Cantab Recap For Wednesday, July 19th, 2023

Hey Cantabbers! It was a very fun night this past Wednesday, with an open mic highlighted by jellyfish poems, Mortal Kombat poems, Generational Trauma/Karate poems, and two very different poems about Firefly.

We had a lot of Slam Free or Die regulars in the audience (shoutout to Greg Smith and Mica Rich) and a very welcome return by one of our favorite voices from the pre-pandemic, Mckendy Fils-Aimé. There was also plenty of 🧄 shenanigans 🧄, such as The Briana Hosting Experience that involved a $30 salad and a very funny Miley Cyrus serenade, Lynette’s set of neon “panic attack” themed stickers, and the continuing evolution of audience callbacks that have gone from “new shit” to “fresh vegetables” to this week’s “gorgeous garlic”. If you know, you know.

This week’s ✏Lines of the Wednesday✏ both come from a Kat:
“I am in love and it’s an eyesore” – Kat Anderson
“What is it like to see the cusp of a century and have it escape you?” – Kat Gunther

Our feature Zee Stewart gave us one of our most high energy (HI NRG?) sets of the year! There was no way anyone in the audience could not pay rapt attention to Zee’s full-throated lovingly crafted poems, which included an AWESOME extended group piece with Dan Ames. I can tell you it was about a roving fox and a maniacal Dr. Seuss-like character raving and rhyming about cadences and patterns, but that does not do it visceral justice. Did I mention that Zee also baked cookies for everyone in the audience? What a night!

This Wednesday: you definitely want to be here, as open mic standout Ryan Phung will be featuring for us! Check out 2 very different bios for him below.

Offical Bio: ryan phung is a very smelly los angeles native, quite possibly the smelliest i know. he is so smelly that the birds stop chirping when he approaches, and im pretty sure when he showers (if he showers at all) he uses 9 in 1 shampoo. he doesnt know how to do a cartwheel and he keeps pronouncing hyperbole as hipperbowl. despite all this, he is a friend, but the kind of friend u hang out with for like 20 min before saying o no sry man family emergency just came up, trevor taped his penis to the doorknob again, gotta go.

Myles’ edit: Ryan is a poet from California who will be getting his MFA from Notre Dame in Fiction for some reason. He has rapidly become an open mic favorite at the Boston Poetry Slam with moving work about grief, hope, family, immigration, and having a body. This is his send-off show before he moves and begins his studies in Not Poetry.

A 💰 reminder 💰 that we are now taking the $4 cover charge downstairs instead of upstairs. We prefer you to bring cash (to minimize fees) but we also accept Venmo, and contactless payments like chip credit cards and Apple pay. Also, Amy would want me to remind you to sign up for our MONTHLY NEWSLETTER, and to check our Poetry-themed MISSED CONNECTIONS FORM.

That’s all for now!

– MFG 🚪

Our upcoming features
Our community survey
First timer? Looking for show info? Check out our Frequently Asked Questions

All shows take place at the Cantab Lounge, 738 Massachusetts Ave. in Cambridge, with one flight of stairs to access the basement room (click for directions and accessibility information). The show is $4 / 21+ (ID/Proof of Vaccination required) and doors for the show open at 7:15. The open mic begins at 8:00 PM and the feature begins at approximately 10:00 PM.

Cantab Recap For Wednesday, July 12th, 2023

Happy Wednesday! We say this often, but last week was truly full of some crazy talent on the open mic. Across all the first-timers and veterans, people really brought their A-game, and it was great to see. Highlights: SaiDee was, according to them, very much “on their bullshit,” Sramana is grateful she didn’t love California, and Hallie elaborated on what she has learned from watching 113 romantic comedies.

Our feature was the Letta Neely. Her performance was so enthralling, eye-opening, and overall mind-blowingly good that she received a standing ovation. Letta read pieces on the significance of gay bars, specifically in places like Indiana, her and her family’s relationship with grief, tales of Mona… and Lisa, and several others that made us laugh, cry, and cheer. Thank you for coming, Letta! Wow.

