Cantab Recap For Wednesday, August 13th, 2025

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Open Mic Highlights

• Dave Mingolla’s poem about “quietly interrogating the universe until it speaks”

• First timer Rob M with a short and surprising poem about ladybugs

• The open mic debut of recent BPS feature Kelsey Bigelow, on the road from Iowa

• Donovan’s tribute to Andrea Gibson and Will S’s mantra that “You will not die on Route 1”

• Connor’s awkward-yet-endearing tales of failed and non-existent second dates, which was a very close cousin to John Lee’s wryly funny-but-also-uncomfortable poem about autism

• Sue Savoy’s exploration of the lobster emoji that went so many dark and hilarious places that we had to stop to catch our breath afterwards!

Feature

This week we had our 2nd-ever tag team slam! Teams of two came up to the mic to each do one individual piece in the first two rounds, and then perform a group piece together in the final round. After the novelty of a Sue Savoy/Michael F. Gill (aka me!) group piece sacrifice, we heard a lot of tried-and-true individual poems, with some surprises with Mary S’s “I’m a closed book” poem and Edie revisiting their proposition on why we should all streak down Massachusetts Ave. Fireworks did happen the group piece round, with Kaitie D and Ilse writing about being accidentally locked in the Kmart overnight, Ilse and Mary taking on what might be called “the lesbian gaze”, and Myles and Aparna deliberately going over time with a deconstructed tale about what happens after they get a “boy body” delivered in the mail. But the big winners were the powerhouse duo of Jen Martinez and Amy Argentar, who once again left the audience stunned with their piece on woman and gossip. Thanks to everyone who stayed late for this very fun slam that really builds to a crescendo as it goes on!

Coming Up This Wednesday

This week’s feature is Jess Yuan! Jess Yuan (she/her) is a poet, educator, and architect. She is the author of Slow Render (2024), winner of the Airlie Prize, and Threshold Amnesia (2020), winner of the Yemassee Chapbook Contest. Jess holds an MFA in Poetry from the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars and has received support from Kundiman and Miami Writers Institute. Her poems appear in Best New Poets, Tupelo Quarterly Review, jubilat, Beloit Poetry Journal, and elsewhere. She is a licensed architect and Director of Intermediate Studios at Boston Architectural College.

See you later!

– MFG 🚪

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Cantab Recap For Wednesday, August 6th, 2025

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NOTE FOR TONIGHT’S 08/13 SHOW: Doors will be open by 7 pm, but our open mic will start at 8 pm like usual! There is a sold-out ticketed show upstairs at the Cantab, so folks will wait downstairs for our show to start instead of upstairs.

Open Mic Highlights

• It was an incredible night of first timers, who made up nearly HALF the open mic! It was amazing how many newcomers seemed to fit in to our community right away, so hopefully you will all come back!

• Sam F’s ode to diners and “patriotic indigestion”

• The return of open mic veteran Dave Mingolla, who gave us two memorized poems, both with intriguing first lines (“If I could stop talking…” and “When I decided to join the other non-zombie neighbors”)

• Greg M’s “To the Person I Love, During A Bank Crisis”

• Lily K’s farewell poem / love letter to Massachusetts: “I’m going back to California where sadness makes sense”, after Danez Smith

• The debut of Jarvis hosting the open mic!

• The JV SMOOVE EXPERIENCE (which consists of a bombastic intro where he gets the audience to yell “I Heard That”, followed by shy, tender poem read slowly)

• Jennifer Martinez thunderous poem for an “expired crush” that focused itself around weightlifting

• Aparna’s reverse abecedarian about her Mom’s name (which begins with Z) and her name (which begins with A)

Feature

Our feature was the two-decade slam veteran Tim Stafford, finally gracing our feature stage for the first time! Poems from Tim’s new book “Broke Stay Broke” (Write Bloody Books, 2025) were the centerpiece of the night, and with a lot of local Chicago flavor as the backdrop, he regaled us with poetic adventures in being broke. Highlights included pieces on how to show up to a party hosted by “Old Money”, the yearning for a lazy, well-paid office job, being stuck in a loop of working too much even when you are able to pay the bills, and the phenomenon of “Wilco Dads” in Chicago (Don’t say anything bad about the band Wilco in the windy city!) Tim also graciously gave us entertaining and informative stories behind his work between poems, including the tale of a surprise meeting of Cantab veteran Ryk McIntyre in the Lizzy Borden House. Thanks Tim!

