We don’t fool around on the first Wednesday of the new calendar year, people! Last night, we stuffed a whole buncha people into the venue before the show even started, all of them looking to learn a little something new at Jon Sands’ early-bird workshop. Just a little extra work from these dedicated writers paid off for all of us: the open mic was excellent, and capped off by wonderful, personal, and exciting work from feature Jon Sands himself. Did you like what you heard? You can grab his book, The New Clean, online at Write Bloody any time!
So after all that good time, you’d almost think we were ready to wind down for the night… Except that we had a bar to close, and, as always, we did it with slam. Our Last Chance Slam had only six of the eight spots filled, but our participants made up for the missing quantity with exceptional, high-quality work. At the end of the night, the final pairing came down to Dawn Gabriel, veteran New England slammer, and the mysteriously named Danger Ranger. Despite burning an extra poem back in the semi-final round, Danger came out on top, securing the very last spot in the 2013 team selection process.
OH WOW OH WOW OH WOW WE START SELECTING THE TEAM NEXT WEEK! That’s right: on January 9, we’ll be invited 25 slam winners back to compete at the Team Selection Preliminaries, the biggest-est-est slam of the year! Poets who show up (we expect about 20) will fight through two rounds to cut the field down to the top twelve poets. Yes, your favorite performer is probably on the list: you can check it out here on our website. Remember, cover charge is $5 to help raise money for the 2013 National Poetry Slam in Boston!
Boston Poetry Slam Online