This week’s 🪑Shenanigans🎶 is courtesy of an acapella performance at the mic, as Guy sang out “Empty Chairs at Empty Tables” from the musical Les Misérables to a room full of full chairs and zero tables. 

This week’s ✏Line of the Wednesday✏ comes from Sramana, with “The Teslas are sunning themselves like albino lizards”

Also, 📰 NEWSFLASH 📰: We will be switching to taking the $4 cover charge downstairs this coming Wednesday. We prefer you to bring cash (to minimize fees) but we also now will accept Venmo, and contactless payments like chip credit cards and Apple pay.

This Wednesday: all the way from Providence, Rhode Island, we have the great Zee Stewart (aka the Michael F. Gill of Slam Free or Die). Zee is an overly hopeful Libra who resides in the Northeastern corner of the US. At any given point, you’ll likely find Zee belting Nate Ruess (pronounced ROO-SS) songs, baking for her loved ones, or projecting their writing dreams into Google Docs. They have been featured at various venues around northern New England and has been one of the organizers at her home venue of Slam Free or Die since the summer of 2021. Zee’s work primarily dives into the subject of love in all its forms, including but not limited to grief, the complexity of interpersonal relationships, and the ways in which love weaves itself in and out of life like a precarious yet resilient thread. She hopes that her work helps you find the light, because they want to stroll into it with you.

Two quick reminders:

1) Sign up for the MONTHLY NEWSLETTER!

2) Check out our Poetry-themed MISSED CONNECTIONS FORM!  

– Amy ✈️

Our upcoming features
Our community survey
First timer? Looking for show info? Check out our Frequently Asked Questions

All shows take place at the Cantab Lounge, 738 Massachusetts Ave. in Cambridge, with one flight of stairs to access the basement room (click for directions and accessibility information). The show is $4 / 21+ (ID/Proof of Vaccination required) and doors for the show open at 7:15. The open mic begins at 8:00 PM and the feature begins at approximately 10:00 PM.

Cantab Recap For Wednesday, July 5th, 2023

Hello, poetry friends! After a long holiday weekend, we had a somewhat small but very very mighty open mic. We continued the trend of stellar first timers, some of whom blessing us with their first on-stage readings ever! First timers included Julie, who just moved to Boston a month ago, Genie, who told of how 2020 affected her appreciation for life and perception of herself, and Risa, closing out the night with a reminder for all of us to love and accept ourselves. 

Our feature was the incredible Essmaa Litim. She provided us with a gracious, thoughtful, powerful performance, and has got to be one of the “flowy-est” poets we’ve had on stage in a long time. She performed pieces about gentrification, identity, metamorphosis, and dived into the complicated feelings many of us have on the Fourth of July. Thank you so much Essmaa!

A decent amount of our staff was out on vacation last week, and it resulted in this week’s 🎙️Shenanigans🥇 – our amazing host Nayeli opened the show for the first time!! We love our staff and the wonderful community we’ve created, so it’s great to see a wonderful poet shine in this way.

This week’s ✏Line of the Wednesday✏ comes from our lovely host and staff member Briana: “A boy wanted / and I was next to it.”

Coming up this week: Come one come all to see the amazing Letta Neely! Letta Neely, originally from Indianapolis, Indiana, is a Black lesbian playwright, performer, poet, mother, teacher and community activist who has been involved in progressive, anti-racist and queer liberation movements all her adult life. Her work focuses on the connections and intersections of queerness, Blackness, and awareness.

Letta has written two books of poetry, Juba and Here (Wildheart Press), which were both finalists for the Lambda Literary Awards. As a member of the Traces/ Remain Ensemble with Deen Rawlins-Harris, she collaborated with Toshi Reagon’s Emerson College residency: Parable Path Boston to develop the Seed to Harvest Book Project. Letta is also a co-artistic director for Fort Point Theatre Channel and within that collaborative, a member of Her Story Is. Letta is the Storyweaver-in-Residence at The Elma Lewis Center (at the Social Justice Collaborative at Emerson College) and hosts FireWater Poetics on the 1st Wednesdays of the month. Her most current project–a solo spoken word play, “Pulling It All Into the Current” had a sold out run at Boston Playwrights’ Theatre. It will be performed again on August 12tjh and 13th on Martha’s Vineyard and at the United Solo Theatre Festival on September 26th in New York City. “Pulling It All into the Current” is directed by Greg Allen and produced by The Revolution of Values Theatre Project. Finally, Letta is the Executive Director of Apprentice Learning.