Coming Up This Wednesday

It’s the return of the Tag Team Slam! Teams of two will face off against each other, with each team member doing one individual poem, and then coming together to do a group piece for their third poem. Winning team gets a spot in the 2026 BPS team selection slam, plus $50! There are still slots available at the moment, so send us a DM/email/see a staff member tonight if you have a team of two interested!

See you soon,

– MFG 🚪

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Cantab Recap For Wednesday, July 30th, 2025

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Open Mic Highlights

• Somaia’s didactic poem on how to do fire eating at the Dyke March

• We got a farewell poem from open-mic regular and haiku finalist Siraj Ali, soon-to-be leaving us for Michigan. Siraj’s wry humor and quietly affecting miniature poems will be missed!

• Kaitie D’s time-traveling piece that warped around from a 2018 uber ride to a frozen-in-time version of Trivial Pursuit from 1981

• Lauren’s “A Summer’s Worth of Therapy in under 3 minutes” and Jacqui’s poem that “asked wrinkles if they want to stay”

• The manifesto of the newly named Roxy Martinez-Dobbs (fka as Eddy), returning to the mic after an entrepreneurial absence

• A surprise return and hosting turn by former staff member Kat Anderson, who drove in from NY just to see our feature

• After the open mic, we had our haiku slam! There was some fun messing with the form tonight, with TJ Jones really extending his intro with a long-crashing wave of silence, and Shawn seeing how long he could draw out the title of his haiku before getting shooed off stage (we let him go on for like 30 seconds, maybe we’ll get the full version some other time!) In the final round, two-time defending haiku champion Aparna Paul and Skylar Pape had an equal amount of applause after two votes, with Skylar deferring the win to Aparna in the end.

Feature

Staff member and long-time open mic and slam favorite Briana Crockett was our feature tonight, celebrating the release of their new book, A Body of Want: A Galaxy of Other Trinkets, out on Game Over Books. It was a captivating performance, be sure to watch it again on our instagram feed if you weren’t there! Opening up with asking the entire audience to stand up, stretch, and hug themselves, Briana then settled into a set of well-crafted extended poems that touched on autonomy, the body, remediation, how “the revolution belongs to the soft touch of your sister”, and stories of growing up in Boston’s schools and churches. The most beautiful moment came during a poem dedicated to her high school bully Nicholas, who later became a victim of gun violence. Briana’s compassionate and empathic urge to “write him a different destiny” had a good deal of the audience moved to tears. Thank you, Briana, for sharing your work and being a part of this community!

Coming Up This Wednesday

This week’s feature is a “Patricia Smith-approved” poet, Tim Stafford, on tour from Chicago!

Bio: Tim Stafford is a poet and educator from Lyons, IL. A former Chicago Poetry Slam Champion, his work has appeared in The Offing, 68 to 05, Taco Bell Quarterly, and on the HBO series Def Poetry Jam. He has appeared at poetry festivals across the U.S. and Europe, including the ABC Brecht Festival (Germany), the Zurich Poetry Slam Invitational (Switzerland), and the International Spoken Word Festival (Denmark/Germany). He is the editor of the all-ages spoken word anthology series “Learn Then Burn”, as well as the author of the poetry collections “The Patron Saint of Making Curfew” (Haymarket Books, 2021) and “Broke Stay Broke” (Write Bloody Books, 2025). He is a Poetry Foundation Incubator Fellow and the winner of the 2024 Jack McCarthy Poetry Prize.

