Cantab Feature for Wednesday, June 11, 2014: Maya Phillips

Emerson grad and 2011 Boston Poetry Slam Team member Maya Phillips.

Emerson grad and 2011 Boston Poetry Slam Team member Maya Phillips.

New York native Maya Phillips began slamming at the Emerson College Poetry Project in 2008 and found her way to the Cantab Lounge in the same year. A powerful performer with remarkable sense of persona and role, Maya has become an active and prominent reader in both the New York and Cambridge slam scenes, featuring throughout New York and the New England area. A former curator of the Emerson Poetry Project, Maya represented Emerson at CUPSI as a member of the college’s 2010 and 2011 slam teams. She competed for the Boston Poetry Slam at the National Poetry Slam in Cambridge and Boston as a member of the 2011 team.

Maya holds her BFA in Writing, Literature and Publishing with a concentration in poetry from Emerson College, where she completed a creative thesis in poetry and an academic thesis examining gender roles and the portrayal of women in Greek drama. She is a freelance writer/copy editor and also works at the Academy of American Poets. She lives in Brooklyn, NY.

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.

Moonlighting: A Queer Open Mic and Reading Series Featuring Charlie Bondhus on Thursday, June 5, 2014

Charlie Bondhus, feature at Moonlighting. Photo by Kevin Hinkle.

Charlie Bondhus, feature at Moonlighting. Photo by Kevin Hinkle.

This reading is part of our monthly LGBTQ series, Moonlighting. Click here for more information about this recurring show.

The featured reader for June 5 is Charlie Bondhus.

Charlie Bondhus’s second poetry book, All the Heat We Could Carry, won Main Street Rag’s Annual Poetry Book Award for 2013, and is currently a finalist for the Publishing Triangle’s Thom Gunn Award in Gay Poetry. Previously he published How the Boy Might See It (Pecan Grove Press, 2009), and two chapbooks, What We Have Learned to Love— which won Brickhouse Books’s 2008-2009 Stonewall Award— and Monsters and Victims (Gothic Press, 2010). His poetry appears or is set to appear in numerous periodicals, including Midwest Quarterly, The Hawai’i Review, CounterPunch, The Alabama Literary Review, and Cold Mountain Review, among others. He teaches at Raritan Valley Community College in New Jersey, and is the Poetry Editor at The Good Men Project.

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 Recap for Wednesday, June 4, 2014

Good stuff at the Cantab last night, folks: a late-spring packed house, a way-full open mic and slam, and a really solid feature by William Evans made for a pretty super night. Will took the stage a bit behind schedule and then apparently stopped time with a series of poems drawn straight from his contracted-but-not-yet-published manuscript forthcoming from Penmanship Books; his distinct voice and carefully crafted work led us down and back rows of Midwestern cornfields and generations of American history, ending with a sweet and very funny account of the poet’s own progeny. Excellent show!

Our slam was packed from the beginning of the night with some old favorites and some new-to-the-show competitors; also of note was our top-rank sacrificial poet, Omar Holmon, in town visiting from his home slam of Urbana in New York. Ethan Smith achieved the final round in his first Cantab slam despite bringing page to the stage every round; Ethan was eliminated at last, however, by Marshall Gillson, rising in intensity with new performances of the poems that earned him a spot on this year’s Providence slam team.

Marshall will be back with his team, as well as teams from louderARTS and Rhythmic Cypher, to take on the hometown heroes in a 4×4 slam a couple of weeks from now. Between now and then, however, you’ll get to enjoy a very rare feature from 2011 BPS team member and one-time Emerson captain Maya Phillips, visiting from NYC especially for us. See you there!

Tips from the Bar: The Tick Prompt

Write a poem where you serve justice– at room temperature.

Cantab Feature for Wednesday, June 4, 2014: William Evans

William Evans: poet, instructor, and performer from Columbus.

William Evans: poet, instructor, and performer from Columbus.

William Evans is a writer, instructor and performer from Columbus, Ohio. As the founder of the Writing Wrongs Poetry Slam, William has created the largest weekly poetry open mic currently operating in the city. William also founded the NuGrowth Youth Poetry Slam in Columbus in addition to hosting the first ever Columbus All District High School Poetry Slam in April 2009.

