By Katherine Oksen
On Thursday, October 11th, the McMullen Museum collaborated with SLAM! and The Laughing Medusa to host an open mic night.
With the room filled with the smell of hot coffee and tables laden with macarons, pastries, and baked delicacies, a gorgeous night of poetry and prose began. SLAM! (Soul, Love, and Music) is Boston College’s own spoken word group, and The Laughing Medusa is BC’s only women’s literary and arts journal (striving to bring feminism to a publication near you.)
Members of each group performed at will, showering us with poems and pieces about love and life and hurt and hate. Despite the rainy weather, providing those darling melancholy vibes, the atrium of the museum was filled with students there to perform, support their friends, and listen to what their fellow peers had to say. The McMullen provided an open, safe space for students to share their words with a kind of fervor, intensity, and passion that cannot be replicated in the typed or written form. Snaps were heard all around in response to beautiful and powerful lines woven from experiences pulled from the full spectrum of human emotion, including abuse, racism, misogyny, ignorance, and heartache.
Miya Coleman, president of SLAM!, and Taylor Puccini, editor-in-chief of The Laughing Medusa, did an incredible job both performing their own works while also facilitating the entire event and encouraging the audience to to speak their minds.
The McMullen is hoping to continue hosting events like this, perhaps collaborating with these student groups again in the spring and even making this an annual event each fall. Thanks to everyone who came out to support all of our aspiring poets!