See you soon,

– MFG 🚪

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Cantab Recap For Wednesday, July 23rd, 2025

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Appropriate for our first community-themed night, this Wednesday was the most diverse open mics of the year, with wild swings in topic, mood, and genre!

Open Mic Highlights

• Greg M read John Donne and first-timer Vincent remixed/dismantled Percy Shelley’s “Ozymandias”

• Intricate and layered Golden Shovels from Kaitie D and Aparna that also expanded the form to include multiple quotes

• Outrageously queer and shamelessly horny poems by Alice Sparrow and Miche that torn the room into disbelief

• Naomi’s epic “Blue Clues”-themed / trans-coming-of-age piece

• Addy’s heart-wrenching and beautifully performed poem in Spanish (no translation needed to get the emotional effect)

• Otto’s surrealistic persona poem in the voice of Plastic, and the insatiable consumption humans have for it

• Skylar on how to be brave, and the experience of non-violent protest taken to the limit

• Sue Savoy covering Kevin Mahoney’s disturbing but funny “I-love-my-rat-roommates” poem that was performed on the Cantab stage decades ago.

Feature

For our first community night feature, we heard from open-mic regulars reading works by artists who first inspired them to write poetry. Host Brynna also provided a writing exercise encouraging us to pen a letter to local (or not local) poets, and then to actually send it to them. It was a warm, relaxed environment for a feature, as each reader was able to expand on why they chose the artist in question. Check out the list of covers below:

  • “Myself, First” by Ariana Brown
  • “Opportunity Wake Up” by Neil Hillborn
  • “Horse Boy,” by Bailey M, After Will Leonard
  • “Snakes in Your Arms” by Shira Erlichman
  • “Summer, Highland Falls” by Billy Joel
  • “Comfort Woman’s Gold” by Scott Woods
  • “Wet Paint” by Carlos Williams
  • “Photograph” by Andrea Gibson

Coming Up This Wednesday

This week we have the long-awaited book release feature by our own BPS staff member Briana Crockett!

Bio: Briana Crockett is a Boston native that has too many jackets and not enough space. She is a neighborhood activist, a learner, a foodie, a joke teller/laugh influencer, a self-taught hair stylist and wig maker for the fun of it. Briana Is a reality tv lover, purely for the study of relationships and people. There is a story in everything. She believes the same in poetry. She’s a griot. Her poetry is a reflection of her culture, history, community, language, imagination, and power in giving a voice to the human experience. Though she may not write every day, she believes poems are essential to the way she sees the world and interacts with everyday life. She’s involved with the poetry scene in Boston. Briana has participated in Button Poetry’s Publishers Slam in 2021 and 2023, performed on GBH Boston’s Outspoken Saturdays, performed as apart of Boston Poetry Slam Organization, and various other Boston artist and activist spaces. She published a chapbook The Growing Place (2020) and an ebook When the World Stopped//We Were Still Beautiful. Her next book “A Body of Want: A Galaxy of Other Trinkets” is her second full length poetry book in print. She can be found talking with her hands (nails long) and on a tangent. You can find her listening to music, taking pictures of flowers, and hoarding hot sauce. If she were a poem, she’d be a Def Jam freestyle in 2004 probably performed by Mos Def (Yasiin Bey) or sung by Jill Scott.

See you soon,

– MFG 🚪

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Cantab Recap For Wednesday, July 16th, 2025

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Open Mic Highlights

• The passing of Andrea Gibson led to an outpouring of support for this performance poetry legend, we had Andrea-inspired poems and tributes by Caroline Sims, Hunter, March Penn, and our hosts.

