The balloon man is handing out free balloons to the children. When each takes one, the balloon lifts the child up, up, and away. Where do they go? What happens to them?
Cantab Feature for Wednesday, December 26: Casey Rocheteau
Casey Rocheteau, Whitehaus poet, performing at the Encyclopedia Show: Providence.
Casey Rocheteau began performing poetry at Hampshire College, where she was one of the leaders of the Slam Collective from 2003-2007. She was a member of the first Five College teams at CUPSI. She performs throughout the country and she has lead a variety of writing and performance workshops at colleges and high schools. She’s released two albums on the Whitehaus Family Record: Pump Your Concrete in 2008 and Chiaroscuro in 2011. She has published four books: Roguish Young Things (2006), Keelhaul (2007), and List of American Rituals (2008), 11:11 (2009). Her next two books, Wild Child and The Dozen are forthcoming in 2012. Recently her work has appeared in Amethyst Arsenic and Side B Magazine. Casey was a member of the 2012 Providence Slam Team.
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. Poetry slam details are TBA.
Cantab Recap for Wednesday, December 19
Did someone tell you that the Cantab would be less packed the week before Christmas? If so, they were definitely lying: every seat was filled for Deonte Osayande, who came all the way from Detroit to rock the house on his last New England stop. The slam was full of surprises, with the judges clearly affected by the dense and surreal work they enjoyed during the open mic; the final round saw Adam Stone defeated by Omoizele Okoawo, and thus concludes the last slam in our current 8×8 series!
Oh, and a reminder: anyone who told you we wouldn’t be laying poetry down on the day after Christmas is definitely just trying to keep the great upcoming feature by Casey Rocheateau to themselves. Come see Casey present a full set, then stick around for the Champion of Champions slam, where we invite the past eight winners to slam off for the title, currently held by Zanne Langois.
Cantab Feature for Wednesday, December 19: Deonte Osayande
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.
Cantab Recap for Wednesday, December 12, 2012
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.
Cantab Feature for Wednesday, December 12: Mike McGee
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.
Cantab Recap for Wednesday, December 5
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.
Tips from the Bar: You’re Selling What?
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?
Boston Poetry Slam Online