Give a tour of your life to someone from the future, where your future guest thinks of the time period you live in as a Renaissance of some kind.
Cantab Feature for September 12, 2012: Ellie White
Ellie White has been trying to teach people how to hallucinate since 1986. She recently graduated from The Ohio State University with a BA in English, and is in the process of applying to MFA programs for 2013. Ellie has competed in the College Unions Poetry Slam Invitational, the Rustbelt Regional Poetry Slam, the Individual World Poetry Slam, and the Women of the World Poetry Slam. She self-published her first book of poems, Save Your Echoes, in October 2011. She has been writing and living in Columbus, Ohio since 2010. Ellie shares her tiny apartment with a punk-ass costume-wearing cat and a lazy leopard gecko.
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, September 5
It was a packed and respectful house last night for local poet, organizer, workshopper, and all-around good guy Michael F. Gill. A poet with a real ear for sound and texture, Michael presented some old favorites and some bright shiny new work, all of it pleasing to our audience’s ear. He also released a chapbook, The Unglued Field: interested parties might want to track him down to find a copy!
The slam was a doozy as returning students fought against summer veterans, all looking for a spot in the January Team Selection Slams (and, of course, the coveted $10 prize). Meaghan Ford and Ed Wilkinson defeated some formidable opponents to reach the finals, with Ed taking the win in the final round.
Next week: we’re back with Columbus poet Ellie White on her first tour! We’ll also have the sixth open poetry slam in our ever-popular 8×8 series.
Cantab Feature for Wednesday, September 5, 2012: Michael F. Gill
Michael F. Gill grew up in New York City but has lived and loved in Boston for the past thirteen years. He writes at the intersection of performance and experimentation, and the vivacity of his work owes a great debt to the New England poetry community. He has had work published or forthcoming in Amethyst Arsenic and Spoonful. He runs the Brighton Word Factory, a bi-weekly writing group in Boston, and helps co-host the Stone Soup poetry reading in Cambridge. More of his work can be found on the Boston 365/365 blog, and at his personal website, http://www.bbtp.net.
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, August 29
Welcome back to the Cantab, Boston students! It’s about that time of year again… When the returning students who know what’s up come and see us again for the first time, showing off all they’ve learned about home over the summer. Appropriately enough, our feature was Tatyana Brown, a Bay Area poet who lived with us for the summer months back in 2011! Tanya brought us a great selection of work about loves lost and strengths found, and, of course, she invited us to all come hang out at her own show in California. The slam was just one poet shy of filling up for late night, but that didn’t stop a number of experienced performers from throwing down… In fact, competing against their friends might have driven some of these folks to new heights! When the smoke cleared, it was Sophia Holtz at the top of the heap, with bartender Adam Stone just shy of the win.
Next week: we’re back on Wednesday with local writer and workshopper Michael F. Gill, and another open slam. And don’t forget: if you’re looking for another event to whet your poetry appetite during the week, you can some see the debut show of The Encyclopedia Show Somerville at the Davis Square Theatre on Monday, September 3! We’ll be doing an all-ages show that’s all about BEARS to kick off this new monthly series.
Cantab Feature for Wednesday, August 29, 2012: Tatyana Brown
Tatyana Brown is currently ranked fourth in the world of competitive performance poetry after participating in the 2011 Individual World Poetry Slam. She is also the founding Captain of The Lit Slam, a monthly live-audience curated literary journal, and a co-host of San Jose’s Oversocial Mofo Revue. She has toured both coasts as a poet, read poems to teenagers on the mountaintops of British Columbia, told tales to captivated Bay Area audiences and on NPR’s hot new true-life narrative storytelling show, Snap Judgment, and sold instant literature ranging from short fiction to wedding vows as a street vending freelance writer in New York City. She holds the distinct honor of winning the longest consecutive string of XXX Haiku Deathmatch Championships at Oakland’s own Tourettes Without Regrets.
Most recently, Tatyana has begun guest lecturing in university classrooms (including the University of Indiana Bloomington and Yale University) on the subject of poetry slam as a contemporary American literary tradition specifically, and the rich, vibrant, vital nature of American oral tradition more generally. She also teaches workshops on poetry (writing as well as performance), storytelling, and the use of shock-value comedy as a tool to interrupt and dismantle systemic oppression.
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.
Radio Recap for Monday, August 27
Let’s be honest: no one really subscribes to the philosophy that all good things must come to an end, do they? …Anyone who does surely wasn’t at Radio this past Monday, when Angel Nafis and Shira Erlichman gave our little Union Square show a fabulous send-off. From a dangerously inspirational workshop to a smart and all-new open mic to a remarkable confluence of double features in poetry and music, this past Monday’s show was everything we’d ever hoped New & Improved could be. Thanks so much to all our features and open mic poets who helped make this show great, as well as to Radio bar in Union, our favorite bartender/sound engineer/jack-of-all-trades Chachi, and erstwhile co-hosts Michael Monroe, Melissa Newman-Evans, and Jamei Bauer.
If you’re feeling sad, though, we’ve got just the tired old homily to cheer you up: from every ending comes a new beginning! That’s right, our weekly Monday open mic is transitioning to a monthly Monday variety show: The Encyclopedia Show Somerville! We’ve been planning this all summer, so we won’t let a little venue switcheroo get us down… Come join us at the Davis Square Theatre, 255 Elm St. in Somerville, on Monday, September 3 for our first installment of the Encyclopedia Show Somerville: BEARS!
Boston Poetry Slam Online