Cantab Recap for Wednesday, February 20

You can always tell it’s school vacation by the way teachers –and students– turn out for poetry in the middle of the week! The venue was jam-packed just a few minutes after doors opened last night, with folks of all stripes finding a good excuse to stay out late on a cold Wednesday. Perhaps in honor of feature Wes Hazard, work on the open mic leaned to the funny all night, warming up our stomach muscles in time for the feature. Wes himself showed off some of his comedy chops, but also took the opportunity to use “the full range of human emotions,” as he quipped; this classy guy put on a great show, and if you missed it, you can still ask him for the chapbook he produced especially for us.

The speed slam was the last one we’ll be having before mid-March, so the venue’s performers made the most of it! Eight poets became two as Bobby Crawford and Kieran Collier faced off in the final round, with Bobby’s thirty-second metaphor winning out over Kieran’s series of haiku. Bobby will be back in the next Champion of Champions slam in April, along with all our winners from this series: check out the list of speed slam winners here.

Next week: SCHEDULE CHANGE! It’s the CUPSI Warm-Up! Poetry slam teams from Emerson College, Simmons College, and Harvard University will face off in a practice round for college nationals, coming to New York City in just six weeks. We’re proud to present our slam as part of a two-day event, the NorBEASTer Friendly, with Berklee College of Music’s reVERB poetry club.