Moonlighting Recap for Sunday, September 29, 2019

Welcome back, Moonlighting! This past Sunday, Ilyus Evander and Myles Taylor relaunched our monthly queer open mic and reading series, which was a wild success with a full open mic and packed room. The Democracy Center in Harvard Square housed a cozy group of LGBTQIA+ performers of various genres and experiences. Following the open was a feature from the newly-formed first-ever Boston Poetry Slam FEMS Team, comprised of adored regular Yehya Barakat, 2019 BPS team member Joshua Elbaum, 2017 BPS team member Myles Taylor, and workshop rockstar Brittany Frederick. Each poet did a couple of tender & mostly new poems, ready to be worked for the tournament in late October.

Next month’s show will be posted soon! Please follow Moonlighting on Facebook to stay updated on dates, features, and whatever spooky things may be in store for our Halloween-adjacent bookings.

Cantab Feature for Wednesday, September 25, 2019: Marty McConnell

Def Poet, NUPIC champ, and underbelly editor Marty McConnell. Photo by Andie Meadows.

Def Poet, NUPIC champ, and underbelly editor Marty McConnell. Photo by Andie Meadows.

Poet, performer, coach and educator Marty McConnell lives in Chicago, Illinois, and received her MFA from Sarah Lawrence College. Her second poetry collection, “when they say you can’t go home again, what they mean is you were never there,” won the 2017 Michael Waters Poetry Prize, and her work has recently appeared in Best American Poetry, Vinyl, Southern Humanities Review, Gulf Coast, and Mid-American Review. She is co-founder and editor of “underbelly,” an online magazine focused on the art and magic of poetry revision. Her first full-length collection, “wine for a shotgun,” was published by EM Press, and YesYes Books published her first non-fiction book, “Gathering Voices: Creating a Community-Based Poetry Workshop,” in 2018. She is a seven-time National Poetry Slam team member, the 2012 National Underground Poetry Individual Competition (NUPIC) Champion, and appeared twice on HBO’s “Def Poetry Jam.” Visit her at martyoutloud.com.

Tonight’s show is the final event in our Back to School series, offering an early-bird workshop every week in September before doors open for the open mic! Click here for more information on Marty McConnell’s Ode to the Odd, a generative workshop on exploring strangeness.

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 show is 18+ (ID required) and the cover charge is $3.

Cantab Workshop for Wednesday, September 25, 2019 with Marty McConnell

Arrive in advance of tonight’s event for an early-bird workshop at the Cantab Lounge before the show. The one-hour workshop has limited space and begins at 5:30, with latecomers admitted no later than 6:00. This is a generative workshop with performance components that is open to anyone all levels of writers and performers who wish to contribute to the night’s feeling of community.

Workshop leader Marty McConnell is a Def Poet, the 2012 NUPIC champion, and a widely anthologized and published Chicago poet. Learn more about Marty, who will also be the featured poet for the night, at this link.

DESCRIPTION FROM THE WORKSHOP LEADER: ODE TO THE ODD
Why be average? In this workshop, we’ll look at poems that celebrate the strangenesses that contribute to our survival and thrival in this world that wants us normal, easy, commodifiable and quiet. And then we’ll do some writing of our own, mining our oddities as a way to own and proclaim ourselves more fully and without shame.

Cover charge is $5-$20 sliding scale, which includes admission to the evening show. We ask financially stable poets to consider contributing the higher end of this scale (or more) in order to defer costs for others and support this teaching artist’s generous donation of time to our space.

Due to the constraints of the venue, this workshop has limited space; room can be guaranteed to poets who identify as POC or queer. The best way to secure a spot in the workshop is to send an email.

The venue is 18+ and a photo ID is required. For more information on the night’s open mic and featured poet, click here.

Cantab Recap for Wednesday, September 18, 2019

Do we see enough of bartender John Pinkham? We do not! Do we see enough of poet John Pinkham? We do not! Was this past Wednesday a glorious triple-catchup candy-basket of John Pinkham goodness? IT WAS, IT WAS. John started the night with an early-bird workshop focusing on an in-depth conversation about humor and poetry, rolling into some very funny prompts that made memorable appearances on the open mic. After slinging drinks behind the bar all night, John stepped on stage for a full set of the playful, laugh-and-thought-provoking work we’ve come to know him for. If you’re lucky enough to catch sight of John in the wilds outside our basement, you can ask him for his new chapbook, Well and Good, released just for our show.

Next week: we’ll be closing out a very busy September with the very well-accredited Marty McConnell as our night’s headliner. An award-winning published poet and National Poetry Slam Champion, Marty was running workshops at the Cantab before the Cantab even ran workshops… If you can arrive before 6pm and want to walk out of the bar with a poem next week, show up for Ode to the Odd, a generative workshop with Marty at the helm.

