Cantab Recap For Wednesday, April 30th, 2025

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It was packed night at the Cantab this past week, not only for the open mic and open slam, but as we said goodbye (for now) to beloved staff member / bartender / poet Kat Anderson, who is moving to New York to be closer to their family. We had a lot of funny and poignant stories about Kat on the mic, and we will all miss her presence and poems.

Open Mic Highlights

Juliet’s charming theatrical piece about being a microcelebrity (read while wearing dark sunglasses and posing around the stage)

Hallie Carton’s “pattern seeker” poem about how every time they get close to someone with red hair, they feel something bad will happen to them. As the poem progressed, it openly wondered that if you never see someone again, does that make them immortal?

Mahathi’s poem titled “That one second where you gave a shit”

The welcome return of Briana and Meredith L to the mic, the former in extended visceral glory, the latter with a very meaty plot-heavy 1 minute piece during the express land that left us all wanting more.

The syncopated rhythms of Katya’s “Cocaine Bear: A Love Story”, which makes this recapper ponder if it will one day be performed/merged with her poem about the family of Charmin Bears

Kelsey, Meg Ford, Amy wrote bravely about recovery, the death of a parent, and all the personal thoughts and emotions that are behind grocery lists.

First Timers Section

Megan S brought us three painterly love poems, awash in evening rain and purple-blues, Cade gave us an ode to the mystic river, and Mer gave us a metaphorical (and literal) piece about the concept of hands. Special shoutout to Cyrus, who has been coming to our show for over a year and celebrated their newly legal name with their first time on the open mic. Welcome new poets!

Memorable Open Mic Lines Out Of Context:

“My mother calls me hope like I’m a wildcat breaking free of the cage” – Kai W
“If I was a drag performer, my stage name would be ‘Male Hysteria'” – Keaton
“Love derives from a set of aching teeth” – Nick Roberts

This week’s writing prompt: Write a poem about your most charming ghost, the sickening and haunting thing that you can’t stop feeling attached to

Feature

8 poets faced off in the Fresh Ink Slam, where all the work was new and/or never-been-performed on our stage! Highlights were a SURPRISE group piece sacrifice from Meredith L and Kat Anderson, moving work from Ilse about being middle class, and an intense hybrid poem from Bailey, which was both meta and also a cry for the remembrance of the self. Making it the final round was newcomer Sarah Fox, and a truly raw and unhinged Edie Churchill. After a dramatic final round TIE, we went on to a BONUS poem round, where Edie prevailed! Congrats to Edie, who has been slamming for over a year here at BPS and finally got the big win!

This Week!

We have not only a feature by Lauren Singer, but an early bird workshop by Fin Leary, which will focus on how we can engage real life figures, such as Gerard Way of My Chemical Romance, in writing poetry. Workshop starts at 6:30 pm, $10 / sliding scale. Workshoppers will have early access to the open mic list.

Bios:

Lauren Singer is an assistant judge of the Wergle Flomp Humor Poetry Contest and North Street Book Prize. She is a native New Yorker living in Western Massachusetts. Her poetry has been published in Nerve House, Bareback, Feel the Word, Read This, Kosmosis, One Night Stanzas, Drunk in a Midnight Choir, among others. An attendee of the New York State Summer Writer’s Institute, she is a graduate of Bard College at Simon’s Rock and received her MSW at the University of Chicago in 2015. She has self-published three chapbooks and is a current attendant of Story Studio’s selective Novel in a Year program. In addition to her creative interests, Lauren works as a sex and relationship therapist and runs a private practice out of Northampton, MA. Her book-length poetry manuscript, Raised Ranch, will be published by Game Over Books in April of 2025. She prides herself on her wealth of useless pop culture knowledge, namely of nineties R&B lyrics, and she can pretty much quote “The X-Files”.

Fin Leary (they/he) is an author, program manager at We Need Diverse Books, and faculty in the MFA program at Emerson College and at GrubStreet. They are the editor of the sci fi anthology Future States of Stars (OwlCrate Press, 2025) and a contributor to the horror anthology These Bodies Ain’t Broken (Page Street, 2025). His young adult fiction has been supported by Lambda Literary, Tin House, Changemaker Authors, and GrubStreet. Their creative nonfiction has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. His flash fiction was a finalist for Boston in 100 Words. Fin lives with their orange literary cat outside of Boston, Massachusetts.

