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Open Mic Highlights
• It’s the end of year, which brought a share of open mic regulars leaving (good luck in Denver, Ember!) and returning (welcome back from Ireland, Abbie!) to the stage, as well as surprise visits from Sophie (first time on the mic in 11 years!) and the always engaging Ben Tolkin (who told us about a wild stranger-than-fiction encounter with a stranger right off a bridge in Iceland).
• Kaitie D writing historically/metaphorically morse code with lots of echoes and repetition
• Harold’s first original on the mic went deep into their recovery from abuse using Jungian therapy
• Ed’s “Let it Snow” parody that focused on the ending phrase of “very frightful” to darkly comedic effect. Also seasonal: Meredith’s wrenching seasonal affective disorder poem that put us directly uner the darkness of 4:30 PM in December.
• John Lee made sure we didn’t end 2025 without hearing a funy yet existential diarrhea poem. Thank you?
•The smoking section feature lively work from Kai about Princess Zelda is non-binary, March’s Penn flashback to a moment when anger, jellyfish, and their mother’s sea change all collided, and Jarvis’ crowd-pleasing list of lurid and candid letters to people he has interacted with on Grindr.
Feature
We had an OPEN POETRY SLAM this week! We had a trio of first-timers in Edye, Liza, and Jack, as well as strong work from TJ Jones who read a poem revealed to him a dream. The welcome return of Meredith L to the slam stage brought forth a new headaches-and-horses poem, and a reprise of their relateable “What do I do with all this spite” piece. The final round came down to still-hungry slam veterans Will Leonard and Aparna Paul! Will Leonard came with newly-polished dynamic performances of some old classics (“I wake up with all the answes / I’m hungry” pulsed with fresh energy) and Aparna dropped some new work on us, one about being hatecrimed in Brookline, and another meta poem about how a slam poems “needs to have stakes.” Both of them qualified for the 2026 team selection and were equally beloved by the judges, but for the record Aparna squeaked out the win by one-tenth of a point!
– MFG 🚪
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