Two quick reminders:

1) Sign up for the MONTHLY NEWSLETTER! We just released our first installment, featuring an exclusive mini-interview with one of our regulars, Ryan Phung. All previous newsletters are archived here: http://tinyletter.com/bostonpoetryslam/archive

2) We have a brand new MISSED CONNECTIONS FORM! Click here to learn more, spread the love, and potentially be featured in the next newsletter! 

That’s all for now!

– Amy ✈️

Our upcoming features
Our community survey
First timer? Looking for show info? Check out our Frequently Asked Questions

All shows take place at the Cantab Lounge, 738 Massachusetts Ave. in Cambridge, with one flight of stairs to access the basement room (click for directions and accessibility information). The show is $4 / 21+ (ID/Proof of Vaccination required) and doors for the show open at 7:15. The open mic begins at 8:00 PM and the feature begins at approximately 10:00 PM.

Northbeast 2023 Recap!

Hi there poets! Below is a rare weekend recap for you all. But not just any weekend, no, this was an extravagant, artistic, joyous occasion: the 2023 NorthBeast Regional Slam! Saturday began with excitement, coffee runs, and rehearsing as poets from slam teams all over the Northeast filed in to the Cambridge Foundry. We had two preliminary bouts, containing the following 8 teams:

  • Boston Poetry Slam (Cambridge, MA)
  • Lizard Lounge (Cambridge, MA)
  • Last Chance Team (Cambridge, MA)
  • ProvSlam (Providence, RI)
  • Slam Free or Die (Manchester, NH)
  • Mill City Speaks (Lowell, MA)
  • We Were Here (our pick-up team!)
  • PV What’s Next (Albany, NY)

There were sacrifices, there was banter, there were tears, there was one (1) group piece, and there were POEMS! Two teams from each bout advanced to the finals. The second day was filled with workshops and open mics to get everyone in an inspired, poetry-fied mood for the slam finals that evening. We had poets writing about the time between breaths, poets pacing in rooms rehearsing their work for finals, poets exchanging chapbooks, poets spitting bars at the queer open mic, and even poets eating pizza.

Then, the slam finals. Over 120 people watched the four finalist teams compete:

  • Boston Poetry Slam 
  • Lizard Lounge
  • Slam Free or Die
  • ProvSlam

After some superb warm-up poets, amazing hosting by Anthony Febo, and 4 rounds of poems, we crowned a winner. The winner of the 2023 NorthBeast Regional Slam is….PROVSLAM! Congrats to the team: Shomari Woods, Ren L[i]u, Seth Larbi, Ilyus Evander, and Kenny Bradley!

We also awarded our superlatives from the preliminary bouts:

Funniest Poem: Art Collins of Lizard Lounge

Pushing the Art Forward: Jade Kleiner, Kat Anderson, and Kaitie Dilan

Best Performance: Mckendy Fils-Aime, Ren L[i]u and EL Evelyn

Wronged By The Judges: Sara H and Nayeli Mzin

That’s not all! Our wonderful regular Eddy Martinez took photos throughout the event that capture just how exciting and joyous the slam was. View them here.  And now, a series of quotes I collected that capture the vibes of the weekend:

On competing: “it was the most joyous endurance test I’ve ever had to do”

On attending a workshop: “It was amazing. I feel like that not only did I reflect, but I needed to”

On how a poet felt before slamming: “Ready.”

On making it to the finals: “I’ve never gone to a regional slam, I was in my head. Afterwards, I was really happy because I feel like that was the best time I’d ever done that poem. I did the poem in the way I always wanted to do it.”

On judging: “There was a theme of struggling against the absurdity of the system.”

On slamming: “It was really cool to see how seriously everyone took it. Everyone was very prepared and did their best stuff. It was a great environment.”