• Meredith’s “What do I do with all this spite” poem, featuring the line “Spite is wearing me as its skin”

• Oliver’s family-themed grocery store piece that may or may not involve a five-finger discount

• Allie Burke on fighting against their body and lapsed Christianity

• Isaiah with an excellent, extended (and very-Boston) metaphor about “Storrowing”

• Briana’s praise poem “Bless my tummy” and Zeke’s simultaneous ode to his mother and quilting

Feature

Our feature was the 2025 Boston Poetry Slam Team! Aside from the Team Selection Night, this annual tradition is always one of the punchiest and poignant nights of the year, as we get to hear all the polished individual and group pieces our team has been working on during one feature. You can re-watch the whole performance on our instagram page (and read the poems themselves in the team chapbook) but Amy, Myles, Jen, Kaitie, Aparna, and Ilse left everyone feeling inspired and proud of our scene. Group piece highlights include Jen and Amy’s stark piece on the danger of gossip, Myles’ innovative “Intrusive Ghazel” with multiple repetitive voices going on in the background while the poem was being read, and a surprise Pandora’s Box/crossword-themed piece by Aparna and Kaitie. We will have copies of the team chapbook (while they last) at our show the next few weeks, so be sure to pick them up while you can!

Coming Up This Wednesday

THIS WEDNESDAY 7/23 the Boston Poetry Slam presents our very first Community Night! The main event of the evening will be a series of featured poems selected and performed by members of our community. The first theme, “First Inspirations”, asks poets to bring covers of poems from the artists who have inspired them throughout their writing journey.

Please note this feature is covers of other poets, not a single poet feature. Want to take part in the event? Visit tinyurl.com/1STINSPOS to sign up!

See you soon,

– MFG 🚪

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Cantab Recap For Wednesday, July 9th, 2025

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Open Mic Highlights

• Dedicated regular Cam S’s farewell love letter to the Cantab on the eve of his moving away from Boston. We’ll miss you Cam!

• Erica Garcia’s work poem “To The Person Who Steals The Magic Eraser” and the incredible inner monlogue turn that ended Ilse’s new piece about their mother

• A trio of DADS took the stage in a row on the open mic, including 2nd timer Greg M, who wrote a touching poem for their husband’s 40th anniversary, and the return of Aparna’s father Sanjay!

• Lauren’s “Random thoughts between 5:45 a.m. and 7 a.m.” that gained momentum and snappiness the closer it got to 7 a.m.

• The bitterness in Sue Savoy’s “I wish your name wasn’t on my tongue so often” turned into such beautiful poetry

• Ed’s breakup poem that ended with “love is the thing that knocks,” which promptly yours truly to knock on the microphone right before announcing the next poet

• The return of Briana Crockett to the mic after a bit of a hiatus, and Aparna’s “F word” poem that invoked their father (who was still in the room!)

Feature

The innovative and often-astounding Ilyus Evander was our feature this week, and they gave us a sneak condensed peek of their incredible poetry/theater show that will debuting this fall just outside Providence! We’ve been told not to spoil the surprises of the show beforehand, but the set did include a couple of Ilyus’ showstopping poems from recent tournaments (“Evidence of Absence vs Absence of Evidence,” performed to an empty stage) as well as a pre-taped narrator that transitioned the audience through each poem, and added some interactivity to the feature. Closing with a classic (“The three- headed hydra speaks”), Ilyus lefts us all aching to see the full production of the show! Make sure to check out their previous books, and we’ll post information on how to see the play as soon as we get it.

Coming Up This Wednesday

This Wednesday marks the close of the 2025 team season! Come welcome the BPS team back from NorthBeast and hear what they’ve been working on over the last 5 months. Myles, Ilse, Jennifer, Aparna, Kaitie, and Amy will perform for a FULL HOUR, so the mic will be slightly shorter — get there EARLY if you want to sign up. There will be some merch too for sale! Doors will be $6 instead of the usual $4 for this special event.

See you there!

– MFG 🚪

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2025 Northbeast Regional Poetry Slam & Festival Is This Weekend!

Tickets are available via Eventbrite!

This weekend, representatives from poetry venues across New England and beyond will be competing in the 3rd Annual NorthBeast Regional Poetry Festival at the Cambridge Foundry!