See you soon,

– MFG 🚪

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Cantab Recap For Wednesday, April 23rd, 2025

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One of the greatest things about our long open mic is not only its diversity and unpredictability, but the intensely personal work that is trusted to the audience, with a kind of blind faith that people will stop and listen for each other. There were a lot of personal demons, traumas, and familial ghosts exorcised on the open mic this week, yet the overall tone of the was uplifting, a cry of togetherness in a 2025 that hasn’t felt the most hopeful for a lot of us.

Open Mic Highlights

Erica Garcia’s “Texas was once underwater,” remembering a Texas devoid of dads.

Daivd F’s “Don’t check my browser history” poem that was interrupted by an advertisement read by Cameron, and then was immediately followed on the mic by Cameron’s satirical advertisement for the Calm app.

Gel’s poem about wanting to answer the phone despite the litany of “spam risk”/robocalls they receive, a desire that’s been complicated by the unexpected loss of a friend.

Mugs Myers gave us one of the bravest and most direct pieces about past trauma that I have heard on the mic in a long time, and it also included a line/reference to a previous Myles Taylor poem as a beacon of hope and perseverance.

Shout out to the large number of poets bringing memorized performance pieces to the mic this week: Jenn, Kaitie D, Will L, Myles, Ilse, and Bailey. Thank you!

First Timers Section!

Ali J read an excellently nuanced and winding take on the frayed edges/intersections of intimacy, therapy, the past, and feminism.

I’m not sure if this is a direct quote, but I have written down “Remember loving me at the corner of St. Botolph and West Newton?” for Laura R’s first time on the mic, and it feels like a good encapsulation of her piece.

Lisha gave us an intense extended metaphor/allegory about bees, buzzing, being touched, and disarming and detonating bombs.

Memorable Open Mic Lines Out Of Context:

“Mount me nicely. Bark.” – Aidan
“I’m attempting to raise my dopamine levels by eating mango popsicle sticks” – Portia*
“Cast your ballot for the dirty smell” – Tom Fowler

*I think most of our patrons are attempting to raise their dopamine levels by listening to poetry!

This month’s HAIKU SLAM was won by Kai over Cam S! Honorable mention goes to open mic regular Juliet, who humorously titled their first-round haiku “I always lose the haiku slam,” and their second-round haiku, “I never make it to the 2nd round”.

This week’s WRITING PROMPT comes courtesy of our feature Emmanuel Oppong-Yeboah:

Start with a place in the city you are familiar with. How does it see you. What does it have to say about you. Imagine it loves you. It does. Write a love poem in its voice about you. Your working title is [Insert location in they city] romanticizes [Insert Your Name].

Feature!

Our feature was the NEW Poet Laureate of Boston, and long-time local writer/organizer Emmanuel Oppong-Yeboah! Emmanuel opened by asking the audience to think about a childhood belief that they strongly believed but was later debunked. He then asked each person to discuss this belief with the person sitting next to them, and we got to hear some wild examples from the crowd after the discussion was over. Emmanuel’s own poetry shone brightly with fervent detours, including a revised January 6th poem that probes the meaning of culpability, a piece for student activist Mahmoud Khalil who was taken from his apartment by ICE, and the excellently titled “Poem In Which I Mouth Myself into A Caucus of Crows”. Be sure to check out Emmanuel’s new book, not without small joys, out now on Game Over Books.

This Week!

Come celebrate the end of National Poetry Month! We will be capping off the month with our annual FRESH INK SLAM. Have at least 3 poems prepared that are BRAND NEW TO THE STAGE. If you did a 30/30 for the month of April, this one’s for you! If you did a 3/30, this one’s also for you. Sign-ups are first-come, first-serve. $50 prize for the winner of the slam.

