Cantab Recap for Wednesday, July 26, 2017

Poets! Listeners! Rowdy (but not overly rowdy) bar patrons! Thanks to everyone for filling up and selling out our little basement this past Wednesday for the incomparable Tatiana M.R. Johnson. Tatiana rocked the house with her vulnerability, intimacy, and unshy humor, bringing work straight from her beautiful new book, for the love of black girls. Sure, she sold out of the books she brought to the Cantab, but we know she’s got more in her back pocket: catch the artist on the open mic at the House Slam, or pick up her book directly from Amazon, or look for her book release feature at Make Shift Boston on August 22.

Our slam that night started off gently and rose to a rollicking finish between home-team rep Myles Taylor and bartender and Slam Free or Die slammer John Pinkham. Home field advantage is one thing, but permission to go behind the bar must be another: John took the top honors, earning $10 and the last spot in the August 9 Champion of Champions Slam. (That’s gonna be a hot one, by the way: reigning champ RebeccaLynn will be back from a writing retreat with a bucketload of new poems to defend her title.)

Can’t get enough poetry? No worries, we got you covered: next Wednesday, in the lee of the Fightin’ Moon (TM Zeke Russell), we’ll have a grand extended feature to send off the 2017 Boston Poetry Slam team! Zeke, Neiel Israel, Mckendy Fils-Aimé, Brandon Melendez, and Myles Em Taylor will take the stage to show off their Nationals-bound work. Pack a little extra cash, please: it’s a $5 cover this week for the team’s final push to fundraise to get to NPS in Denver, and there’ll be big ol’ chapbooks for sale all night. See you there!