Try writing a persona poem from the perspective of someone who grew up under the shade tree.
Cantab Feature for Wednesday, June 24, 2015: NorthBEAST Regional 5×4
The National Poetry Slam is headed to Oakland, California, this August… But that doesn’t mean we can’t get our own Nationals action here on the east coast! Tonight, we’ll be featuring FIVE teams from the northeast in a massive poetry brawl using the Nationals semi-final format. That means five teams will go for four rounds, one of the riskiest, most whiplash-inducing formats in the book. If you’re wondering what slam looks like at its highest level, this is it, folks.
This first of two summertime 5x4s will pit the following Nationals-bound teams against one another:
- Urbana Poetry Slam from New York City
- The Providence Poetry Slam from Rhode Island
- Port Veritas from Portland, Maine
- The Lizard Lounge Poetry Jam from Cambridge
- Your home team, the 2015 Boston Poetry Slam team
This show will have a slightly shortened open mic and will sell out in exactly two hot seconds, people, so we advise arriving for door time at 7:15 if you want to get in to catch the show… Otherwise you’ll be waiting until July 15 to catch the other 5×4 we’ve booked this summer. Cover charge is $5 to help raise funds for our team to travel to Nationals in Oakland this August!
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.
Cantab Recap for Wednesday, June 17, 2015
Ahh, sticky summer in the sticky basement of the Cantab, folks. What more could a poet want? Actually, poets always want more: so it was a good thing we had the very excellent Emily Carroll in the house this week, laying down one perfectly crafted line at a time. This hard-working organizer and bar server showed off how the listening ear we’ve come to expect from her is also attached to a fantastic editor, thinker, and and lover of language… As if you needed more reasons to love whiskey and Moonlighting!
The night’s poetry slam was packed with first-name-only hopefuls before Emily even took the stage, including a phenomenal crop of rookies. In fact, two of them crushed everyone else in the show to make the head-to-head final round! Remember what we said about poets always wanting more: Brenda and Christian managed a photo finish in the third round, triggering a tie-breaker flashback to last week and bringing the audience two more poems! At the end of the night, Christian swept up the $10, but we are pretty sure Brenda will be back for… You know.
Next week: we know you’ll surely be back for the year’s first NorthBEAST Regional, featuring five teams from around the northeast. This week’s competition includes teams from Portland, Providence, Lizard Lounge, and New York City, all slamming off against the hometown heroes. Remember that it’s a $5 cover charge this week to help raise money to send our team to the National Poetry Slam in August!
Cantab Feature for Wednesday, June 17, 2015: Emily Carroll
Emily Carroll, Moonlighting co-curator and Cantab barstar.
Emily Carroll is a freelance writer, designer, teaching artist, and waitress, and bartender. She holds a BFA from Emerson College, where she was co-curator and SlamMaster of the Emerson Poetry Project. Now the co-curator of Moonlighting, the Boston Poetry Slam’s LGBTQ-celebratory series, Her work appears in Umbrella Factory and Guernica, on IndieFeed Performance Poetry, and frequently on the open mic at the Cantab. If you wanted her to serve you a tonic and gin, 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.
Cantab Feature for Wednesday, June 10, 2015: World Qualifier Finals
The Boston Poetry Slam will kick off our Summer of Slam a little bit early this year with the second and final night of the annual World Qualifier: the final four poems (of a six-poem series) to select the Boston Poetry Slam’s sole representative to the 2015 Individual World Poetry Slam! This year’s IWPS will take place in Washington, D.C. on October 8-10, and our World Qualifier slam winner will be entered into the event.
Our roster for the show is confirmed and complete! The following poets have qualified to slam in Finals, and the order of the first round will be as follows:
1. Sam Mercer
2. Mckendy Fils-Aimé
3. Zeke Russell
4. Nora Meiners
5. Meaghan Ford
6. Kylie Noelle
7. Sean Patrick Mulroy
8. Janae Johnson
Sacrificial poets: Ed Wilkinson and Zanne Langlois.
This winner-take-all competition features the top eight finishers from the May 13 World Qualifier Speed Slam. A four-round night, including one limit-breaking 4-minute round, will culminate in a head-to-head finals to determine who will represent the BPS in DC!
For more details, you can also check out the full rules and format for the World Qualifier Series.