See you soon,

– MFG 🚪

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Cantab Recap For Wednesday, April 16th, 2025

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Hey Cantab! A beautiful spring Wednesday was had last week, with poets rocking the mic left and right! We had wonderful poems from regulars Portia, Nick Roberts, and Kat Gunther, and waitlist warrior Meredith O discussing the perils of sitting down and remembering all 141 original Pokemon. Isaiah continued their tradition of reading a heartfelt poem addressed to their friends on their birthday (happy birthday Isaiah), and Bailey read a fabulous poem with a ton of horsepower, per say, after Will Leonard’s well-known horse poem(s). Later on, slam team members Jenn, Ilse, and Kaitie D. nearly knocked the mic over with their skillz. We also had a bittersweet farewell poem from Tony, who, though it was her first time on the mic, read about how she was processing leaving Boston for the time being, and how it feels “more like home” than where she grew up. 

The ✏️ Line of the Wednesday✏️  is from Tony, with “I think of love in very big words”

Our prompt from last week was inspired by Donovan Beck:  Write a poem using direct address.

Our features were Sara Mae and Zenaida Peterson, and we were honored to be the first stop on their tour, for what we experienced was such a treat! The pair not only read from their respective chapbooks, weaving in beautiful lines that wash over you like a wave, but there was so much more! They brought in a literal church pew, which was symbolically moved and repositioned on stage throughout the show. One would sit or lean on the church pew, reading, while the other would perform a poem, or they would both sit on the pew together, reading a piece together. There was additionally a cootie catcher, eyeshadow application, and an overall display of what true friendship means. It was a unique and wonderful show. 

Tonight! We have the NEWLY CROWNED POET LAUREATE OF BOSTON, Emmanuel Oppong-Yeboah!! Emmanuel is a Ghanaian American poet, editor, and educator living out the diaspora in Boston, Massachusetts. They are both Black & alive. Born in 1993, Emmanuel is Boston’s newly appointed poet laureate, and the school librarian at the Joseph Lee School in Dorchester. In the past, Emmanuel has served as a teaching artist at organizations such as the Massachusetts Literary Education and Performance Collective, the Cambridge Arts Council, Northeastern University, and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston. Emmanuel’s poem, “kra-din” (Kweli Journal), is a past recipient of the Pushcart Prize (XLIII). In his free time, Emmanuel enjoys hot carbs, brightly colored chapbooks, and the long sigh at the end of a good book.

Lastly, I want to thank you all for reading, as this will be my (Amy’s) last time writing the recap for the foreseeable future. I’m passing the baton to the very skilled archivist and poet, Michael F Gill, to tell you the tales of Wednesday nights moving forward. It has been so fun to write these for the past 2 years! I now have other BPS duties to attend to. Stay tuned!

See you tonight,

Amy ✈️

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Cantab Recap For Wednesday, April 9th, 2025

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Hey folks! We had a beautiful night here in our favorite basement. Our open mic was packed with a surprising percentage of first-timers: Mikumari visited us from NYC with a piece about his mother’s sunshine, Niveen rocked the mic with a memorized piece on injustice & genocide, Gavin gave us a touching tribute to a lost friend, and Cole, longtime listener and my personal MVP from the Chaos vs. Order slam, had his own technical debut on our mic. (For those not present, the slam involved him puppeteering and playing a trumpet, so if your face isn’t on the mic, I’m not gonna count it.) And that’s not even close to all of them! Please come back, newcomers!

Don’t worry — our beloved regulars showed out, too. 2025 team member Kaitie D gave us a fantastic rendition of her crowd favorite about meeting American Jesus, Kai weighed the pros and cons of comfort games, and Cam S gave us yet another installment of the Great Pagliacci series rapidly developing at our clown-and-doctor-filled venue. All of this culminated in a local feature from weekly regular Donovan Beck, whose new book, Sunbreak: Notes On Hope, filled many a hand at the end of the night. Donovan brought us into his world, guided us through the process of getting out the despair, and then finding the hope behind it. 

Our prompt of the week: “One year of…” or “The first year of…” — inspired by the culmination of our first full year of running Slam Adams! Slam Adams takes palce every first Monday at the Samuel Adams Brewery in Jamaica Plain. Email myles@bostonpoetryslam.com to sign up for May’s slam. 

I’m gonna give our friend Gel the line of the week for their haiku on the Express Lane: “I finally washed / my drying rack. Now where the / fuck do I put it?” (That was from memory, so I hope I got it right.)