On being an audience member: “It was cool to hear so many different voices in their unique creative ways. They built off of each other really well. The environment was fresh and inspiring.”

We want to extend the biggest thank you possible there is to our volunteers, slam hosts, judges, sacrificial poets, workshop hosts, those of us who ran to get Dunkin in the rain, bout managers, photographers, coaches, the talented poets themselves, and, of course, Myles Taylor and Alex Aimee Kist for organizing the crap out of this thing. This weekend could not have been possible without each and every one of you. Thank you! 

– Amy ✈️

PS: Make sure you sign up for our new monthly newsletter! The first one will be going out very soon!

Cantab Recap For Wednesday, June 28th, 2023

Hey folks! It’s Myles, filling in this week. Sorry for being a little long-winded this week but there’s lots of ground to cover!

Last week’s open mic was a beautiful reminder of the importance of community arts spaces as many poems orbited grief, dysphoria, diaspora, and difficulty reckoning with the limitations of being alive. Particular shout out to Nayeli for holding down hosting for a very emotionally heavy section of the mic, and holding every poet with the grace and attention they deserve. Eben Bein trusted us with work honoring a friend and band-mate who died tragically last weekend in a motorcycle accident. Kai Wallin brought us a poem about the perseverance of their best friend. And Sam Feinstein, to Michael and I’s delight, brought a poem about Allston-Brighton, which included a child pointing to a dead rat and saying — and I will never get this out of my head — “that rat got oof’d.”

A sort of grief, but not really, because becoming part of a poetry scene means never really saying goodbye: Dawn Gabriel and Sam Cha have officially moved to Brooklyn and will no longer be, respectively, co-host and tech extraordinaire. Dawn and Sam were instrumental in bringing our show back from the dead — in fact, it was their idea and their quick thinking that re-opened the room. I am honored to be left with Dawn’s legacy as showrunner and will try my best to assume her Disappointed Mom Energy when moments call for it.

Lastly, we saw our first-ever CHAOS VS. ORDER SLAM. This was a silly idea that got slapped together within the last month, and I could not be more pleased at the way it went. Order brought haiku, sonnets, sestinas, and odes; chaos brought our usual-recapper Amy Argentar carrying the couch onto center stage and reading a poem upside-down, Shawn “spreading” (speed reading) in a manner rivaling professional auctioneers, and newcomer Vaughn bringing us an original song with portable speaker as accompaniment, to name a few antics. I was just happy to have an excuse to bring out a particularly infamous sestina of mine from 2018 that was accidentally uploaded and subsequently deleted from Button Poetry. (If you weren’t there … sorry, missed your chance.)

Two Lines of the Week, both, I think, encapsulating the spirit of the night:
“I lost you, but look what I found!” -Jasmine
“What is a tunnel but a bridge to another entrance?” -Ryan

See you next week for a feature by Essmaa Litim! Her bio is below:
Essmaa Litim is a multi-disciplinary artist and activist. She is a poet, author, and community organizer who has been promoting change and raising awareness on societal issues like disparities within the autistic community, racial equity, and gentrification through her writing for many years. Essmaa released her first book in 2021, Speechless, in an effort to raise awareness on the topics of immigration, Autism, and the intersectionality of adversity between the two. She has since collaborated with organizations like AANE, Ivy Street School, and Tasium to bring the annual event Art in Autism at the Bruce C. Bolling Center which debuted last Summer. As a first-generation American, Essmaa continues to work hard to help build the community that helped build her through believing it, speaking it, and being it.

-Myles ✨

Our upcoming features
Our community survey
First timer? Looking for show info? Check out our Frequently Asked Questions

All shows take place at the Cantab Lounge, 738 Massachusetts Ave. in Cambridge, with one flight of stairs to access the basement room (click for directions and accessibility information). The show is $4 / 21+ (ID/Proof of Vaccination required) and doors for the show open at 7:15. The open mic begins at 8:00 PM and the feature begins at approximately 10:00 PM.