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. An slightly shortened 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; proceeds will go toward funding the World Qualifier winner’s trip to IWPS in Phoenix, Arizona this October.
Cantab Recap for Wednesday, June 3, 2015
What an incredible week at the Boston Poetry Slam, folks! We kicked off Wednesday night with a stellar open mic, including a spotlight from the enchanting Tolonda Henderson of Washington, D.C. Our headliner was the much-anticipated Jeffrey McDaniel, of course, who gracefully met and exceeded all expectations, shaking up even the most cynical poets’ concepts of figurative language and personal narrative. You can grab his latest book online at the University of Pittsburgh Press: it’s called The Chapel of Inadvertent Joy.
The slam was a hot six-poet affair, winding down to a quietly determined JR Mahung and the no-holds-barred Hannah Brown! After a dynamic interplay of concept and idea between the two poets in the final round, JR came out $10 richer and with his first slam victory at the Cantab. Excellent!
Next week: skip your laundry and pack a few extra bucks for our special $5 cover charge… We’ll be holding the World Qualifier Final, an eight-poet extravaganza to select the Boston Poetry Slam’s rep to the 2015 Individual World Poetry Slam in Washington, D.C. this October. Come see Sam Mercer, Mckendy Fils-Aimé, Zeke Russell, Nora Meiners, Meaghan Ford, Kylie Noelle, Sean Patrick Mulroy, and Janae Johnson slam off in an extended four-round show. So many poems, yet only one poet can be the World Qualifier Champion!
Moonlighting: A Queer Open Mic and Reading Series Featuring Sophia Holtz and Josh Elbaum on June 4, 2015
This reading is part of our monthly LGBTQ series, Moonlighting. Click here for more information about this recurring show.
The featured reader for June 4, 2015 is a double feature with Sophia Holtz and Josh Elbaum. More about our features:
Sophia Holtz, Moonlighting co-feature.
Sophia Holtz is a writer, performer, and sometimes-illustrator. She has featured in bars, colleges, and the occasional basement throughout the United States, and is a member of the 2015 Boston Poetry Slam team. Her work has appeared in RHINO, decomP, H_NGM_N, and other journals. She received her B.A. from Hampshire College, and is a soon-to-be M.F.A. candidate at NYU. Find her at Sophia Holtz.
Josh Elbaum, Moonlighting co-feature.
Joshua was born in California and will return there someday to live in a eucalyptus tree. Josh’s poetry is a shameless ploy to make cooler friends. He falls in love too easy & won’t ever stop.
This show in our monthly Thursday LGBTQ series takes place at Fazenda Coffee Roasters, 3710 Washington St. in the Jamaica Plain area of Boston. An open mic begins at approximately 7:00 p.m. and the headliner follows the open mic. The show is all-ages and a $3 donation is requested.
Cantab Feature for Wednesday, June 3, 2015: Jeffrey McDaniel
Sarah Lawrence professor and classic slammer Jeffrey McDaniel.
Jeffrey McDaniel is the author of five books of poetry, most recently Chapel of Inadvertent Joy (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2013), and including The Endarkenment (Pittsburgh, 2008), The Splinter Factory (Manic D, 2002), The Forgiveness Parade (Manic D Press, 1998), and Alibi School (Manic D, 1995). A compilation of selected poems, Katastrophenkunde, was translated into German by Ron Winkler and published in 2006.
Jeffrey represented Washington, D.C. in the 1993, 1994 and 1995 National Poetry Slams, as well as Venice Beach in 1998. His poems have been published in many magazines and anthologies, including Best American Poetry in 1994 and 2010, Ploughshares, and American Poetry Review. In 2010, he was one of five judges for the National Book Award in poetry. A recipient of an National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, he teaches at Sarah Lawrence College and lives in the Hudson Valley.
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.
Tolonda Henderson performs at the Sparkle Queer Open Mic in D.C. Photo by Julia Keane for Writer’s Bloc.
Tonight’s show will also feature a spotlight by Tolonda Henderson! Tolonda lives in Virginia and was a finalist for the Beltway Poetry Slam’s 2013 National Poetry Slam Team. Her poem “Regrets” may be seen on Button Poetry. She regularly performs features in the Washington, D.C. area, and moonlights as an academic librarian by day.
Boston Poetry Slam Online