’s in Educational Studies at Tufts University and engage in trickery within the world of academia whenever possible (always).

See you soon!

– MFG 🚪

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Cantab Recap For Wednesday, August 27th, 2025

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Open Mic Highlights

• For our second community night, we had bilingual spotlight features from Mariana (Portuguese), Kaitie D (Spanish), and John Lee (Taiwanese). Each performed beautifully, with a special shout out to John for reading and translating a poem from 700 A.D.!

• Joshua forgot the poem they were prepared to read on the way to Cantab, and ended up bravely improvising a poem about numbers and his father

• Edie’s late-night poem walking through Somerville with the line “At night the streets become a ghost town / and I also become a ghost”

• Lily K’s farewell poem (part 2) riffing off Elizabeth Bishop’s “One Art” – we’ll miss you Lily!

• First timer Helena’s devastating breakup poem that left the audience (ok, maybe just me!) gasping at the end

• Bob S’ poems on hitchhiking 50 years ago and a memorable family dinner from 60 (!) years ago

• First timer Frannie’s stunning 2 poems – a list of what should/shouldn’t be sent to her on her death bed, and a disarming poem-prayer for a past abuser

Feature

We had a mini-feature from touring poet K.E.R.M. this week! K.E.R.M gave a very energetic and fast-paced set–so fast-paced at times the audience wondered where he even took the time to breathe–that wrapped up rhyming, comedy, Spiderman, litanies, and the black experience into an overflowing melting pot of a meal. Other highlights include a poem about your alternate “perfect” self that is not so perfect in the end, and a renunciation of billionaires told through the lens of hating on Batman (despite the poet themselves having a Batman tattoo!) Thanks K.E.R.M.!

Coming Up This Wednesday

We’ve had a change of plans! Daniel Garwood’s planned featured will be rescheduled, so instead there will be an OPEN POETRY SLAM! Come bring 3 poems that are 3 minutes or less and you can win $75 plus a chance to qualify for the 2026 Boston Poetry Slam Team!

See you soon!

– MFG 🚪

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Cantab Recap For Wednesday, August 20th, 2025

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Open Mic Highlights

If you were at the show last week, you may have heard my slot on the open mic, where I read haiku about each poem that was read before me that night! Here they are for the sake of posterity.

Adam M

what to do with this
poetry journal i just found:
write a haiku

Lou C

i’m going to spit a little
watch out
it’s intensely joyful

Alex Kist

welcoming a tear
for each question i have about love
welcome home

[s.m.] DECKER

roger’s got no head
it’s an interlocking rollercoaster
instead

Speros P

we never wanted
indigo apples
indigo apples stone still

Tyler B

nine times eight times
seven times six times five times
four times three times two one

Edie

happy spelled with backwards p’s
stained
with the comfort of generations

Lauren

what if you were dead
let me tell you a cold hard fact:
you were hit by a bus

Bailey

queer
queer
queer
queer meat suit with the check engine light flashing queer
queer
queer
queer

Mariana

last stop
called at every station—
plausible deniability

Cheyanne

durability of concrete
white cement mold
what is a birthplace?

Kaitie D

gluten-free jesus will not save me so i don’t say anything about how long a haiku should be just do you want to die or kill the part of you that’s hurting? anyway my dad says some weird stuff

Donovan Beck

the light in the oldest lighthouse is still on
who is keeping it?
who

Isaiah

tomato / basil
coconut / lime
the fruit the follows grows the soil

Will S

normal’s hard to resist
surveillance capitalism
is normal

Otto Vock

poetry closes doors
i became an architect
to replace the doors

Mary S

can you believe in me
long enough
for me to finish this haiku

Aruna

holding hands with the divine
i told him nothing right
empty soul alight

Sue Savoy

to the long list of things
i can’t do anymore
you can add parties

Nick Roberts

here comes
cameras-out confidence men with
mosquito bites between both breasts

March Penn

there is a you inside a you
that is all body
falling towards truth

Brynna B

the kind of laugh
where you forgot to breathe:
too loud too proud too much joy

Briana Crockett

does a survivor’s haiku
sound like anger, broken glass,
or reciprocity?

Aparna

i think they only have
the unasked question in my heart
on the menu

Kai W

epiphanies lost in the “watch later” tab
migrate to me
in sleep

Amy Argentar

in two hundred feet
i want to keep on moving
while staying at home

Feature

We had a short (!) and beautiful feature from Jess Yuan this week. Jess gave us some unique persona poems voicing the dreams of a “project manager”, a poem about her long-distance relationship that was written while actually-travelling-the-long-distance on train, a four-part poem relating to the four stomachs of a cow (wild writing prompt alert!) and finished with a vulnerable poem involving secret languages and a refrain admitting “It’s true I don’t know anything about love / So you must not believe my poems”. The audience disagreed with the point, as they were keenly listening and enthusiastic throughout! Thanks Jess!

Coming Up This Wednesday

BPS presents a double feature: The touring poet KERM, and our 2nd community Night, showcasing poems in multiple languages! THERE ARE STILL SPOTS AVAILABLE FOR THE MULTILINGUAL MIC! SIGN UP AT tinyurl.com/MLNIGHT27 if you are interested!