Next week! Usual open mic shenanigans ensue. GET THERE EARLY, because this feature is gonna be a big one: SARA MAE and ZENAIDA PETERSON return to the basement! The FEMS Tournament co-founders are running a dual-feature tour across New England for their respective new collections, Phantasmagossip (YesYes Books) and Sky Responds To Our Holler (Game Over Books). This is probably my most anticipated feature of the season, so you’d better get down here. 

See you all next week!

– Myles ✨

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Cantab Recap For Wednesday, April 2nd, 2025

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Hi Cantab, happy National Poetry Writing Month! We had a great Wednesday last week. Prince Shapiro returned to kick off the mic with another bilingual poem and the inclusion of a mouth-harp/kazoo-like instrument I’ve never seen before. Fun fact, during the break between the mic and the feature, Prince played the instrument while another regular beatboxed and Jelal Huyler (our feature last week!) freestyled. What a moment! Other open mic highlights: Cam S performed a poem that was sang at a punk show …. in a dream he had….. and we determined the genre was “northeast emo.” Mina did three short poems about a dead elephant in the room. First timer Sonny read a wonderful, winding, nostalgic poem about “company,” while Myles pulled someone off the waitlist and called it a “purely selfish yoink.” (the person was Jelal). Finally, Grace performed a found poem written that evening as part of the pre-show workshop, and first-timer Jordan blew us away with a love poem describing a “pink aura.”

The ✏️Line of the Wednesday ✏️ goes to tonight’s feature – Donovan Beck: “Heaven was never meant to be white roads and marble”

Our prompt this week was: Write about the terrors of love; a terrific perspective on loving/being loved.

Our feature was the astounding Catherine Weiss, who read from her collection “Big Money Porno Mommy.” Their poems were deeply analytical in a way that hits you over the head, and one of the best moments was the series of around five poems entitled “The Phone Sex Poem,” each leaving the audience with a slightly different but distinct feeling. Ending on a poem entitled “Inheritance” that left us all floored, we exited the basement still thinking about the impact their words had on how one can view sex, love, adolescence, and history.

This week our feature is our very own regular, DONOVAN BECK! Donovan Beck is an author, filmmaker, advocate, and multi-hyphenate storyteller dedicated to redefining how we talk about mental health, creativity, and ourselves, especially online. Through the lens of poetry and filmmaking, Donovan creates a safe place on social media for people to embrace vulnerability in their daily lives and use social media platforms like TikTok & Instagram for good. Donovan has launched his second book in March of 2025, a multi-form work on hope, creativity, and mental health, taking a poet’s view on “the aftermath of despair.” Sunbreak: Notes on Hope is published by Andrews McMeel Universal.

See you then!

– Amy ✈️

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Cantab Recap For Wednesday, March 26th, 2025

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We had quite a Wednesday last week! Before I get into a brief recap, I wanted to acknowledge the passing of Jeff Taylor, a beloved poet in the local scene who we lost far, far too soon. His impact was wide-reached and he inspired several poets. We encourage you to check out The Garage Poets and his own personal work online to consider and pay respect to his legacy. There is a page set up for donations to Jeff’s family here.

Moving into the open mic, we had a few tributes to Jeff himself, including his longtime friend and collaborator Anna Geoffrey, and Zeke read a wonderful cover/tribute poem during the smoking section. Throughout the mic, there were several themes of tenderness. Jordan took us through a touching metaphor about mental health, and Ash and Kaitie D brought us wonderful new pieces. First timer (and waitlist warrior) Ayonna blew us away with a very unique, interactive performance about memory that had the audience repeating “a memory of a memory of a memory of a time” as a slow murmur/beat to her poem. Also, we got to wish Will Leonard a triumphant 1-year Cantabiversary!

The ✏️Line of the Wednesday✏️ goes to Kaitie D. with “The closed sign swung across our body like a warning”

The writing prompt for last week was: “Write about a person or a thing you’d like to see remembered in this world; write a spell or use your words to invoke someone or something into the room with you”

Now, our feature! Jelal Huyler told us his story in a series of exhilarating performances, effortlessly weaving through wordplay while making each word hit the audience exactly where they were supposed to. All the sudden we were in scenes from his childhood and his dissociation at once. He spoke directly to this audience about our shared dissociation due to both what causes revolution and revolution itself. Repeating mantras like “we won’t fall,” and “hip hop,” he encouraged us to let the poems wash over us. Unsurprisingly, we sold out of his new book, and the room left bustling with conversations about his work.