As an artist, William is one the most successful performance poets to come from Columbus and the state of Ohio as a whole. He made his second appearance on a slam finalist stage at the National Poetry Slam in 2011 as a member of the Writing Wrongs National team, in addition to his 11th place finish at the Individual World Poetry Slam in 2009. He has performed on seven Columbus National Teams while being an artist in residence for both the Columbus Wexner Center and Columbus City Schools.

William released his first full-length manuscript, In the Event You are Caught Behind Enemy Lines in August 2009 on Penmanship Books. Previous to that, he released a chapbook, Humble Shell Casings on JK Publishing, as well as two poetry CDs: Living in the Hour Glass (2006) and Measure (2007).

Currently, William Evans tours the country and facilitates writing workshops thru Projecting Murals, LLC, a non-profit organization that connects facilities such as schools, community centers and correctional facilities to artists from the community. He founded the company in April 2009.

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 Recap for Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Wow, we have got some talented slammers at the Cantab, folks. Did you hear? Eight poets competed last night for the honor of representing the Boston Poetry Slam at this year’s Individual World Poetry Slam, scheduled for October in Phoenix, Arizona. At the end, only one poet was left standing: congratulations to Sean Patrick Mulroy, longtime Cantab regular and first-timer as an IWPS rep for the venue!

Sean Patrick Muloy, the Boston Poetry Slam's 2014 World Qualifier winner and representative at the Individual World Poetry Slam. Photo by Marshall Goff.

Sean Patrick Muloy, the Boston Poetry Slam’s 2014 World Qualifier winner and representative at the Individual World Poetry Slam. Photo by Marshall Goff.

After a four-round slam, the final rankings among our hard-fighting finalists were as follows:
1. Sean Patrick Mulroy
2. Meaghan Ford
3. Zeke Russell
4. Mckendy Fils-Aimé
5. Allison Truj
6. Princess Chan
7. Bobby Crawford
8. Janae Johnson

As you can see, it was a wild slam from the very start of the show! Our first eight-poet round kicked off with two sacrifices from Marshall Gillson and Nora Meiners– Nora, in particular, proved herself a crowd favorite, earning a score from the second sacrifice spot that would have easily carried her into the second round of the slam. There were lots of highlights in a highly competitive first round, including Truj’s “Open Letter to the Guy I Hooked Up with Last Night” kicking in the door with a strong performance, followed by Zeke’s harrowing, now-classic poem about how “even the silence shuts up.” The first-round winner by a long shot, though, was Mckendy with his newest work for slam, “Whistling Vivaldi,” which earned what would be the highest score until the final round! The two heartbreaking eliminations, of course, were Janae Johnson and Bobby Crawford– that’s the top scorer for this year’s Boston Poetry Slam Team and last year’s BPS IWPS rep, respectively– who, in a notable but statistically uninteresting coincidence, both performed pieces on the subject of standardized tests.

Round two opened up with Sean Patrick Mulroy in the unenviable position of following himself; having fared well with a serious piece to close the first round, Sean went all-out funny to earn a score high enough to tie for third in this round. Mckendy, Zeke, and Meaghan also advanced with Meaghan in the top spot after offering a Public Service Announcement About Your Genitals, and all four poets were only 0.2 apart at the end of the round. Left behind were Princess Chan, whose quiet family poem did not hit as hard with the judges as her first-round choice, and Truj with a new piece on page.

Although the judges were not advised of any changes for round three, all the advancing poets knew they’d have a full four minutes to perform in this long-form round. Zeke was the only one to take advantage of the extended time limit with a newer four-part poem, while Mckendy stayed under two minutes with a classic hard-hitting favorite. However, it was the two poets sticking to their already-polished three-minute work who advanced: Sean with a tightly wound form poem and Meaghan with the first love poem of the night.

That meant the final round came down to 2014 BPS teammates Meaghan and Sean! Given how close their finish was back at the team finals, this looked like it would be shaping up to a photo finish. Meaghan had saved some solid ammo for this final round and poured out a performance of Match Heads good enough to tie her own score from the previous round (third-highest in the slam so far). In a bold move, Sean chose to counter adolescent darkness with… Ke$ha! The judges rewarded him with the stop score of the night, officially making him our eleventh representative for the annual Individual World Poetry Slam.

