

Saturday July 20th
Opening Ceremonies – 11:30 AM, Multipurpose Room
Hear the low-down about the festival from NorthBeast Staff! Hosted by Myles Taylor.
Decompression room – 12 PM – 6 PM, The Point
The Foundry’s upstairs conference room will be available all throughout prelims for poets in need of some space from the poems. Art supplies and puzzles will be provided. The Foundry’s Community Hall also has plenty of nooks and crannies to hang out in during the slam!
PRELIM 1 – 12 PM, Multipurpose Room
Hosted by Amy Argentar. Competing:
Spoke Four, Rockland Poets (Not Birds), ProvSlam, Team Hidden Leaf
PRELIM 2 – 1:30 PM, STEAM Set Theater
Hosted by Zee Stewart. Competing:
Boston Poetry Slam, Rockland Poets (Birds), Dirty Gerund, Slam Free or Die
PRELIM 3 – 3 PM, Multipurpose Room
Hosted by Briana Crockett. Competing:
Mill City Speaks, Lizard Lounge Poetry Jam, Team SLG, Slam Euphoria
PRELIM 4 – 4:30 PM, STEAM Set Theater
Hosted by D Ruff. Competing:
Just Broth, Port Veritas, BuckSlam, Sin Nombre
HAIKUPIC – 7 PM, Multipurpose Room
It’s NUPIC, but haiku! Performer buy-in is $5.75. Poets compete with haiku bracket-style. Last poet standing wins all of the money! Hosted by Michael F Gill.
Sunday July 21st
Community Tables – 12 PM – 6 PM, Community Hall
Visit vendor or informational tables from:
- Game Over Books
- Brookline Booksmith
- DIY MFA
- SubDrift Boston
- Boston Liberation Center
- Somerville for Palestine
- BDS Boston
- Queer Harbor
- Boston Poetry Slam
And more TBD!
Workshop: Enjoying and Writing Newfangled Haiku – 12 PM, Room TBD
Led by Jade Kleiner of the DIY MFA. Learn how to more fully enjoy English-language haiku from free magazines such as The Mamba, the journal of the Africa Haiku Network. We will write together, and you will leave with a Google Doc stuffed with free, browser-readable PDF links full of English-language haiku guides and magazines, as well as history we won’t cover: translations including the Book of Odes, Du Fu, Li Bai, Saigyō, and the Man’yōshū waka anthology, all key writings for Bashō as he re-defined hokku.
Workshop: Her Walk is My Walk/ Too: Queer Life as Archive – 12 pm , Room TBD
In this generative writing workshop led by JR Mahung, we will watch a short film by Nwaobiala to explore queer embodiment and queer bodies (past, present, and future) as archives that tell us about queer persistence and possibility within and beyond the oppressive systems and structures we live within. We will then read “Fa’a Fafine poem Number 12” by Dan Taulapapa Mcmullin, the poem from which this workshop takes its name, as a jumping off point to write our own entries towards a personal archive.
Open Mic with the Boston Liberation Center – 1 PM, Multipurpose Room
The Boston Liberation Center is a socialist community center for and by the working class and oppressed peoples of Boston, located at 194 Blue Hill Ave in Roxbury. As an educational, organizing and cultural hub, the BLC brings people together to struggle around critical issues we face in our workplaces, schools and neighborhoods, and build unity across historic lines of division at home and abroad! The BLC hosts the monthly Liberation Open Mic (which is open to all ages!) on every second Friday of the month, and holds other events like community discussions, art builds for protests, block parties, movie screenings, organizer trainings, and youth centered programming. The BLC has open hours every week (Tue 4-8, Thu 4-8, Fri 1-6 and Sat 10-4) where anyone is welcome to come check out the community library, talk to a BLC organizer, or just hang out.
Workshop: Me, You, & The Zuihitsu: Creating Sentiment Through Experimental Collage – 1:30 PM, Room TBD
Led by Joshua Nguyen. In this generative workshop, participants will learn a brief history of the Zuihitsu form, analyze contemporary Zuihitsu poems, and create their own Zuihitsu through an interactive, gamified process. By the end of the workshop, participants will become more intentional in their choices of juxtaposition, pacing, & ordering in their own poems.
Queer Open Mic with [Working Title] – 3 PM, Multipurpose Room
[Working Title] is a Boston-based queer performance series. At rotating local venues, [WT] hosts sets of featured artists and writers, conversations between touring creatives, and open mics for emerging performers. [WT] aims to bring literary and artistic opportunities to queer and trans New Englanders through publishing, performance, and curated gatherings.
Workshop: Love Poems Without the Word Love – 3 PM, Room TBD
Led by Sammi Walker. In this workshop, participants will be challenging clichés in love poems!
Workshop: Writing Towards Liberation – 4:30 PM, Room TBD
Led by payal kumar. As we navigate the twin apocalypses of capitalism and imperialist violence, poetry presents us a world-building tool and means of charting another path towards new realities- from reformation to transformation. In this experimental and generative workshop, we will write, draw, and imagine together following the blueprints of anti-colonial poets to create collaborative multimedia maps into liberatory futures.
FINALS STAGE: 6 PM, STEAM Set Theater
The top five teams from prelims will compete for first place, opened by a showcase of our slam superlative winners. Hosted by Greg Smith.
Boston Poetry Slam Online