Cantab Recap For Wednesday, June 21th, 2023

Hello hello!! After an absolutely stellar weekend at the NorthBeast Regional Slam, spirits were light and energized going into this past Wednesday. We had another wonderfully large amount of first-timers up to the mic, dropping bars left and right. There was a bit of a bird theme on the open, with lines about being the daughter of a red-winged blackbird and about leaving the nest. Oh, and another underlying-yet-strong theme of nuanced sex acts. 

Our feature was the incredible Yena Sharma Purmasir! She absolutely brought the crowd to their feet with pieces from two of her publications, and a bonus, exclusive, unpublished poem as well. The audience was enthralled by her storytelling, which touched on family, religion, feminism, and the concept of viraha (which is the title of one of her books – see here). Thank you for such a lovely reading!

Before we could get to our wonderful feature, however, we had a fantastic Haiku slam, which, as it has done many times before, has led to absolute 📃Shenanigans📀. We had incredible competitors, including regular C.S. Taylor and Slam Team member Skylar Sweet Cheeks. After some amazing and hilarious entries, we had two finalists: Colin and Lou. Lou did not prepare more than two haiku, so for their last poem, they performed a mashup of the two haiku they did perform! This spontaneous decision wasn’t just a crowd pleaser, it won them the slam and the coveted $17! Congrats Lou!

This week’s ✏Line of the Wednesday✏ comes from our lovely regular Donna: “I’ve been stranded from her / as a fish is from an island”

Coming up this week: Do you prefer the freedom and spontaneity of CHAOS, or the structure and security of ORDER? I’m here to tell you this week only one will win, in our very first Order vs. Chaos Slam! In a head-to-head style tournament, slammers will compete as a representative for either Team Order or Team Chaos. Team Order must only use form poetry, and Team Chaos will have… no rules. Come down to the Cantab to witness this ultimate showdown!

ALSO! A couple questions for you, reader: do you just love these recaps? Do you wish there was even more to read about the happenings down at the Cantab? Do you want to stay even more up to date on upcoming features and events? Do you know … what your email is? If the answer is yes to at least one of these questions, you are a perfect candidate to sign up for our revamped MONTHLY NEWSLETTER! Sign up HERE (https://tinyletter.com/bostonpoetryslam) for the best newsletter this side of the Charles, and keep an eye out for the first installment in the coming weeks!

That’s all for now!

– Amy ✈️

Our upcoming features
Our community survey
First timer? Looking for show info? Check out our Frequently Asked Questions

All shows take place at the Cantab Lounge, 738 Massachusetts Ave. in Cambridge, with one flight of stairs to access the basement room (click for directions and accessibility information). The show is $4 / 21+ (ID/Proof of Vaccination required) and doors for the show open at 7:15. The open mic begins at 8:00 PM and the feature begins at approximately 10:00 PM.

Cantab Recap For Wednesday, June 14th, 2023

Another week, another Wednesday, another show (as the prophecy states, “every Wednesday”). This week’s open mic had many first-timers, including Maya who made it clear she is not Adam’s rib. We also learned from another first-timer that glitter is infinity’s mascot, and look forward to a response next week from ∞, the original mascot of infinity.

After a fabulous mic with heartfelt pieces from our staff members, we had our feature, the incredible Maya Williams, who performed an amazing set of intricate and storytelling pieces. We heard poems on elaborate and fantastical pity parties, to those spanning religion and fate. We were all thoroughly moved by this poet!

The 🫰Shenanigans😦this week must have to be the specific poem that had the whole audience snapping up a storm each time the phrase “mustard gas and artillery” was spoken. Truly something only a poet could do. (Also, if you are this poet, drop us a line so we can mention you by name!)

