Detroit poet Deonte Osayande. Photo by Ashley Smith.
Deonte Osayande is a touring poet out of Detroit, Mich. He was a member of the 2011 Detroit National Poetry Slam Team, as well as the SlamMaster of the 2012 Detroit Rustbelt Regional Poetry Slam Team where he individually placed 5th in the Midwest. He is a two time Dudley Randall Poetry Contest winner, as well as one of the winners of Wayne Literary Review’s 2011 Poetry Contest and for the Define Your Legend Poetry Contest at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History. He is co-winner of the Howling Wolf Chapbook Contest at the University of Detroit Mercy and will have a co-written chapbook published in the fall. He was a former presidential ambassador for that same university with publications including issues 16 through 19 of the literary journal [sic], and online publications with Curbside Splendor, Requiem Magazine, Quantum Poetry Magazine and Emerge Literary Journal.
Want to check out some of Deonte’s work online? Check out “Drains” at Quantum Poetry 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 $3.
Good times at the Cantab, folks! And it’s all thanks to Mike McGee, purveyor of hilarity, tenderness, and fart jokes, who featured for us last night. Mike rocked the house and left us with a hand-made chapbook: for his book with a spine, you’ll want to check out writebloody.com. Mike’s feature was followed by a walloping 8-man slam wherein drop-in Worcester/Manchester poet Sam Teitel took the win over a not-fooling-around Tiernan Cahill. Sweet!
Only two open slams remain before the Team Selection Preliminaries, and one of them is coming up next week! As usual, we’ll start with an open mic and end with a slam. In between, Detroit up-and-coming poet Deonte Osayande will feature for us.
Mike McGee, internationally touring perfomer.
“Mighty” Mike McGee is an international spoken word artist, writer, performer, speaker, slam poet and comic. He has performed in thousands of venues all over North America, and was one of the first Americans ever to perform poetry at the University la Sorbonne in Paris, France.
McGee began performing comedy and poetry to audiences at home in San Jose, California in 1998. As a Poetry Slam competitor in the U.S., Mike has competed at the National Poetry Slam on team San José several times. In 2003, McGee won the coveted National Poetry Slam Individual Championship, besting over 300 nationally ranked poetry slammers. He has since toured over 300,000 miles throughout the United States and Canada. In 2006, McGee became the first person to win two separate individual titles by being crowned the 2006 Individual World Poetry Slam Champion, besting over 70 of the world’s best ranked slam poets. His “stand-up poetry” has been written about in Writer’s Digest magazine, and been featured on NPR, HBO and CBC. Mike McGee books internationally and is on tour damn-near 300 days a year.
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.
Melissa Newman-Evans features in front of a packed house. Photo by Marshall Goff.
Melissa Newman-Evans is on a roll! After a fabulous open mic, Melissa rocked a full thirty-minute feature with no breaks and plenty of inside Cantab jokes. Her brand-new book, practically a love letter to the bar itself, enjoyed had a unique launch perfectly appropriate to the artist– whom you’ll be able to catch behind the bar next week, of course. The slam that night was packed with 2013 team hopefuls, but it all came down to the battle between crowd favorites Steve Subrizi and Eddy Martinez. Ultimately, Eddy’s energy and engagement took the win and the big ten dollar prize.
We’ll be back again this Wednesday to do it all over again, of course: our next feature will be mighty Mike McGee, National and World slam champion, fresh off a European tour. We’ll close the night with one of the last open poetry slams of the series.
Bartender Adam Stone presents the following unlikely marketing triad…
Adam Stone presenting a visual Tip from the Bar. Photo by Marshall Goff.
What is this calendar selling? Or, alternately, what strange combination of concepts might you propose to market your own idea?
Melissa Newman-Evans performs at the Attleboro Arts Museum. Photo by Marshall Goff.
Melissa Newman-Evans has been the waitress and a regular reader at the Boston Poetry Slam since 2007, and has been designing chapbooks for individuals in the community for even longer. Currently, she provides graphic design for the Boston Poetry Slam, the Encyclopedia Show: Somerville, Bicycle Comics poetry books, and the upcoming 2013 National Poetry Slam in Boston. She was a member of the 2012 Boston Poetry Slam Team, and has headlined poetry shows around the northeast. If you wanted a tonic and gin, she thinks you should have ordered it that way.
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.
It was an excellent night on the Cantab open mic this week as writing audience turned out in droves to see local favorite Nicole Terez Dutton. Slam whistles and sounds of approval provided a gentle bassline to Nicole’s musical, subdued reading style of her complex work. If you missed it, you’ll want to catch up with Nicole for sure to get a copy of her new book, If One of Us Should Fall.
The slam was another jam-packed one as we count down the days to selecting the 2013 Boston Poetry Slam Team. This week, Emerson College up-and-comer Keiran Collier fell to returning regular Sean Patrick Mulroy, who takes the five-spot in the current 8×8 series as well as the ten-spot (worth two PBRs plus tip)!
Next week, we’ll be back with a feature from 2012 slam team member and year-round bartender Melissa Newman-Evans. She’s been promising us a special show, so don’t miss your chance to see this one-of-a-kind set! We’ll close the night with another open poetry slam.
Boston Poetry Slam Online