The NorthBeast Regional Poetry Festival is dedicated to assembling poets from New England and beyond to uplift each other’s voices. In NorthBeast’s main event, 16 teams will compete in a regional poetry slam!

But NorthBeast is so much more than a competition: it is an opportunity to bring the poetry community together in a weekend of growth and camaraderie. Attendees can look forward to participating in open mics, a community fair, and workshops taught by esteemed local poets.

Teams Participating In The Slam:

Boston Poetry Slam (Cambridge, MA)

Slam Free or Die (Manchester, NH)

ProvSlam (Providence, RI)

Mill City Speaks (Lowell, MA)

Slam Euphoria (Troy, NY)

Port Veritas (Portland, ME)

The Dirty Gerund (Worcester, MA)

Rockland Poets (Nyack, NY)

(Not) BuckSlam (Minneapolis, MN)

Land of Lakes (Minneapolis, MN)

Charm City Slam (Baltimore, MD)

Verbal Slap (Bridgeport, CT)

Mic’d Up Mass (Boston, MA)

Sonic Bloom (Pick Up Team)

Team SLG [Silly Lil’ Guys] (Pick Up Team)

Peaky Binders (Pick Up Team)

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

SATURDAY JULY 12

OPENING CEREMONY
11:30am in Multipurpose Room

FIRST PRELIMINARY SLAM
12:00pm in Multipurpose Room
featuring Mic’d Up Mass, Port Veritas, Rockland Poets, and Charm City Slam

SECOND PRELIMINARY SLAM
1:30pm in STEAM Set Theater
featuring Land o’ Lakes, Sonic Bloom, Peaky Binders, and (not) BuckSlam

THIRD PRELIMINARY SLAM
3:00pm in Multipurpose Room
featuring Mill City Speaks, ProvSlam, Slam Euphoria, and Dirty Gerund

FOURTH PRELIMINARY SLAM
4:30pm in STEAM Set Theater
featuring Verbal Slap, Boston Poetry Slam, Slam Free or Die, and Silly Lil’ Guys (SLG)

HAIKU NUPIC SLAM
7:00pm in Multipurpose Room (sign ups at 6:30pm)

SUNDAY JULY 13

COMMUNITY FAIR & CHAPBOOK EXCHANGE
12pm – 6pm in Main Hall

LIBERATION OPEN MIC
12pm in Multipurpose Room

WORKSHOP 1 – EKPHRASTIC REMIXING: SAMPLING POP CULTURE with Kenny Bradley
12 pm in The Point

WORKSHOP 2 – THE BODY SPEAKS with Ilyus Evander
1:30pm in Design Lab

WORKSHOP 3 – MOTHER EARTH IS WATCHING with Essmaa Litim
3pm in The Point

JUST (BE)LOVED OPEN MIC
3pm in Multipurpose Room

WORKSHOP 4 – ANTI-POEMS & OTHER HIJACKINGS with G/ج (George Abraham)
4:30pm in Design Lab

FINALS TEAM CHECK-IN
5:30pm in STEAM Set Theater

FINALS STAGE
6pm in STEAM Set Theater

Event Venue

The Cambridge Foundry
101 Rogers St., Cambridge, MA 02142

To learn more about the Foundry, its accessibility features, and directions, see our page with venue information.

Cantab Recap For Wednesday, July 2nd, 2025

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BUY TICKETS for the 2025 Northbeast Regional Poetry Slam & Festival in Cambridge! Happening this weekend!

Highlights From This Past Wednesday’s Show

Donovan’s line about having met “plenty of the keepers of the light” seemed to represent the feeling on tonight’s open mic, which was beautiful and vulnerable. Thank you for the shout out to Myles Taylor, “the keeper of the light,” as we are so grateful for this chance to have community with each other. A big thank you as well to our workshop facilitator, Kes, who led us through a prompt about fear by animating our monsters. Kes also read on the open mic and blew our minds with lines like “Everyone is acting like conversation with predators is still conversation.”