This week’s ✏️ Line of the Wednesday ✏️ comes from our wonderful March Penn, with “99% of my poems are trying to kill my secrets”

Coming up, we have yet another incredible feature: Yena Sharma Purmasir. Yena is a poet and essayist from New York City. She was the Queens Teen Poet Laureate from 2010-2011. She is the author of Until I Learned What It Meant (Where Are You Press, 2013) and When I’m Not There (self-published, 2016), as well as co-author of [Dis]Connected Volume 1: Poems & Stories of Connection and Otherwise (Central Avenue Publishing, 2018). In 2022, she released her third and fourth books of poetry: Our Synonyms: An Epic from Party Trick Press and VIRAHA from Game Over Books. Purmasir holds a master’s degree in theological studies from Harvard Divinity School, where she focused on South Asian religious traditions. Her research endeavors were supported by fellowships from the Science, Religion, Culture Program and the Center for Black, Brown, and Queer Studies. She also holds a B.A. from Swarthmore College, where she majored in Psychology and double minored in English Literature and Religion. Currently, Purmasir works as a Copy Editor at AppSumo. She resides in Cambridge, Massachusetts and loves the Charles River.

See you Wednesday!

– Amy ✈️

Our upcoming features
Our community survey
First timer? Looking for show info? Check out our Frequently Asked Questions

All shows take place at the Cantab Lounge, 738 Massachusetts Ave. in Cambridge, with one flight of stairs to access the basement room (click for directions and accessibility information). The show is $4 / 21+ (ID/Proof of Vaccination required) and doors for the show open at 7:15. The open mic begins at 8:00 PM and the feature begins at approximately 10:00 PM.

Cantab Recap For Wednesday, June 7th, 2023

Happy Wednesday and 🌈HAPPY PRIDE🌈 from the Cantab! Last week was INCREDIBLE! We sold out the fastest we had since reopening our doors (sold out over an hour before the show started!) and the anticipatory energy in the room was palpable from the very start. During our open mic, we had banger after banger, with poets leaving their hearts on that stage, and also leaving…voicemail surveys?! (See below 📞)

After the incredibly packed open mic, we had our long-awaited feature, Hanif Abdurraqib. Just as he did in his previous Cantab features, the poet brought the house down, to say the least. With captivating pieces on community, basketball, grief, and of course, the TLC song “No Scrubs,” the audience was left awestruck and inspired. Check out Hanif’s work at Abdurraqib.com.

The 🎟️Shenanigans😊 this week was simply the fact that we all came together to sell out incredibly early to a packed and lively room. It was just one of those one-of-a-kind nights where everyone wanted to read aloud to one another :)

This week’s ✏️ Line of the Wednesday ✏️ is from Slam Team member Logan Lopez, with this line from their amazing voicemail poem: “But you didn’t think it was me at first, / And I’ve been trying so hard to make me different, / So that’s why I need you to answer these questions”.

Speaking of the Slam Team, the Northbeast Regional slam is THIS WEEKEND, JUNE 17-18th AT THE CAMBRIDGE FOUNDRY!!! Come see amazing poets from our team and others perform their best work, as well as enjoy the many other workshops and readings happening on Sunday! All-access passes are $25, and a ticket to the Slam Finals only is $10. Learn more over here: http://bostonpoetryslam.com/northbeast-regional-2023. The full schedule of events has just been posted! Don’t miss it!

Coming up this Wednesday, we have the wonderful Maya Williams. Maya Williams (ey/they/she) is a Black multiracial nonbinary suicide survivor who is currently the seventh poet laureate of Portland, Maine. Their debut collection Judas & Suicide will be released by Game Over Books in May 2023. Her second collection Refused a Second Date will be released by Harbor Editions in October 2023. They were one of three artists of color selected to represent Maine in The Kennedy Center’s Arts Across America series in 2020 and were listed as one of The Advocate’s Champions of Pride in 2022.

See you then,

– Amy ✈️

Our upcoming features
Our community survey
First timer? Looking for show info? Check out our Frequently Asked Questions

All shows take place at the Cantab Lounge, 738 Massachusetts Ave. in Cambridge, with one flight of stairs to access the basement room (click for directions and accessibility information). The show is $4 / 21+ (ID/Proof of Vaccination required) and doors for the show open at 7:15. The open mic begins at 8:00 PM and the feature begins at approximately 10:00 PM.

Cantab Recap For Wednesday, May 31th, 2023

Happy Cantab Wednesday once again! Last week was once again a spectacular, high-energy night, with the fullest of full open mic and the fullest of full hearts. The energy in the basement was already high after a fantastic workshop from the great Alex Kist that challenged the way we think about vocabulary. During our open mic, we had not one but two horse-related poems, where we learned (or relearned) from Eddy why a horse walked into a bar, and why the heck there was horse meat in Connor’s cake batter. 

