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NOTE: Tonight’s 05/06/26 show will be held at THE FOUNDRY, 101 ROGERS ST, Cambridge instead of the Cantab Lounge, due to a big concert happening there. Doors will be at 8 pm, Shortened open mic at 8:30, feature at 10 pm.
Open Mic Highlights 05/22
• Alex Kist’s incredible new piece “In the seconds before the seizure,” which describes the said situation as well as its tricky aftermath, where the doctors did not believe it actually happened.
• Aanchel’s piece about trying to kill their dreams, and how the dreams keep coming back, which ended with the dreams knocking on the poet’s door and asking them, “When will you come find me?”
• “We live in the wormy part of the apple that hasn’t been eaten yet” – Shivank
• Bobby Crawford’s “Dead End Job In San Diego”, a fun parody of Neil Young’s “Keep on Rockin’ In The Free World” rewritten as “Keep On Clockin’ In At Sea World”
• Jarvis and Will’s “Trans Superhero Universe” group piece!
• The welcome return to the mic by Matt Richards and Ilse, and Alia’s stunning Trans / Greek Wedding Song piece that was so good that it got a shout out by Hanif later on!
• Myles’ “Letter to Megan Avon, who married the Avon River” where he asks her to help him burn down an AI data center
05/22 Feature
The incredible Hanif Abdurraqib graced our stage on 05/22, and if you haven’t watched or rewatched the livestream of his feature on our instagram, please do! Hanif opened up with a series of poems all titled “When all else fails you can always stay alive” and then dove through a set of new work with a sense of urgency, combining incredible lyricism, charismatic performance chops, and a strong sense of music mixed with devastating lines, metaphors, and universes. Other poem titles included “For better or worse I’m always a little bit in love,” “All the TV shows are about cops”. There was also work about seeing his late mother in his dreams, and poems after photos/paintings of the musicians Arthur Lee, Prince, Marvin Gaye, Lil’ Kim, Ghostface, and Mahalia Jackson. I could go on, but I wouldn’t do it justice! Thank you Hanif for continuing to come back to our show!
05/29/26 Recap By March Penn
• The open mic started with a group piece by Will and Mugs. A favorite line from their performance is “What would you do to get to a body you call home?”
• A favorite line from Alia’s piece: “on the train I am grieving in motion.”
• Shivank wowed the audience with a creative animal themed piece and a favorite line was: “I don’t believe in free will; I believe in free Willy”
• Edward combining lawyering and poetry, said “are you in therapy over something a poet said 40 years ago… you could be owed compensation” in an excellent example of using repetition to delve deeply into the topic and audience enthusiasm.
• Keaton did an Andrea Gibson cover about gender in betweeness and coming of age.
• We had a special group piece from Will and Bobbie and a favorite line was “let out the skeletons!”
• Sue Savoy read an acrostic poem called New York in which she sarcastically said “sure some of you are cute” thinking about Earth and aliens.
• While hosting Aparna said “I met a beautiful woman and I almost gave her my bike” in a bit about whether pretty privilege exists. Later Aparna revealed that she gave her bike helmet to the mysterious woman and now has the chance to see her again.
• Brynna hosted the mic on her birthday and brought us wonderful banter about her school day!!! Brynna’s found poem in the smoking section warmed our hearts!!!
• Aparna ended the smoking section with an incredible poem, including the line, “My poems run on their own two legs faster than I can keep up”.
• For our feature, we had the FRESH INK Slam, where poets performed new work never heard before on the Cantab stage! In the end Julie River was the winner in the final round over Winston Liao, and they both become the first people qualified for the 2027 BPS team selection slam.
Coming Up This Wednesday
NEWSFLASH: Tonight’s show will be held at THE FOUNDRY, 101 ROGERS ST, Cambridge instead of the Cantab Lounge, due to a big concert happening there. Doors at 8 pm, Shortened open mic at 8:30, feature at 10 pm. Our feature will be New England poet JeFF Stumpo!
Bio: JeFF Stumpo’s “these are the waterfalls in my head” was awarded the 2026 Granite State Poetry Prize by Diannely Antigua and collects a number of his lucid dreams and nightmares, as well as renders the hopes and fears of people he cares about into dreamscapes. Poems in it have been accepted to places including Prairie Schooner, Salt Hill Journal, The Journal, DMQ Review (which nominated theirs for a Pushcart), and Subnivean (where Major Jackson selected them for the Subnivean Award for Poetry). He’s a survivor of psychosis and PTSD, husband to a PhD chemist, and father to an amazing trans son. He has a (poor) website at www.JeFFStumpo.com.
– MFG 🚪
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