A set, a slam, and a see-you-later. I wish there was a word to describe this past poetry night, but for now I’ll just mash some together and say it was … fantamazbulous. The mic was filled with excellent work as usual, including a vulnerable and moving piece by Sara H and an on-brand straight-from-the-bar poem from Arielle Gray.
This week’s ✏️Line of the Wednesday✏️ goes to Hyder, with “centuries of flotsam drifting in the aether / and my entire life tethered to an ember / blotted out by a raincloud”
Then, we of course had the spotlight feature of Jimmy Pavlick, who read from several of their chapbooks, and part of their set included an uninterrupted 10-minute reading of selections from their chapbook, The Opposite of Nothing. It was an incredible experience; we all felt immense pride for this wonderful member of our community, and we were immersed in their beautiful storytelling interspersed with killer one-liners. Thank you and good luck, Jimmy!
To end an already fantastic night, we had a SPEED SLAM!! 8 slammers competed for the top spot with poems under one minute long. We laughed, we cried, we put numbers on whiteboards. Logan performed another beautiful baseball piece, and Greg did a striking fishing-related piece (that captivated us hook, line, and sinker! *slaps knee*). The two finalists, Amy (yours truly) and Kaitie competed head-to-head in the final round, but Kaitie’s quickly spoken bars were too fire to beat, and they emerged victorious! Thank you to our host Aparna, all slammers, and our wonderful judges for a great end to a greater night.
There were some shenanigans that Wednesday, but unfortunately, they took place in the Cantab’s water main, which soon after Jimmy’s feature broke and flooded the basement. This does mean that Poetry Night might look a little different coming up over the next few weeks, but we will keep you posted!
Coming up this week (logistics will be after the feature information):
Come one come all for your September 13th feature, SaraEve Fermin! SaraEve is a performance poet and epilepsy advocate from northeast New Jersey. A 2015 Best of the Net nominee, she has performed for both local and national events, including the 2013 Women of the World Poetry Slam, the Epilepsy Foundation of Greater Los Angeles 2015 Care and Cure Benefit to End Epilepsy in Children, and as a reader for Great Weather for MEDIA at the 2016 NYC Poetry Festival on Governors Island. Her work can be found or is forthcoming in GERM Magazine, Drunk in a Midnight Choir, and the Great Weather for MEDIA anthology The Careless Embrace of the Boneshaker, among others. She is the author of You Must Be This Tall to Ride (Swimming With Elephants Publishing, summer 2016), View From the Top of the Ferris Wheel (Clare Songbirds Publishing House fall 2017) and Trauma Carnival (Swimming With Elephants Publishing, 2019). She loves Instagram: @SaraEve41 and TikTok : @SaraEveSpacePants
LOGISTICS:
The show will be THE MAIN FLOOR (upstairs) of the Cantab Lounge. Doors at 7, show STARTS at 7:30 (not 8) and the feature will begin by 9:30. Follow our Instagram @bostonpoetryslam for the latest updates.
See you then!
– Amy ✈️
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