Cantab Recap For Wednesday, October 9th, 2024

Amy: We had quite the Wednesday last week, with a TON of first timers on the mic showcasing their work. We even broke a small 2024 record for most first timers in a row! Benny Alexander (all the way from Canada) read a beautiful poem about love and acceptance and relying like an outsider. Johnathan read about incarceration and his relationship to his father. Bailey was on FIRE, reading a very hot poem … about fire. From the regulars, Maura read poems from postcards, Eli Kane read from his Instagram post caption (which was in fact a beautiful poem about pie and gender), and Lys McGuire read a poem, I mean, meop a daer, that kept reversing direction, but took us on a wonderful beautiful journey nonetheless.

The ✏️ Line of the Wednesday ✏️ is from Lina with “Maybe our whole lives are about sculpting empty promises into a sky”

Colin Killick’s farewell spotlight feature was heartwarming, hopeful, and even occasionally harrowing, or hectic. We heard some classics, some older poems, a more recent poem, and more as he took us on a journey through his time reading at the Cantab Lounge. It was a great showcase of all of his talent, and a bittersweet reminder of why we will miss him so much as he goes on to do great, change-making things in DC.

That’s all from me, but I’m going to pass it to Michael with an electric recap of the haiku slam!

Michael: Thanks Amy! The 2nd annual haiku tournament was indeed one of the rowdiest and most fun slams of this year! As the neutral host of the slam, I was not able to comment in real time about the haiku (including several haiku that were about me) or the audiences’ heckles, but I can now say that everyone brought some incredible and/or wildly WEIRD material to the stage! There were too many highlights to mention, but let’s start with Will Leonard, who stepped in at the last minute to read the seductive and sinister haiku of finalist Arielle Gray, and also give a nod to Cam Salvatore, whose thoughtful and hilarious haiku left him inches away from the final round. After that dirty haiku round, we’ll never think about a pencil sharpener the same way! Speaking of the dirty haiku round, it had brazen work from Kai and Kat, as well as prop comedy from Logan, but it was Sam Bucci who had everyone on the floor laughing with a long “preface” to her series of cartoon characters she’s like to sleep with. The experimental round featured last year’s runner up March Penn placing groceries on chairs across the entire bar, as well as Aparna’s “costume change,” and Logan’s endless supply of hats. In the final head-to-head round, Logan and Aparna went 15 out of the maximum 17 rounds before Aparna successfully defended her title, 9 rounds to 6! Logan and Aparna also qualify for our 2025 team selection slam.

Final Standings:

1st Aparna Paul
2nd Logan Lopez
3rd (tie) March Penn
3rd (tie) Sam Bucci
5th Cam Salvatore
6th Arielle Gray (read by Will Leonard)
7th Kai Wallin
8th Kat Anderson
9th Amy Argentar
10th Sarah King
11th Cameron Vanderwerf
12th TJ Jones
13th Lynette Ramsay
14th Allie Burke
15th Chris Rye

Amy: Thanks Michael!

Now, TONIGHT! Our feature, hailing from the Slam Free or Die community in NH, is MIKE LINEHAN! Mike Linehan is a writer and educator from southern New Hampshire. Since 2011, he has performed poetry at local open mics and has since become a passionate member of the community. In 2018, he was a part of the Mill City Slam team from Lowell, Massachusetts, and competed in the National Poetry Slam in Chicago. As of 2023, he has joined the staff and organizers of Slam Free or Die based out of Manchester, New Hampshire. He self-published the poetry collection The Porch Light in 2023. When he’s not writing or speaking in front of a microphone, he likes engaging in Netflix binges, promising himself that he’ll practice guitar every week (he won’t) and he’ll work on that ever-growing pile of story ideas (don’t rush him, he’ll get to them…eventually). In the classroom, he likes striking up conversations with students, working tirelessly to convince them that literature and poetry are, in fact, cool.

See you then!

– Amy ✈️

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