Cantab Feature for Wednesday, November 5, 2014: Cheryl Maddalena

Bay-gone-Boise poet Cheryl Maddalena. Photo by Cody Spanbauer.

Bay-gone-Boise poet Cheryl Maddalena. Photo by Cody Spanbauer.

Cheryl Maddalena is a poet, mommy, engineer, and psychologist… But not all at the same time. SlamMaster of Boise, she has reached the National Poetry Slam, Individual World Poetry Slam, Group Piece, and Women of the World Poetry Slam Finals stages as a competitor, backup dancer, and opening act. She has also made top four at the NUPIC underground indies, been featured as part of the Slam Legends Showcase, and has been Haiku Deathmatch Champion. Cheryl chalks up all of her successes to her unparalleled attendance record since 2001 – no still-competing poet in the world has been to more consecutive National Poetry Slams. Gold star!

This show in our weekly Wednesday series takes place at the Cantab Lounge, 738 Massachusetts Ave. in Cambridge. Doors for the show open at 7:15. The open mic begins at 8:00 and the feature performs at approximately 10:00. An open poetry slam in the 8×8 series will follow. The show is 18+ (ID required) and the cover charge is $3.

Cantab Recap for Wednesday, October 29, 2014

The nights are getting longer, Cantabbers, which means the slams are getting feistier! All eight of our past season’s slam winners turned out for last night’s Champions of Champions Slam, each looking for a chance to depose Bobby Crawford from throne. The open mic was filled with solid work, including a few returning newcomers, and great enthusiasm from a supportive crowd.

Although a last-minute scheduling snafu kept Nate Marshall from making it to his feature, that just meant the Champion of Champions match took over the feature spot for the night! Any one of these eight poets would rate a full feature at the Cantab, we think, but some of them only got the opportunity to slam one poem before having to pack it in and go back to the bar. After an on-page sacrifice by Bobby Crawford, performance was the name of the game for the first round, with poets pulling out all the stops just to try to survive. The final season match-up came down to two on-fire performers, Mckendy Fils-Aimé and Sean Patrick Mulroy, with Sean’s momentum just edging out Mckendy’s warm reception from the crowd.

Did Sean decide to let his $50 season championship prize ride all the way to the next round? OF COURSE HE DID. In the final Champion of Champions round, Sean and Bobby faced off with new-to-the-Cantab work, each with a poem held back specifically for this very match-up. A remarkably consistent set of five judges was painfully divided on the vote, but challenger Sean’s decision to memorize crowdwalk just might have outstripped Bobby’s good look in laurels: by 3-2, Sean Patrick Mulroy was crowned our new Champion of Champions!

Next week: open slams start again for all you upstarts gunning for Sean’s tiara. Oh, and we’ll finally have a feature from Berkeley-Boise slam legend Cheryl Maddalena! See you there!

Cantab Feature for Wednesday, October 29, 2014: Nate Marshall and the Champion of Champions Poetry Slam

Nate Marshall, prominent Chicago slammer.

Nate Marshall, prominent Chicago slammer.

Originally from the south side of Chicago, Nate’s work has been featured in many prominent literary journals, on HBO, BET, OWN, and in the award-winning full-length documentary, Louder Than a Bomb. He is a former poetry slam champion and a graduate of University of Michigan’s Helen Zell Writers Program. Nate is also the founder of the Lost Count Scholarship Fund that promotes youth violence prevention in Chicago.

Tonight also marks the final night in our current 8×8 poetry slam series! Eight slam winners will slam off for the season championship and the opportunity to challenge reigning Champion of Champions Bobby Crawford.

This show in our weekly Wednesday series takes place at the Cantab Lounge, 738 Massachusetts Ave. in Cambridge. Doors for the show open at 7:15. The open mic begins at 8:00 and the feature performs at approximately 10:00. The Champions of Champions Slam in the 8×8 speed slam series will follow. The show is 18+ (ID required) and the cover charge is $3.

Cantab Recap for Wednesday, October 23, 2014

It was a wet and windy night on the streets of Cambridge yesterday, with a nor’easter keeping much of our early crowd at home. Still, a good number of folks thought it would be a perfect night to come out and get dark and close together in a cozy basement for Meaghan Ford’s Choose Your Own Adventure-style feature set. Meaghan brought us through the eye of the storm and back out into the light in a retrospective of the themes and work she’s been putting on the stage for the past years.

The slam was our last in the series, which means it drew quite a selection of gung-ho poets (for a change, the slam list filled up well before the open mic)! Eight wildly different voices took the stage to vie for the $10 prize and the last slot in the Champion of Champions slam match next week, but when the waters receded, it was just Kieran Collier and John Mortara left standing. By a slim but hard-earned margin, rookie slammer John took the win and the highly coveted eight-spot in the champs match!

Rain or moonshine, we’ll be back next week with an incredible winners line-up for the 8×8 Champion of Champions slam, as well as the literary stylings of up-and-coming Chicago poet Nate Marshall. See you there!

Tips from the Bar: The Barbara Adler Prompt

Write a sad story about the endangered “crab” (Yes, those crabs.)

Cantab Feature for Wednesday, October 22, 2014: Meaghan Ford

Meaghan Ford, 2014 BPS Slam Team member. Photo by Marshall Goff.

Meaghan Ford, 2014 BPS Slam Team member. Photo by Marshall Goff.

