Radio Feature for Monday, August 6: Comedy Meets Poetry with Wes Hazard!

What defines poetry? Are you allowed to laugh at poetry? What’s better art: making an audience laugh, making an audience admire your language, or confusing an audience so deeply they don’t know which to do so they just down another whiskey? Actually, we don’t care: so we’ve scheduled a night full of laughter, tears of laughter, and the occasional sore gut from holding in inappropriate laughter. Wes Hazard will be bringing three of his favorite local comedian buddies to try out the stage at Radio, and New & Improved will be fighting back with four funny locals of our own.

WORKSHOP DESCRIPTION: We’ll start the night off right: with one of the funniest guys we know acting as bitter as possible about working with you… That’s right, Adam Stone will put on his Cantankerous Bartender face to lead this evening’s generative poetry workshop.

FEATURED COMICS: Four comics will present short sets of their work to our poetry-listening audience. Sweet!

Wes Hazard

Wes Hazard

A comic & a poet, Wes Hazard loves language, technology, over-thinking the institutions of pop culture, and entertaining audiences. Navigating skillfully between the vulgar and the whimsical he takes few things seriously, least of all himself. He wishes you only the best.
John Paul Rivera

John Paul Rivera

John Paul Rivera has been entertaining audiences in New England since 2009 with his endearing stand-up comedy and famously unkempt hair.
Gary Petersen

Gary Petersen

Gary Petersen is without a doubt one of the rising stars of Boston comedy. His unique brand of comedy draws in crowds, guiding them through the ridiculousness of life, highlighting the humor in ordinary situations and imagining even funnier ones.
Matt Kona

Matt Kona

Matt Kona is a regular on the Boston Comedy Scene, and a fresh voice. Not for the faint of heart, Matt’s dark sense of humor pokes fun at topics from the mundane to the taboo with equal sharpness. He blends absurdist one liners and twisted topical commentary, making him one of the most unique and interesting comedians in New England.

FEATURED POETS: We’ll be pairing these four funnymen with local slammers. None of the following poets will be permitted to mine personal tragedy, break up with a supernatural being, or put down ol’ Fido unless it is in the name of laughter for all:

Somerville writer Andy Locke.

Andy Locke

Andy Locke writes about family, anxiety, and blue-collar life in New England. He lives in Somerville, where he is currently trying to justify his liberal arts degree.
Cambridge poet Nora Meiners. Photo by Marshall Goff.

Nora Meiners

Nora Meiners graduated from Emerson College in 1997 with a BFA in Creative Writing. Like so many who fall in love young, Nora and writing found that they were not meant to spend “forever” together. After one memorable shouting match, as Nora puts it; writing quit her. They have recently mended ways and you can see/hear Nora out at a poetry slam. She lives in Cambridge, where she is raising a 4-year-old son as a single mom and spends her days working as the “missing pieces person for a jigsaw puzzle company”. Yes, that is the real job title.
New Jersey poet Meaghan Ford. Photo courtesy MTV.

Meaghan Ford

Meaghan Ford got her groove back at the World Qualifiers at the Boston Poetry Slam, where it turned out that sex could be pretty goddamn funny, after all. She hails from New Jersey and, no, she did not tell you that for your amusement.
Unfortunate poet Adam Stone. Photo by Marshall Goff.

Adam Stone

Adam Stone became the Cape Cod Spoken Word Poet Laureate in 2000 and it’s all been downhill from there. Notable nadirs have included a year-by-year return to any New England slam team that will have him, a comparatively healthy obsession with Doctor Who, and, most unfortunately, the 2012 acquisition of the Head-to-Head Dirty Haiku Championship of the Boston Poetry Slam. He keeps busy working as a bartender and behind the counter at your local comic store, which is why the curator of New & Improved had to make up this bio for him.

This just might be the most fun show we’ve ever scheduled at New & Improved. Want to see how comedy and poetry stand up to capital-A-Art? Then tell Harold Bloom where Radio is so he can ruin the whole night. OR: tell your friends and neighbors to come out to Union Square for a night to remember at New & Improved.

NEW & IMPROVED MONDAYS is a weekly poetry and arts series on Mondays at Radio, a bar and performance space at 379 Somerville Ave., Union Square, Somerville. Doors open for the show at 6:30 p.m. and the workshop begins at 7:00. Open mic begins at 8:00 and the spotlight poets and comedians will take the stage around 9:00. Cover charge is $5 and the show is 21+.