Congratulations to Sean, and thanks to Marshall Goff for coming to shoot a few photos for us last night! Looking forward to sharing them with you all soon…

In the meantime, we’ve got some killer poetry shows going on in the next six days. First, the Boston Poetry Slam will be making a visit to the Attleboro for our annual Arts Museum Slam this Friday, May 30! The Museum offers ca$h prizes for both youth and adult slam winners, and it just so happens that Sean will be co-featuring there with Moonlighting co-host Emily Carroll.

Moonlighting, as you’ll recall, happens on the first Thursday of each month in Jamaica Plain, which means the next one will be seven days from this writing on June 5: the feature will be Charlie Bondhus, thoughtful and award-winning poet.

Those north of the city of Boston will of course know that we’ll be back at the Cantab next Wednesday, as always. Our June 4 feature will be Columbus treasure William Evans, followed by an open poetry slam. Hope to see you there!

Tips from the Bar: The Lisa Slater Prompt

Based on Lisa’s instructional poem, “How to Have a Nervous Breakdown,” begin to write your own instructions… Adding a location or condition under which your breakdown occurs. The more specific, the better!

Cantab Feature for Wednesday, May 28: World Qualifier Finals

This last week of May marks 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 2014 Individual World Poetry Slam! This year’s IWPS will take place in Phoenix, Arizona on October 9-11, and our World Qualifier slam winner will be entered into the event.

This winner-take-all competition will feature the top eight finishers from the May 7 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 AZ!

Our roster for the show is confirmed and complete. The order of the first round will be as follows:
1. Allison Truj
2. Zeke Russell
3. Mckendy Fils-Aimé
4. Princess Chan
5. Bobby Crawford
6. Janae Johnson
7. Meaghan Ford
8. Sean Patrick Mulroy
Sacrifice poems will be presented by Nora Meiners and Marshall Gillson.

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, May 21

Last Wednesday, we had one of the most exciting rising slammers in the country scheduled to visit us for a full feature; we’d waited for months to see Tonya Ingram hit our stage just in time for the holiday weekend. Unfortunately, Tonya’s bus had a different idea about scheduling… What to do? Well, how about following a rockin’ open mic with our nightly open slam! Eight poets who had counted on having until 11 p.m. to prepare got thrown into the mix an hour early, and each rose to the occasion in their own way. The final round came down to rookie Austin Hendricks vs. our upcoming July 9 feature Nathan Comstock; Nathan brought a fun preview of our upcoming Star Wars vs. Star Trek slam (to be scheduled in the fall) and a few already-hits, but Austin’s new work’s momentum took the high score from the first spot, giving Austin her first Cantab slam win. Congrats to Austin, and also to our many first-time slam watchers who hung out to watch the early fun.

We’d barely dropped the $10 prize on our slam winner when Tonya Ingram did finally make it all the way down to our dank little cellar. A rapt crowd cozied up to the first three rows (okay, plus a handful at the bar) for an intimate late-night feature. Tonya treated us to a wonderful selection of tried and true slam work, short pieces from her book Growl & Snare, and some exciting unpublished poems straight from her notebook. Thanks so much to everyone who stayed; if you missed it, please consider visiting Tonya at Slam Free or Die next Thursday, May 29.

Next week: we’re back with the World Qualifier Finals! The top eight poets from the May 7 slam will slam off in four rounds (whoa!), including a long-form round, to see who will represent the venue at the Individual World Poetry Slam in Phoenix this October. That means you’ll see Sean Patrick Mulroy, Meaghan Ford, Janae Johnson, Bobby Crawford, Princess Chan, Mckendy Fils-Aimé, Zeke Russell, and Allison Truj in a fight to select one ultimate winner. This slam costs $5 because it’s just that awesome, and also because it’s not cheap to ship a poet to Phoenix. See you there!

Tips from the Bar: The 90s Are Back

Tell us about your third eye’s contact lens.