Other memorable lines from the open mic:
“Affection feels like a dungeon.” – Kelsey
“My pain is currently on sale.” – Edie
“Even in a flop era, there are some slays.” – Brynna (hosting bit)
“You use your context clues against me.” – Hunter
“A candle is to an astronomer as an egg is to a rabbit.” – Charlie
“In this room filled with queer acceptance, I think I finally found home.” – Muggs
“Their breath is the only prayer we need.” – Isaiah
“Peace comes to the spirit painfully.” – Nick
“The meat of your matter is all baloney.” – Greg
“I left my hometown even though it was the only place I felt grounded.” – Brynna
“This email found me rabid, foaming at the mouth.” – Aparna

We also had an excellent feature from touring poet Bob Sykora, who graced us with work from his new book, Utopians in Love, out now on one of our favorite local presses, Game Over Books. Check out the entire feature on our instagram HERE!

Coming Up This Wednesday

We welcome back to the feature stage longtime New England poet, artist, and educator, Ilyus Evander!

Bio: Ilyus Evander (they/them) is a disabled, non-binary mental health worker, educator, poet, and theater maker from Providence, RI. They have represented the Providence Poetry Slam at several National Poetry Tournaments including the National Poetry Slam, Brave New Voices, and the Women of the World Poetry Slam. They are the recipient of multiple awards for excellence in design from the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival for their work on theatrical productions. Ilyus’ first original experimental play, “Somebody. Nobody.” is currently being workshopped for production with OutLoud Theater Company. They are the author of two poetry collections; Good Mourning, Bad Dreams (2022 Ginger Bug Press), and Heavier Than Wait (2020 Game Over Books). Most recently, Ilyus became the 2024 ProvSlam Grand Slam Champion, won the “Pushing the Art Forward” award at the 2024 NorthBeast Regional, and has published work with The Poetry Foundation (Ours Poetica), Button Poetry, and the Academy of American Poets (Poem-A-Day). Ilyus has toured the country teaching and performing poetry, theater, and accessibility in the arts workshops. They are so proud of you.

See you there!

~ March

Cantab Recap For Wednesday, June 25th, 2025

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BUY TICKETS for the 2025 Northbeast Regional Poetry Slam & Festival in Cambridge!

Hi Cantab! It was a hot one last Wednesday, and I’m not just talking about the fire poetry we heard. It was the middle of a heat wave, causing some unusual circumstances for our show. Due to The Cantab Lounge having a HVAC issue, we held the show at The Foundry instead (thank you to our friends there for accommodating us on such short notice). Despite having to reschedule the tag team slam to August, we still had a hell of an open mic – specifically, the Extended Remix Open Mic! Due to the lack of a feature or slam, a whopping 28 people read on the open mic (not including staff!), and it was a certified all-bangers, no-skips kind of night.

Show Highlights

• New staff member Kai made their hosting debut, delighting the audience with understated curiosity, entertaining quotes, and tidbits of fun.

• Kai and Kaitie D made a sign that said “Cantab Above Ground,” a dry-erase replica of the famous mural that Aparna’s haiku later referenced (btw Aparna did do a performance with the new make-shift mural!)

• Taking a page out of Just Bookish’s book, we wrote down our favorite lines of poetry on whiteboards, which Amy initially hid under the chairs as if we were in a 90s talk show, about to win a special prize.

• We had several newcomers and far-flung travelers on the mic, including first-timer Betsy who came all the way from Vermont, and Colin Killick, who returned from DC to perform a classic on disability activism.

• Jack Chasse and Cameron did fast-rapping poems back-to-back in homage to each other (and Spongebob).

• David F (occasionally affectionately known as “the rhyme slut”) performed a thoughtfully constructed poem about editing and his father, playing into the theme of “time” that was prevalent. 

• Another major theme emerged in the poems shared by Jennifer, Ilse, and Aparna regarding writing about family, roots and the role of parents in one’s life.