Tonight: we have an incredible feature!! Catherine Weiss is a poet and artist living in Western Massachusetts. Their poetry has been published or is forthcoming in BOMB, Tinderbox, DIAGRAM, Up the Staircase, Fugue, and Taco Bell Quarterly. Catherine is the author of three poetry collections, most recently Big Money Porno Mommy, from Game Over Books in 2025. More at catherineweiss.com.

See you then!

– Amy ✈️

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Cantab Recap For Wednesday, March 19th, 2025

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Hi Cantab! Our show is every Wednesday nearly without fail. How much more orderly can it get? Also every Wednesday, we hear strings of words in poems that no one has ever spoken before. How much more chaotic can it get? We saw both ends of the spectrum during our second-ever Chaos vs Order slam, which you’ll hear more about in a moment, but for now let’s remember what happened on our wonderful open mic!!

There was an undercurrent of rage going on this past Wednesday, including second-timer Casey’s impassioned poem on standing up for themselves and their community against oppressive politics, and first-timer Aidan, who made a great debut as well. In some orderly fashion, Isaiah gave us a choice between a poem on Fleabag or a poem on Survivor (we chose Fleabag). On the flip side, Cameron did an incredible poem that began with a minute-long Nicole Kidman impression, reciting her iconic AMC Theaters introduction, then transitioned into a piece about togetherness. Striking a similarly chaotic note, surprise visitor Christopher Clauss from Slam Free or Die debuted a new poem on horror movies and suspense, going slightly over time but serendipitously allowing the host at the time (me) to act herself into the poem, becoming the monster the suspenseful music was alluding to. The chaos cake was taken, however, by occasional open mic-er Rin Ramos, reprising their iconic comedic bars and one-liners, one of which being so iconic that the whole audience chimed in during the punchline of “CHUM BUCKET.”

The ✏️Line of the Wednesday ✏️ also goes to Rin, with “I can’t think of a rhyme, POET QUACKERY.” Our writing prompt of the week was simply to write about “sweet resistance / the next generation.”

Then, the Chaos vs Order slam. We began with a show-stopping sacrificial round of Kai vs TJ (literally, the lights went out!), and barreled right into the orderly chaos of it all. Team chaoes featuried a cheetah girls group piece, not one but TWO puppet pieces, a bee defying all laws… of gravity, a crowd walking classic, a suspicious series of Amazon packages, and a case of stolen identity. Order responded with heartbreaking contrapuntals (Logan’s was so beautiful that even after Amy (aka me) beat him by a nose, she gave him her wings–used in her piece–as a token of her appreciation for his art,) a ghazal about egg salad (who could’ve known we would gain such enlightenment about egg salad, while not even eating egg salad), and an incredible, genius, and vulnerable group piece about OCD with two team members droning compulsive thoughts behind the main reader (Myles Taylor). Lastly, Ed Wilkinson turned out to be an order team DOUBLE AGENT, going up for team order and reading a chaos poem (which backfired as he ended up sweeping the round for team order anyway, how chaotic of a result!). Nearly every round was decided by a single vote, and the winner was decided by a single round! The winner was … drumroll please….

TEAM CHAOS!!!!!!!! *chaotic celebratory horn noises*

That’s right, team chaos took the crown, meaning a total of one win for team order, and one for chaos in the record book. Who will break the tie next year? [Editor’s note: if we count the sacrifice round, each team won 4 rounds this past week, which seems pretty neat and orderly, so maybe the captain of the winning team who happens to be writing this recap should re-consider who actually won]

TONIGHT!!! Our feature is Jelal Huyler. Jelal Huyler is a biracial-Black poet (and devout lover of yamz) who does not condone linear time.

/ he is the author of the book of poems, A MAN WAS LYNCHED TODAY (GAME OVER BOOKS)

/ his voice and work have been included in the documentary “Cracking the Codes: The System of Racial Inequity, exploring race and restorative justice in the United States”

/ published individual works can be found in 580 Split, The Change Agent, Drunk in a Midnight Choir, Likely Red Press, & some other too and shit.

