The Brandeis Open Mic Series will provide Brandeis students with a chance to share their poetry, music or performance pieces with their peers. This showcasing of new and original work by the Brandeis community, as well as known slam poets, is a weekly event hosted by Jason Henry Simon-Bierenbaum '11, Kaamila Mohamed '11 and Zamira Castro '11. From 9 to 10 p.m. there are 12 five-minute time slots for which students can sign up to give a performance. However, from 10 to 11 p.m. a nationally touring or Boston-area featured poet will give a performance or host a poetry workshop. This week's featured poet is Associate Dean of Student LifeJamele Adams, and the forthcoming B.O.M.S. sessions will feature poets George Watsky and Jared Paul. It is worth mentioning for those interested in creative expression but not keen on poetry that the workshops will not focus solely on that particular medium. For instance, Jared Paul's workshop will be on the different types of tools available to activists. The workshops will also be hosted by different social and cultural clubs from the Brandeis community; B.O.M.S. seeks to become a place where different clubs can speak out together and learn from each other.

After the featured poet each week, there will be a poetry slam competition. The competition consists of three rounds of three-minute poems written and performed by any students who choose to participate, and the winning student will be chosen by the audience. The winners will then compete to become part of the first-ever Brandeis intercollegiate poetry slam team.

As VOCAL, a student-run organization that hosted a spoken-word concert at Brandeis in January 2008, showed us, there is a large audience on campus for spoken word poetry. The Boston area and New England, in general, have a very active and diverse spoken-word scene. One of B.O.M.S.' goals is to bring the two together.

Another goal of B.O.M.S. is, after having established the aforementioned intercollegiate poetry slam team, to send that team to the collegiate nationals in the spring. Other universities who compete in these spoken word events include Emerson College and Boston University. An additional aspiration of B.O.M.S. is to create an outlet for students to perform in a casual environment. This program seeks to become "a continuing weekly option for expression that can grow as its own community within the Brandeis community," said Simon-Bierenbaum. And, although B.O.M.S. places special emphasis on spoken-word performance, other types of art are welcome.

On Nov. 3, Brandeis comedians are set to perform, and B.O.M.S. will become a forum for anyone who has a desire to participate in open mic nights but may have been too nervous to do so before. B.O.M.S presents itself as a safe space for artistic expression, and so even if you have never done spoken word before (actually, especially if you have never done spoken word before) you might want check out B.O.M.S. to perform, enjoy and learn about slam poetry; you might even find yourself on the first-ever Brandeis slam poetry team.



The Brandeis Open Mic Series will commence today, Oct. 28. B.O.M.S will take place every Tuesday night from 9 p.m. to midnight in the Castle Commons.