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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”
• Jake M’s unforgettable “The tribulations of a straight man turned into a gay horse” had the audience both squirming and laughing in their seats! Kudos to Jake for reading it completely seriously, despite plenty of horse puns and ridiculous horse-sexual inuendoes
• Stevie Subrizi riffed on The Pretenders’ “Brass In Pocket” and Jade Kleiner returned to the mic with “T for T at the end of the world”
• “I have strong feelings about fictional men but none about real men” – Kai Wallin
02/11/26
• Lots of new faces on the mic this week, welcome to Norah, Alfred, Emma, and Amelia!
• And also welcome back to the mic Maya, (non-Worcester) Ember, and the legend himself, Rudolf, our resident Austrian who brings us translations of German poems, and may threaten to read the second half of those translations….seven years later!
• Rachel’s poem dialogue with “Person X” and River’s poem about being gay engaged
Feature
On 02/04 we were held by the gentle gravity by Jr Mahung, who featured for us! Jr writes a lot about being from Belize and what it means to be a Garifuna poet, and we heard poems about Belizean-American basketball player Milt Palacio, and poem-essays describes Jr’s relationship to colonialism. We also heard work about JR’s experience living in trans collective housing, and the feelings that arose from being sober in today’s world. Other highlights include the poems “Tell Me How To Float Away From My Body & Head Towards Desire” and “In Which All My Crushes & I Hang Out: A Composite Of Desire”. Thank you JR!
On 02/11 we had an impromptu Love vs Death slam in honor of Valentine’s day. Team Love (captained by Kai Wallin) soundly defeated Team Death (captained by Zeke Russell) this year, which gives you an inkling to what the audience wanted to hear tonight (not death, for once!).
Coming Up This Wednesday
This week it’s the last chance open poetry slam! This is your final chance to qualify for the 2026 Boston Poetry Slam Team Selection Slams, which are right around the corner! You will need three poems under three minutes to compete. The top 2 will qualify for Team Selection, with the winner getting $75!
See you soon!
– MFG 🚪
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