It’s not a show you want to miss!

See you then,

– Amy ✈️

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Cantab Recap For Wednesday, March 12th, 2025

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Hey Cantab! We had quite the open mic and quite the feature last week! The open mic featured very unique performances from several newcomers, including Autolycus performing a wonderful and hauntingly beautiful David Lynch cover. On the flip side, Edie reprised their classic poem that tells the story of a…. close-call interaction with Obama, and Jack did maybe his fourth or fifth performance of “Impulse Control Freak” while stating “this is not a rehearsal.” Kaitie D and Meg Ford also provided some notably stunning, emotional, and beautiful poems on the mic.

We also had a haiku slam! In a serendipitous victory, first-timer (ever!) Anna took it all home, with charming haiku on unifying topics like cheese. Ripley came in a close second with some half-improv’d haiku, and notably Shawn gave the audience two fantastic mustache-themed haiku (costume violation pending).

The ✏️Line of the Wednesday ✏️ is actually a simile of the Wednesday, with “cloistered like a colostomy bag” from Fiona.

Our feature was the great Kelsey Bigelow, who had us gasping in shock, and exclaiming things like “wow,” “beautiful,” and “Io-WHAT?!” during her set. Her poetry was powerful and touched on several complex and important aspects of mental health, including the body’s response to trauma, familial relationships, and breaking generational curses. Kelsey performed as if she cooked each phrase and made sure it was the exact right temperature. She then plated it, served it to the audience, and, in the beats between phrases, seemed to gauge exactly what type of food we should try next. It was a beautiful feature, resulting in a long line of folks waiting to buy her merch at the end.

We also are officially re-starting our weekly prompts on the mic! Last week’s prompt was:

“Lacuna” is an English word for a word in another language that has no direct translation in English. With this in mind, what is something you wish others understood about you, or a culture or community you belong to? This will be the basis of the prompt:

Think about the last time you remember feeling something you did not have the words to describe. Begin by writing into or around this personal “lacuna.” Be as abstract as you need to. Be cyclical. Can you end up where you started? If you get stuck, use your senses. Imagine art, imagery, sensations, you’ve encountered, that bring you back to the moment you felt what you wish to describe. Then inscribe. Or, write about how it feels to struggle against the indescribable. As you explore this space beyond the limits of language, can you invent your own to name your experience? Or find one in a language you don’t speak yet? If you can, or if you do, you’ve found the title of your poem. Enjoy your journey, and good luck! 

Tonight is the return of the CHAOS VS ORDER SLAM! Reigning champs Team Order will be throwing tightly-crafted form poems head-to-head against Team Chaos’ pieces, which will break the rules of slam, open mics, and maybe the laws of physics. Tune in to find out. The teams are FULL, but feel free to contact us if you’d like to be on a waitlist in case of drop-outs.

See you then!

– Amy ✈️

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Cantab Recap For Wednesday, March 5th, 2025

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Happy Wednesday, everyone! It is I, Amy, back after taking February off from recap-writing (thank you Michael and Zeke for doing such a wonderful job!). After an incredible team selection finals show two weeks ago, it was great to have everyone back for a regularly-extraordinary night at the Cantab!

We began the evening last week with a fabulous workshop from Brenda Echeverry on blackout poetry, complete with a huge assortment of materials and craft supplies for attendees to create their own masterpieces. It created such a welcoming environment for creativity!

Then, our fabulous open mic. Jack Chasse came back to the mic with the iconic black gloves and *bars*, and Erica Garcia, pulled from the waitlist, did a wonderfully structured poem about waiting… for the bus! We had several solid debuts from a handful of first timers like Dawn and Nikolai, while regulars like Kai Wallin performed a poem in the form of a Yelp review for their ex. Let’s just say it was a lower-than-3-stars rating, but a 5-star poem!

The ✏️Line of the Wednesday✏️ goes to Erica Garcia, with “The bus is a lie meant to keep me in the cold and in the dark”

Another aspect of this past Wednesday was the addition of a last-minute guest host! Several of our regular staff were out last week, so newly-selected 2025 Slam Team member Jennifer Martinez stepped in to host a section of the mic! Jenn showed off very impressive hosting skills and heroically led us through the middle of the open.

