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Appropriate for our first community-themed night, this Wednesday was the most diverse open mics of the year, with wild swings in topic, mood, and genre!
Open Mic Highlights
• Greg M read John Donne and first-timer Vincent remixed/dismantled Percy Shelley’s “Ozymandias”
• Intricate and layered Golden Shovels from Kaitie D and Aparna that also expanded the form to include multiple quotes
• Outrageously queer and shamelessly horny poems by Alice Sparrow and Miche that torn the room into disbelief
• Naomi’s epic “Blue Clues”-themed / trans-coming-of-age piece
• Addy’s heart-wrenching and beautifully performed poem in Spanish (no translation needed to get the emotional effect)
• Otto’s surrealistic persona poem in the voice of Plastic, and the insatiable consumption humans have for it
• Skylar on how to be brave, and the experience of non-violent protest taken to the limit
• Sue Savoy covering Kevin Mahoney’s disturbing but funny “I-love-my-rat-roommates” poem that was performed on the Cantab stage decades ago.
Feature
For our first community night feature, we heard from open-mic regulars reading works by artists who first inspired them to write poetry. Host Brynna also provided a writing exercise encouraging us to pen a letter to local (or not local) poets, and then to actually send it to them. It was a warm, relaxed environment for a feature, as each reader was able to expand on why they chose the artist in question. Check out the list of covers below:
- “Myself, First” by Ariana Brown
- “Opportunity Wake Up” by Neil Hillborn
- “Horse Boy,” by Bailey M, After Will Leonard
- “Snakes in Your Arms” by Shira Erlichman
- “Summer, Highland Falls” by Billy Joel
- “Comfort Woman’s Gold” by Scott Woods
- “Wet Paint” by Carlos Williams
- “Photograph” by Andrea Gibson
Coming Up This Wednesday
This week we have the long-awaited book release feature by our own BPS staff member Briana Crockett!
Bio: Briana Crockett is a Boston native that has too many jackets and not enough space. She is a neighborhood activist, a learner, a foodie, a joke teller/laugh influencer, a self-taught hair stylist and wig maker for the fun of it. Briana Is a reality tv lover, purely for the study of relationships and people. There is a story in everything. She believes the same in poetry. She’s a griot. Her poetry is a reflection of her culture, history, community, language, imagination, and power in giving a voice to the human experience. Though she may not write every day, she believes poems are essential to the way she sees the world and interacts with everyday life. She’s involved with the poetry scene in Boston. Briana has participated in Button Poetry’s Publishers Slam in 2021 and 2023, performed on GBH Boston’s Outspoken Saturdays, performed as apart of Boston Poetry Slam Organization, and various other Boston artist and activist spaces. She published a chapbook The Growing Place (2020) and an ebook When the World Stopped//We Were Still Beautiful. Her next book “A Body of Want: A Galaxy of Other Trinkets” is her second full length poetry book in print. She can be found talking with her hands (nails long) and on a tangent. You can find her listening to music, taking pictures of flowers, and hoarding hot sauce. If she were a poem, she’d be a Def Jam freestyle in 2004 probably performed by Mos Def (Yasiin Bey) or sung by Jill Scott.
See you soon,
– MFG 🚪
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