• Aparna also gave us a prompt in honor of our change of venue: Write about a last-minute change and incorporate a quick turn.

• Finally, we enjoyed all the poems read in Spanish – always appreciative of multilingual work – keep it going, poets!!!

Memorable Lines Galore:

“Reality buckles under the weight of Spongebob” – Jack

“Pretending to know is so much easier than knowing” – Sue

“I let silence expand” – Abe

“Silence is complicity” – Danny, from a poem for Palestine

“I don’t fight depression when it comes, I surrender and surrender to something else” – Ed

“The loudest voice in my head is my mother” – Aparna, from a cover of Solmaz Sharif’s “Social Skills Training”

“I can’t picture a wedding in the middle of a wake” – Brynna, from the burning of the plantation series

“If vulnerability is so precious, why does it feel like lying?” – Amy

“Maybe I’m not meant to exist here right now” – newcomer Kayleen

Coming Up This Wednesday

We will back at the Cantab this week, for a feature by Bob Sykora, and an early bird (6:30 pm) workshop with Kes Maro!

Feature Bio: Bob Sykora is the author of the collection Utopians in Love (Game Over Books 2025) and the chapbook I Was Talking About Love–You Are Talking About Geography (Nostrovia! 2016). He lives in Kansas City where he teaches at community college, edits with Garden Party Collective, co-hosts The Line Break podcast, and curates the KC Poetry Calendar. He can be found online at bobsykora.com

Workshop info: “Meet Your Monster” is a generative character design and persona poetry workshop run by Kes Maro. In this workshop, we will read poetry written in the voice of monsters, discuss core aspects of character design, and give voice to our fears.

See you there!

– Amy, March, and Kai

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Cantab Recap For Wednesday, June 18th, 2025

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Open Mic Highlights

• First-timer Lauren’s piece on the shifting idea of what being brave means as life goes on

• The unexpected return of former-regulars Kim and Maile B, and a rare two-poems-in-three-minutes from Kaitie D

• First-timer Alvaro read in Portuguese, with a beautiful cadence and rhythm that allowed you to hear all the turns in the poem even if you didn’t speak the language

• Diego, another first-timer, hit it out of the park with a poem about being a statistics teacher, and why he teaches his students about the darker origins of stats, including eugenics and profiling

• An explosive unpredictable / “Wait, did he just say that?” performance piece by Jack Chasse, who continues to keep us guessing where his poems will take us during each line/rhyme

• We also had 2 fantastic Juneteenth spotlight features from our own staff member Brynna Boyd, who shared pieces from their upcoming chapbook about the burning of plantations, and Yah Yah The Wordstress (@yahyahthewordstress), who did a long extended narrative piece with exquisite descriptive detail!

Feature

We had a rare triple feature this week for our Juneteenth celebration!

Marsha (@mizzymaz_) opened things up with a short set that invoked both the themes of “needing time” and coming to terms with the feeling that you are procrastinating.

Up second was Messi Amaru’Khan (@messagefrommessi), who had a relaxed and smooth flow that kept the audience in the groove throughout. The highlight was an excellent extended piece that was initially about papaw and mango trees, but later turned into an extended metaphor on what a tree will and won’t produce despite how it is treated, before arriving at the final question “What type of tree are you?”

Closing the night was M’shairi The God ((@mshairithegod) who opened with a great newly-written portrait of their Jamaican father, and how tangible his heartache has become, and then ended up with a showstopping piece about kissing a white guy and reveling in the act of taking control of the power dynamic between them.

All of our features come up from a new poetry show in the Boston Area, Pull Up Poetry (@pulluppoetry), so give them a follow and check out their upcoming shows!

This recap is a little late due to the 06/25 show having to be relocated at the last minute, but look out for a small recap of that open-mic-only show soon! We’ll be back at the Cantab next week, July 2nd!

See you then!

– MFG 🚪

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