Our feature was Ephraim Nehemiah, who effortlessly and seamlessly wove through banter, stand-up, and of course POEMS during their feature. Their poetry was expertly performed, and Ephraim told us their story through poems about home and homelessness, experiences with racism, their relationship with God as they grew up, and finding yourself. The “holiness to whoreishness” pipeline references were particularly memorable. They also led the audience through a couple activities relating to embracing yourself, from a few collective deep breaths, to affirmations, to eventually encouraging the ENTIRE audience to name out loud one thing they like about themselves. It was a centering, beautiful feature.

TONIGHT!!! Tonight’s feature is Kelsey Bigelow! Kelsey Bigelow is a poet and speaker based in Des Moines. She spends her time working as a mental health poet, sharing this therapeutic tool with audiences of all ages across the world. She is the author of four poetry projects, including her latest book “Far From Broken.” Her work is published with several small presses and journals. Kelsey is a 2024 Pushcart Prize nominee, a 2023 Button Poetry Video Contest Finalist, and a 2023 Central Avenue Poetry Prize finalist. As a performer, Kelsey has worked with organizations such as The Mayo Clinic, NAMI, Planned Parenthood, and more. Videos of her work can be found on Button Poetry, Write About Now, Ghost Poetry Show, and elsewhere. She’s the founder of the Des Moines Poetry Workshop, the chair for the Iowa Poetry Association Poetry Slam, a teaching artist in the Des Moines community, a director for the BlackBerry Peach National Poetry Slam, and a founding member of the 2025 io-what poetry slam team.

See you then!

– Amy ✈️

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Cantab Recap For Wednesday, February 26th, 2025

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Michael: We did it, we survived team selection finals night! First of all, THANK YOU for showing up, because not only did we sell out as soon as we opened, but so many dedicated people waited upstairs to get in! Finals night may officially be too big for our basement dive bar! Our open mic was short and sweet, with an incredible pulse of anticipation. Let’s go to our tournament director Zeke Russell for the slam recap of our biggest night of the year.

Zeke: As much as I hyped this slam up, it was even better than advertised. 9 poets competed over three rounds and blew the doors off the building.

Hosting the show was the pride of Lowell, Massachusetts, Anthony Febo. His energy and excellence hyped the crowd up before a single poet hit the stage, and we were ready for poems.

The two runners up from our preliminary bouts honored the stage by performing in the sacrifice spots.

Kelsey Kessler gave us an encore of her haunting piece about Rosemary’s Baby and the challenge of living in certain kinds of bodies. The judges gave it a 23.8.

Isaiah brought us a poem that was not about Survivor but instead explored the interplay of rules, law, power and compassion. The judges gave it a 25.6…but after a 1 point time penalty (CURSE YOU LINEAR TIME) the result was a 24.6.

Brynna kicked off the slam proper with a poem exploring the perils of navigating whiteness. They got a big bump up from the two sacrifices with a 26.8.

Aparna’s first poem of the night was an examination of identity and erasure with a stunning and complex weaving metaphor that carried the poem. The judges were into it and awarded Aparna a 27.1.

Jarvis showed us the depth of his skill with an erasure of the executive orders targeting vulnerable citizens. This writer was impressed with the creativity and craft involved in this poem, the judges felt otherwise and gave the piece a 24.6

Next up was Logan with a touching poem about family, loss and what it is to know one’s self. The judges were apparently not in the same room as me and gave the poem a 23.8.

Amy gave us an elegantly constructed piece about siblings, art and identity. The judges responded with a 27.2.

Myles followed that up with their classic poem about gender myth and what it is to be a “Gender Fuck Angel.” The judges gave it a 28.0.

Katie’s first round offering was a tightly written piece about cancer, family and grief. The judges awarded it a 26.4.

Jenn was next with a raucous poem about love, capitalism and game shows. The judges chose love over money and gave the poem a 27.5.

Ilse closed out the first round with a fire cracker of a poem about identity, joy and finding oneself. The Judges were feeling it and gave a 28.5.

With only a one poem break Jen was back on the mic to kick off the second round with passionate devastating work about surviving trauma. The judges scored the poem a 28.3.

