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Open Mic Highlights
• Edward Gault’s magical realism tale of “The Sink That Ate Hyde Park”, filled with nightmares of dirty dishes howling at him, potential radiation poisoning, and jail time instead of getting the key to the city
• “I want someone to find me in the place where the electricity comes from” – from Edie’s poem about the ghost light in the theatre
• “The flea that bit John Donne could never understand this” – Nick Roberts on platonic love
• New ways to read a poem aloud: Abbie L’s piece had the audience make buzzer sounds every time Abbie raised their hand, and when Will S kept his hat on, he read from an old poem, and when he took his hat off, he read from a new poem that commented on his old poem
• Response poems galore: Sue Savoy on recency bias after an Aparna poem that was after Zeke Russell, and Kai writing about an “indeterminate amount of wolves,” after Abbie’s poem that was after Shivank
• We had another short-but-sweet Haiku slam, featuring some new work by Ed and first-timer Ember, but in the final round Edie (using the tried-and-true method of writing meta haiku about the host) took the victory over Mar!
Feature
Stevie Edwards returned to the Cantab to feature for the first time in 14 years! A no-nonsense poet whose straightforward style engaged the audience before slowly revealing a cutting talent for momentum and moment-capture, Stevie breezed through a set revolving around themes of new-found sobriety, (pan)sexuality, and the decision to not have children (see also our recent feature by Chiara Di Lello!) We also got our second (!) poem in two weeks about (being) a plague of locusts, a poem about animals that self-reproduce (and others who wish they could do so), a striking litany survivor poem about “what we carry”, and a good old-fashioned nerdy piece about competing in marching band. Thanks Stevie!
Coming Up This Wednesday
This week, it is the return of the TAG TEAM SLAM! Poets will sign up in teams of two and face off against each other in a three-round competition. In round 1, each team member will send up one team member to perform an original poem. In round 2, the teams will send up the other team member to perform an original poem. In the FINAL round, the remaining teams will each send up a group piece featuring both team members!
The winners will get $75 and the top two teams will qualify to try out for the 2027 BPS slam team!
– MFG 🚪
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