Cantab Recap for Wednesday, January 16, 2019

George Abraham! George Abraham! George Abraham! Somebody whose name this blogger just typed three times in a row stuffed the Cantab with loving and talented humans last night in the name of poetry. After a workshop offering an exciting prompt on three breathtaking writing samples (check out one at our weekly prompt here), George presented us with a delicately wrought set riding on a powerful conceptual engine, shaking the audience’s concepts of science, territory, body, and the very shape of a poem. George has more shows coming up this month, but if you want to hold these new poems in your hands, snap up The Specimen’s Apology for yourself straight from the publisher’s website.

Next week: it’s a science double-header! Student in neuroscience and UMass Boston CUPSI veteran José Zepeda will take the stage for a full feature. 2019 has been selling out quick, so come early to get a seat for this important and beloved local voice.

Tip from the Bar: The George Abraham Prompt

Simplified from George Abraham’s open-ended prompt at a recent workshop, after Hala Alyan‘s Wife in Reverse:

Write a poem where you manipulate time or space in some way; try to keep yourself from manipulating both.

Cantab Workshop for Wednesday, January 16, 2019 with George Abraham

Join George Abraham, the night’s scheduled feature, for an early-bird poetry 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 and all are welcome. Description from the workshop leader:

I made him up // I made it all up: the Poetics of Memory and Personal Histories
Hala Alyan concludes her poem New Year with the lines: “I made him up. I made it all up.” How are we, as poets, to write narratives of trauma when trauma acts on and writes memory in every stage: from perception to cognition to consolidation to recollection? What does truth look like, and is truth a reasonable or responsible goal for every poem when we consider the systemic constructions (and consumption) of truth, and whose narratives are allowed to be considered true? When the existence of historically marginalized bodies are being denied on a national level, how can poetry serve as a vessel of memory, and hence history, for these bodies? Moreover, how can we write poems which are responsible, first and foremost, to memory? This workshop will draw from questions of memory via meditation and writing exercises, as well as examining the work of poets such as Hala Alyan, Ladan Osman, Brigit Pegeen Kelly, and more.

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. Please note that no one who desires to write and contribute to the community of the workshop will be turned away for lack of funds!

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 score a spot in the workshop is to directly email the series curator.

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

Cantab Feature for Wednesday, January 16, 2019: George Abraham

Widely celebrated Palestinian-American poet George Abraham. Photo by Mara Buzatu.

Widely celebrated Palestinian-American poet George Abraham. Photo by Mara Buzatu.

George Abraham is a Palestinian-American poet, writer, and Bioengineering PhD candidate at Harvard University. They are the author of two poetry chapbooks: the specimen’s apology (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2019) and al youm – for yesterday & her inherited traumas (the Atlas Review, 2017). He is the recipient of fellowships from Kundiman, The Poetry Foundation, and The Watering Hole, and winner of the 2018 Cosmonauts Avenue Poetry Prize selected by Tommy Pico, as well as the honor of Best Poet from the College Union Poetry Slam International. Their writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Tin House, Boston Review, LitHub, The Rumpus, Beloit Poetry Journal, and anthologies such as Nepantla, Bettering American Poetry, and Beyond Memory: An Anthology of Arab American Creative Nonfiction (University of Arkansas Press, 2019).

Their first full-length poetry collection, Birthright, is forthcoming with Button Poetry in 2020. Visit George at Instagram, Twitter, or gabrahampoet.com.

The Boston Poetry Slam is pleased to announce that George will also present an early-bird generative writing workshop prior to the open mic portion of the show. For more information, including how to sign up in advance, please see our separate event page.

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 Recap for Wednesday, January 9, 2019

Congratulations to all the listeners who got in to see our first sold-out show of 2019! Last night, Cave Canem Poetry Prize winner, CUPSI Best Poet, and all-around dope writer Julian Randall had folks falling (gently) over each other to catch his half-hour set. Powerful, unapologetic, and masterfully crafted, Julian’s work shook, flexed, and lifted the audience to a high point in the new calendar year, exactly what we needed on this second Wednesday; folks still looking to purchase the poet’s book can grab his work straight from his publisher at Pitt. Extra thanks to the writers who came out early to make for a lively workshop and dialogue before the show: if you missed your chance to write a poem there, no worries, we’ve got another workshop next week starring George Abraham.

Yup, you read that right: George Abraham will not only lead a workshop before doors open for the show, but also be releasing the specimen’s apology that week on Sibling Rivalry, at The House Slam, and right here at the Cantab! You can count on different sets, different takes on poems, and different (soon-to-be-famous) banter from the author at every show from this beloved local; come to us early, stay late, hear poems and maybe even write one in the warm light of a room filled with fellow artists.

Tips from the Bar: The Shane Koyczan Prompt

Try answering this question from a Shane Koyczan poem:

When was the last time you knew everything was going to be okay?

Cantab Workshop for Wednesday, January 9, 2019 with Julian Randall

Join Julian Randall, the night’s scheduled feature, for an early-bird poetry 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 and all are welcome. Description from the workshop leader:

Slam the Form!
This workshop uses the contemporary and classic poetic forms the Golden Shovel and the sonnet. Drawing on the work of Terrance Hayes, Patricia Smith, Lyrae Van Cleif Stefanon and sam sax we will explore the possibilities of poetic form as a means of self excavation and finding the true and beating core of obsession.

Cover charge is $10-$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. Please note that our minimum is $10 tonight for the rare opportunity to work with this skilled touring teaching artist, but no poet of color will be turned away for lack of funds.

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 score a spot in the workshop is to directly email the series curator.

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

Cantab Feature for Wednesday, January 9, 2019: Julian Randall

2017 Cave Canem Poetry Prize winner Julian Randall. Photo by Nicholas Nichols.

2017 Cave Canem Poetry Prize winner Julian Randall. Photo by Nicholas Nichols.

Julian Randall is a Living Queer Black poet from Chicago. He has received fellowships from Callaloo, BOAAT and The Watering Hole and was the 2015 National College Slam (CUPSI) Best Poet. Julian is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize and is the curator of Winter Tangerine Review’s Lineage of Mirrors. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in publications such as New York Times Magazine, The Georgia Review, and Sixth Finch and in the anthologies Portrait in Blues, Nepantla and New Poetry from the Midwest. Julian is a candidate for his MFA in Poetry at Ole Miss. His first book, Refuse, is the winner of the 2017 Cave Canem Poetry prize is available from the University of Pittsburgh Press.

The Boston Poetry Slam is pleased to announce that Julian will also present an early-bird generative writing workshop prior to the open mic portion of the show. For more information, including how to sign up in advance, please see our separate event page.

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 Recap for Wednesday, January 2, 2019

Happy new calendar year, Cantabbers! We celebrated this Wednesday with an exceptional journey and feature from Ilyus Evander, soon-to-be-gone-from-Providence poet, who touched down on just a few well-known poems amongst a terrific whirlwind of her new sci-fi-like ouevre. It was a sweet and sad and superbly high-energy start to 2019; if you are waving farewell to this poet having only just been introduced, we hope you’ll stick around in coming months for some of the great up-and-comers we have coming to the stage.

Next week, of course, our scheduled feature (and workshop leader! sign up at this link!) has fully emerged into the literary world and will be riding high on his prizewinning book, Refuse: the eminent Julian Randall will be packing the house, so we recommended showing up early to stake out a spot to listen.

Tips from the Bar: Crickets! Who Ordered Crickets!?

A box comes to your door; you open it, and something floods out, in great quantity, too much for you or your living space. Do you try to save yourself? Hold back the tide? Salvage the contents of the box?