Brynna played with time and imagery in a piece about the changes in America in the last 8 years. The judges responded with a 26.7.

Logan’s second performance explored language, culture and heritage. The Judges chose to give it a 25.8.

Following that was Aparna with a stunning poem about colonialism and the nature of storytelling. The judges gave it a 28.5.

Next up in the second round was Myles with a poem about the beauty of work; the judges were paying a living wage and gave the poem a 29.1.

Ilse hit the stage next with their thoughts on progress, love, and a baby running in the apartment upstairs. The judges gave the poem a 28.4.

Katie lit up the stage with a stunning string of images about loss and love. The judges responded with a 27.6.

Jarvis poured joy all over the stage as they told us what they would do if the were the fortune giver. The poem earned a 28.2 from the judges.

Amy closed the second round with a poem about grief and the power of memories through the lense of Alex Trebek’s ghost, and the answer the judges gave: What is a 27.8?

The audience was on the edge of their seats and we finally got everyone waiting upstairs into the venue for the third round.

First up was Aparna with a fever dream of a piece about motherhood and mortality. The judges scored it a 28.8.

Ilse thundered onto the stage telling us about the poetry of romanticism. The poem was rich with language and emotion. The judges responded with a 29.5.

Myles’s final offering was a complex piece about masculinity, survival and what it truly means to be punk. The judges decided the poem was punk as fuck and gave it a 29.5.

Katie returned to the stage with the final installment in their ghost trilogy. It was a haunting, delicate performance that caused audible gasps from audience members. The judges gave the poem a 29.4.

Jen was next and told us a story of cataclysm, and survival. That earned them a score of 29.2.

Amy told us the story of the Chicago Rat Hole and the power of legacy. Amy’s final poem of the night scored a 28.1.

Jarvis wowed the audience, and this writer, with a classic piece about love and survival. The poem was scored a 29.4.

Brynna’s last poem wove a complicated tale of living through the things that are supposed to kill us. The judges scored the poem a 29.1.

Logan closed out the slam with a nuance and emotional piece about queerness and chosen family. The judges did their final work of the night giving it a 27.5.

After we mathed it out, our top five performers are now the 2025 Boston Poetry Slam team! The final results were:

  1. Myles Taylor – 86.6
  2. Ilse Ruizvisfocri – 86.4
  3. Jennifer Martinez – 85.0
  4. Aparna Paul – 84.4
  5. Kaitie Dilán – 83.4
  6. Amy Argentar 83.1
  7. Brynna Boyd 82.6
  8. Jarvis Subia 82.2
  9. Logan Lopez 77.1

Huge thanks to everyone who competed, judged or sacrificed, and to Febo for making the whole thing happen.

Michael: As a little bonus, everyone who participated in the slam was given an award, and the audience responded to each award with the chant of “Thank you [poet’s name], we see you poet” which was extremely heartwarming, and just what we all needed as Wednesday night stretched into Thursday morning. We are lucky to be able to share nights like these together as a community.

This Wednesday, our feature is Ephraim Nehemiah! Ephraim Nehemiah is a published writer, educator and award winning performance poet. Ephraim is the recipient of grants from PEN America, Gabrielle Bouliane Foundation, The Cleveland Foundation, and received fellowships from The Karamu House Performing Arts Theatre, Baldwin House Urban Writing Residency, and The Watering Hole Winter Retreat. Ephraim’s poems appear in various journals and publications such as Anxy Magazine, Flypaper, Lake Effect Anthology, UHURU Magazine, and Knights Library Magazine, where the poem “Jesus Christ Tries Talking to His Father Again” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Their performances have been featured on TEDx Talks, The Smithsonian Channel, The National Basketball Association, 2022 World Cup, AfroPunk, Season 1 of Snapchats Free Tuition, and various other channels. They are the 2020 Baltimore Grand Slam Champion, 2022 Southern Fried Poetry Champion and the 2023 recipient of the Peale Foundation Grit Fund for their work exploring Black Queer Artistry in Maryland. Ephraim is currently based out of Baltimore where they serve as a Teaching Artist. Their first full-length poetry book “The Autobiography of Absence” was published in 2021 with Twelve Arts Pres.

See you soon!

– MFG🚪& Zeke ⚾

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