Bio: KERM is a real presence in front of a mic. While he’s relatively new to sharing his words with the world, it’s hard to imagine him doing anything else. He currently resides in LA, but was raised in Nashville, Tennessee; Quincy, Massachusetts; and Attleboro, Massachusetts. His poetry is rooted in reflective storytelling, placing his audiences right beside him, as he time travels through memories oozing nostalgia, processed by a mind molded by comic books and hip-hop. He loves to write about the Black American experience. He loves to write personification poems. He’s finished writing his first poetry book and is currently in the process of getting it published.

See you soon!

– MFG 🚪

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Cantab Recap For Wednesday, August 13th, 2025

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Open Mic Highlights

• Dave Mingolla’s poem about “quietly interrogating the universe until it speaks”

• First timer Rob M with a short and surprising poem about ladybugs

• The open mic debut of recent BPS feature Kelsey Bigelow, on the road from Iowa

• Donovan’s tribute to Andrea Gibson and Will S’s mantra that “You will not die on Route 1”

• Connor’s awkward-yet-endearing tales of failed and non-existent second dates, which was a very close cousin to John Lee’s wryly funny-but-also-uncomfortable poem about autism

• Sue Savoy’s exploration of the lobster emoji that went so many dark and hilarious places that we had to stop to catch our breath afterwards!

Feature

This week we had our 2nd-ever tag team slam! Teams of two came up to the mic to each do one individual piece in the first two rounds, and then perform a group piece together in the final round. After the novelty of a Sue Savoy/Michael F. Gill (aka me!) group piece sacrifice, we heard a lot of tried-and-true individual poems, with some surprises with Mary S’s “I’m a closed book” poem and Edie revisiting their proposition on why we should all streak down Massachusetts Ave. Fireworks did happen the group piece round, with Kaitie D and Ilse writing about being accidentally locked in the Kmart overnight, Ilse and Mary taking on what might be called “the lesbian gaze”, and Myles and Aparna deliberately going over time with a deconstructed tale about what happens after they get a “boy body” delivered in the mail. But the big winners were the powerhouse duo of Jen Martinez and Amy Argentar, who once again left the audience stunned with their piece on woman and gossip. Thanks to everyone who stayed late for this very fun slam that really builds to a crescendo as it goes on!

Coming Up This Wednesday

This week’s feature is Jess Yuan! Jess Yuan (she/her) is a poet, educator, and architect. She is the author of Slow Render (2024), winner of the Airlie Prize, and Threshold Amnesia (2020), winner of the Yemassee Chapbook Contest. Jess holds an MFA in Poetry from the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars and has received support from Kundiman and Miami Writers Institute. Her poems appear in Best New Poets, Tupelo Quarterly Review, jubilat, Beloit Poetry Journal, and elsewhere. She is a licensed architect and Director of Intermediate Studios at Boston Architectural College.

See you later!

– MFG 🚪

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Cantab Recap For Wednesday, August 6th, 2025

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NOTE FOR TONIGHT’S 08/13 SHOW: Doors will be open by 7 pm, but our open mic will start at 8 pm like usual! There is a sold-out ticketed show upstairs at the Cantab, so folks will wait downstairs for our show to start instead of upstairs.

Open Mic Highlights

• It was an incredible night of first timers, who made up nearly HALF the open mic! It was amazing how many newcomers seemed to fit in to our community right away, so hopefully you will all come back!

• Sam F’s ode to diners and “patriotic indigestion”

• The return of open mic veteran Dave Mingolla, who gave us two memorized poems, both with intriguing first lines (“If I could stop talking…” and “When I decided to join the other non-zombie neighbors”)

• Greg M’s “To the Person I Love, During A Bank Crisis”

• Lily K’s farewell poem / love letter to Massachusetts: “I’m going back to California where sadness makes sense”, after Danez Smith

• The debut of Jarvis hosting the open mic!

• The JV SMOOVE EXPERIENCE (which consists of a bombastic intro where he gets the audience to yell “I Heard That”, followed by shy, tender poem read slowly)

• Jennifer Martinez thunderous poem for an “expired crush” that focused itself around weightlifting

• Aparna’s reverse abecedarian about her Mom’s name (which begins with Z) and her name (which begins with A)

Feature

Our feature was the two-decade slam veteran Tim Stafford, finally gracing our feature stage for the first time! Poems from Tim’s new book “Broke Stay Broke” (Write Bloody Books, 2025) were the centerpiece of the night, and with a lot of local Chicago flavor as the backdrop, he regaled us with poetic adventures in being broke. Highlights included pieces on how to show up to a party hosted by “Old Money”, the yearning for a lazy, well-paid office job, being stuck in a loop of working too much even when you are able to pay the bills, and the phenomenon of “Wilco Dads” in Chicago (Don’t say anything bad about the band Wilco in the windy city!) Tim also graciously gave us entertaining and informative stories behind his work between poems, including the tale of a surprise meeting of Cantab veteran Ryk McIntyre in the Lizzy Borden House. Thanks Tim!

Coming Up This Wednesday

It’s the return of the Tag Team Slam! Teams of two will face off against each other, with each team member doing one individual poem, and then coming together to do a group piece for their third poem. Winning team gets a spot in the 2026 BPS team selection slam, plus $50! There are still slots available at the moment, so send us a DM/email/see a staff member tonight if you have a team of two interested!

See you soon,

– MFG 🚪

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