Tips from the Bar: The Memento Prompt

A prompt from poet and comedian Ron Prudent, via doortender Michael F. Gill:

Write a poem using the non-linear narrative structure of the movie Memento. Use your odd-numbered lines (first line, third line, fifth line, etc.) to tell a story, and your even-numbered lines (second, fourth, sixth, etc.) to tell the same story, but starting from the end and working backwards. Both plots should converge at the end of the poem.

Cantab Feature for Wednesday, September 18, 2019: John Pinkham

John Pinkham, bartender and 2018 Boston Poetry Slam Team member.

John Pinkham, bartender and 2018 Boston Poetry Slam Team member.

John Pinkham is a spoken word poet from Boston. He represented Slam Free or Die at the 2017 National Poetry Slam in Denver and the Boston Poetry Slam at the 2018 National Poetry Slam in Chicago. In 2019, he has done nothing remarkable except pet an alligator. He is a social worker, ofttimes bartender, and generally exhausted.

Tonight’s show is part of our Back to School series, offering an early-bird workshop every week in September before doors open for the open mic! Click here for more information on John Pinkham’s generative workshop on exploring and highlighting humor.

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 show is 18+ (ID required) and the cover charge is $3.

Cantab Workshop for Wednesday, September 18, 2019 with John Pinkham

Arrive in advance of tonight’s event for an early-bird workshop at the Cantab Lounge before the show. The one-hour workshop has limited space and begins at 5:30, with latecomers admitted no later than 6:00. This is a generative workshop with performance components that is open to anyone all levels of writers and performers who wish to contribute to the night’s feeling of community.

Workshop leader John Pinkham is a two-time National Poetry Slam competitor, one-time Cantab bartender, and more-than-full-time social worker. Learn more about John, who will also be the featured poet for the night, at this link.

DESCRIPTION FROM THE WORKSHOP LEADER
Ways to explore and to highlight humor in poetry through writing and delivery. There will be prompts and self-generated exercises! The artist is fully aware of how “un-funny” this description reads on the page.

Cover charge is $5-$20 sliding scale, which includes admission to the evening show. We ask financially stable poets to consider contributing the higher end of this scale (or more) in order to defer costs for others and support this teaching artist’s generous donation of time to our space.

Due to the constraints of the venue, this workshop has limited space; room can be guaranteed to poets who identify as POC or queer. The best way to secure a spot in the workshop is to send an email.

The venue is 18+ and a photo ID is required. For more information on the night’s open mic and featured poet, click here.

Cantab Recap for Wednesday, September 11, 2019

This past Wednesday, we enjoyed a fabulous four-team slam from poets near and far, getting together for our last 4×4 of the year with the Boston Poetry Slam Team! We were hype to see a surprise dose of group work from Endopolis Poetry Room and Mill City Slam, plus new work and a sweet team vibe from the Awkward All-Stars pickup crew, who landed solidly in the runner-up spot for the night. The Wednesday’s big winners, with their first win at home and remaining champions in our hearts for the rest of 2019, were Terah Ehigiator, Arianna Monet, Joshua Elbaum, Zeke Russell, and, of course, the disembodied four-part floating voice of the MBTA.

This week: we return with an early-bird workshop from John Pinkham: arrive around 5:30 for a 6:00 generative and discussion workshop on humor! Cost is $5-$20, sliding scale, which covers the cost of admission: click here to sign up in advance or to learn more about the event. As always, our doors will re-open at 7:15 for an 8:00 open mic followed by a feature set from Johnny Pink himself.

Tips from the Bar: A Simple Prompt

You are on a date. A ferret appears. Write what happens next.

Cantab Poetry Slam for September 11, 2019: Team 4×4 Slam

It’s the summer of slam, folks! As one of the oldest poetry slams in the known universe, the Boston Poetry Slam holds a certain responsibility to deliver high-energy, high-quality slam to you right around this time of year; come celebrate the tail end of summer with poetic hijinks and literary late-season blooms.

We’re excited to welcome slam teams repping the Mill City Slam from Lowell, the Endopolis Poetry Room of Northampton, a fabulous foursome of Cantab open mic all-stars, and your very own 2019 Boston Poetry Slam Team! The show will by hosted by the eminently energetic Myles Taylor.

Tonight’s show is part of our Back to School series, offering an early-bird workshop every week in September before doors open for the open mic! Click here for more information on a performance workshop exploring storytelling of the body through movement and sound with NPS Finalist Ashley Davis.

This show will have a slightly shortened open mic and will sell out quickly, so we advise arriving for door time at 7:15 to catch a seat. Cover charge is $5 to help raise prize and gas money for the traveling teams.

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 slam begins at approximately 10:00. The show is 18+ (ID required) and the cover charge is $5.