Happy New Year, Cantabbers!
Back from the holidays, poets lined up for not just an open mic, but a lovely workshop from regular reader Kaitie D! Poets learned about the different impacts repetition can have in a piece, and experimented with different uses of repetition. Some workshop attendees even performed their brand-new pieces on the mic later that night.
The open mic had a considerably number of new faces, such as Mary with a STUNNING debut, and Cora serving bars (and a great dress). We also had your standard straight-from-the-bar poem from Arielle Gray, and a beautiful, world-jumping piece from Youssef.
The ✏️Line of the Wednesday✏️ this week is (paraphrased): “Chicken Littles, fighting over pieces of the sky” by Nick Roberts.
Our feature was the incredible syan jay, who performed mesmerizing pieces on their childhood, self-image, family, and more with a tone that carried as much suspense as it did comfort. They smartly wove in imagery of nature into their poetry to emphasize place and the poem’s emotion. It was a very grounding start to 2024 – thank you syan!!!
Next week, your feature is Devin Gael Kelly! Devin is the author of In This Quiet Church of Night, I Say Amen (Civil Coping Mechanisms), and his work has appeared in Longreads, The Guardian, The Year’s Best Sportswriting, and more. He writes the weekly newsletter Ordinary Plots, and he works as a high school teacher in New York City.
COMMUNITY NOTE: The current COVID surge is one of the highest throughout the pandemic and we want to keep our community accessible and safe. We STRONGLY ENCOURAGE the community to bring a mask to the show for the next few weeks and to keep it on when not drinking or performing.
See you then!
– Amy ✈️
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