After the open, we of course had our Last Chance Team Selection Slam! 10 poets competed for four spots to be on our Last Chance Team for the Northbeast Regional (happening in a couple of short weeks)! After a tense, terrific, two-round, total-points-wins-all slam, we had four slammers emerge victorious. They are:

  • Jarvis Subia
  • Sara H.
  • Nayeli 
  • Kaitie Dilán

Thank you to all the slammers for sharing your work, and thank you to our wonderful volunteer judges – it was beautiful and exciting as always.

This week would not be complete without some 🎤Shenanigans☘️ and who better to shenan than regular M. Zilla, who used their open mic time for a game of “Finish the Limerick” (a la “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me“). The “contestant” this week was Jimmy, who was told the majority of a Limerick by M. Zilla, and had to guess the ending word. I feel obligated to list the final endings as: Taylor Swift, Edible, and Vibrator.. Thanks for keeping us on our toes, M. Zilla!

This week’s ✏️ Line of the Wednesday ✏️ is from lovely regular and last week’s slam participant, Sam Bucci: “Women come from the rib of Adam, yet men spend their lives begging to get back into the womb”

Coming up, we have the incredible, influential, and impactful poet Hanif Abdurraqib! Hanif Abdurraqib is a writer from the east side of Columbus, Ohio. Get here early, it is sure to be a full house!

See you then,

– Amy ✈️

Our upcoming features
Our community survey
First timer? Looking for show info? Check out our Frequently Asked Questions

All shows take place at the Cantab Lounge, 738 Massachusetts Ave. in Cambridge, with one flight of stairs to access the basement room (click for directions and accessibility information). The show is $4 / 21+ (ID/Proof of Vaccination required) and doors for the show open at 7:15. The open mic begins at 8:00 PM and the feature begins at approximately 10:00 PM.

Cantab Recap For Wednesday, May 24th, 2023

Happy Cantab Wednesday! 

Last week contained more than the usual display of talent, as we also had a Spontaneous Speed Slam™️! On a rainy Wednesday evening, we had many-a-newcomer join us for the open mic, including first-timer Jack with a ~memorized~ piece, and new regular Amy See with some striking eco-poetry. The rest of the open had a somewhat-prevalent theme of death with some love poems mixed in here and there. It’s a Cantab tradition!

After the mic, we had our speed slam! 16 slammers came up to the mic with poems timed at 1 minute or less a per piece, which led to a couple of devastating time penalties. There were traveling pants, there were parasites, there was toast, and there was heartbreak, but in the end one poet came out victorious and won the coveted $50: our own beloved slam team member Aparna Paul, narrowly beating open mic regular TJ Jones. Congrats to Aparna and thank you to all the slammers!!!

Last week’s 👖Shenanigans🧥has got to be yet another Aparna-related occurrence. Her poem at the mic included what I am going to call a “Jumpsuit Jumpscare”, which featured an outrageous outfit change mid-poem.

The ✏️Line of the Wednesday✏️ is from regular Hallie Carton, with “I am not yet ready to taste a future uncertain of sour or sweetness”.

Join us this week for our regular open mic followed by … the last-chance slam! To slam, come prepared with 3 ORIGINAL poems, and each one must be less than 3 minutes in length. Use the poems and your performance skills to compete for a chance to be on the Last Chance Team at the 2023 Northbeast Regional! For more details on the regional and how to buy tickets, check out this handy linktree page! See you there!!

– Amy ✈️

Our upcoming features
Our community survey
First timer? Looking for show info? Check out our Frequently Asked Questions

All shows take place at the Cantab Lounge, 738 Massachusetts Ave. in Cambridge, with one flight of stairs to access the basement room (click for directions and accessibility information). The show is $4 / 21+ (ID/Proof of Vaccination required) and doors for the show open at 7:15. The open mic begins at 8:00 PM and the feature begins at approximately 10:00 PM.