Milkboy Recap & Open Mic Standings
Last night’s 2010 kick-off at Milkboy was a total blast! We packed the house at Milkboy Acoustic Cafe — including a whopping 19 readers in the open mic!!!
We opened our new genre-bending event with a flash fiction reading by Randall Brown and poetry reading by Ed Krizek. Randall’s stories were personal and quirky, bolstered by the modest confidence of his delivery. Ed battled repeated mic troubles to bring us moving poems that were both emotional and funny, and often an adept balance of both.
I was inspired and delighted by both readers; but as usual I was completely dazzled by the tremendous talent in the open mic. As With 19 readers, the influences ranged from Homer to hip-hop and subjects ran the gamut from babies to Abe Lincoln.
In addition to getting a chance to share 2 poems last night, all of our open mic participants were vying for an opportunity to be a featured reader at Milkboy this November. Here’s how it works: at the end of each reading, we’ll collect votes from everyone in the audience. Whoever has the most cumulative votes after October’s reading will get a feature slot in November, alongside Joe Roarty.
After last night’s open mic at Milkboy, we collected votes from 26 audience members. Here are the top vote grabbers thus far:
Howard Lieberman: 4
Betti Kahn: 3
Ben Heins: 3
Joseph Dorazio: 2
Zsu: 2
Jess Bouchard: 2
Todd Stevens: 2
As you can see, it’s very close. And since we just got started it’s still anybody’s reading. The key to this contest is going to be showing up every month with your very best poems and your very best performance. I look forward to seeing what next month brings!