Meaghan Ford is a writer from New Jersey who fell in love with the big city. In 2014 she was a member of the Boston Poetry Slam Team and the Port Veritas Women of the World Poetry Slam representative. Meaghan was a 2012 Write Bloody finalist and a 2013 Exploding Pinecone semi-finalist. Some of her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Drunk in a Midnight Choir, Danse Macabre, and the Write Bloody We Will Be Shelter anthology. Like all good punk girls, she carries a knife.

This show in our weekly Wednesday series takes place at the Cantab Lounge, 738 Massachusetts Ave. in Cambridge. Doors for the show open at 7:15. The open mic begins at 8:00 and the feature performs at approximately 10:00. An open poetry slam in the 8×8 series will follow. The show is 18+ (ID required) and the cover charge is $3.

Cantab Recap for Wednesday, October 15, 2014

What an excellent open mic at the Cantab last night, folks: poets turned out in droves to hear (and be heard by) Canadian-gone-local poet Andrew Campana, and catching up with Austin poet Jena Kirkpatrick in a super-Southern-sweet spotlight feature. Official photographer Rich Beaubien was also in the house to get a few shots for us:

A packed house hung on every word, especially Andrew’s carefully constructed, playful, and densely researched work. Missed the fun? You can at least check out one of the pieces Andrew talked about last night, Automation, published over on the Printer’s Devil Review.

The slam was a good mix of usual suspects, occasional some-timers, and imports from the Portland scene: the final round came down to Ed Wilkinson (again! Ed!) and an IWPS-fresh Sean Patrick Mulroy. Sean took the victory and the ten bucks, as well as the chance to challenge Champion of Champions Bobby Crawford at the slam on October 29.

Next week: newly-minted N.U.T.S. champion Meaghan Ford takes the stage for a full feature, and we enjoy the last open slam in this 8×8 series. See you there!

Tips from the Bar: Meet the Poets

What happens when you bring the Cantab (whatever that means) home for Thanksgiving to meet your family?

Cantab Feature for Wednesday, October 15, 2014: Andrew Campana

Canada-gone-Boston poet Andrew Campana. Photo by Andrew Littlejohn.

Canada-gone-Boston poet Andrew Campana. Photo by Andrew Littlejohn.

Andrew Campana was born and raised in Toronto, and now lives in Somerville, Massachusetts. He’s currently working on his Ph.D. at Harvard in Japanese literature and media studies, and started writing poems as a way to distract himself from preparing for his general exams. This didn’t really work, because all his poems turned out to be about the things he was studying.

He has done readings in Boston, Toronto, and Tokyo, and his work can be found in On Spec Magazine, Freeze Ray Poetry, Voicemail Poems, Printer’s Devil Review, and Gendaishi Forum (現代詩フォーラム). He always chooses Luigi.

Tonight’s show will also feature a spotlight from Austin poet Jena Kirkpatrick. Jena performs and conducts writing workshops with the Trio of Poets (including Regie Gibson and Timothy Mason) In January 2011, Jena released her first poetry and music compellation CD, Dangerous Snakes, featuring 20 years of poems accompanied by a variety of Austin’s most talented jazz, singer/songwriter and pop musicians.

Austin poet Jena Kirkpatrick.

Austin poet Jena Kirkpatrick.

Over the last two decades, Jena has self-published seven books; co-written, directed and produced three multi-media performance art pieces; and competed in two National Poetry Slam competitions. She is published in Shelf Life Magazine and Drash Pit, and featured in articles in The Austin American Statesman, The Daily Texan and Teachers & Writers Magazine.

This show in our weekly Wednesday series takes place at the Cantab Lounge, 738 Massachusetts Ave. in Cambridge. Doors for the show open at 7:15. The open mic begins at 8:00 and the feature performs at approximately 10:00. An open poetry slam in the 8×8 series will follow. The show is 18+ (ID required) and the cover charge is $5.

Cantab Recap for Wednesday, October 8, 2014

Welcome, October poetry fans! One of the joys of having a featured poet every week at the Boston Poetry Slam is the opportunity to book a vast array of poets from different cities and moments in their poetry career. Last night might have been the year’s best example: Ocean Vuong, an award-winning, widely published Pushcart Prize winner, was unknown to much of the audience, but his intense, densely crafted, deeply emotional work stuck a chord with the crowd and will no doubt ring familiar in voices of open mic readers for weeks to come. What an excellent and eye-opening night.

Following our feature, a six-poet extravaganza of slam took the stage: first-timers bringing polished work, veterans bringing work still in the notebook, and at least two judges willing to spend as much time at the bar as necessary to get them through the slam. A surprisingly consistent team of listeners awarded Adam Stone and Ed Wilkinson the spots in the final round: Adam edged out Ed for the win and a crisp $10 bill we assume he will waste on notebook paper.

Next week: we are back with local favorite Andrew Campana! Austin poet Jena Kirkpatrick will also be in the house for an oh-so-slightly snarky spotlight feature on the open mic.

But wait: there’s more! If you need your slam fix tonight, you might not even have to leave the comfort of that questionable papasan chair you picked up at Allston Christmas last month… The Individual World Poetry Slam kicks off in Phoenix, Arizona, this evening, and you can follow all the action at scores.poetryslam.com. Check in on how our 2014 IWPS rep Sean Patrick Mulroy sizes up against 71 other top poets from around North America, including some other local names we love like Meaghan Ford, Emily Eastman, Generalissimo, Franny Choi, Robin Merrill, and Porsha O! Break some legs, poets!