Cantab Recap For Wednesday, August 21st, 2024

Hey Cantab! Hope everyone had a wonderful week. I’m writing this recap from Ireland, making this the first official Recap from Overseas™️. Last Wednesday was a busier Wednesday than most, with a crowded open mic list and bar, making for a crowded basement! As several of our regulars were competing in the slam, it left a decent amount of room on the mic for newcomers, such as Will (first time ever reading!), Leilani (from New York, promoting her own open mic with a sensational poem about the infamous “would you rather be left in the woods with a man or a bear” question), and Larry (who killed it from the wait list!). Another highlight was Kai, performing the highly anticipated audience participation version of their NorthBeast poem, which resulted in a chorus of the pivotal line “WHAT DOES ‘APPOINTMENT’ MEAN?” We also had your usual moving and heartfelt performances from Otto, Kaitie, and Nick Roberts, whose poetry I am trying to channel during my vacation in Ireland. Lastly, we had David F’s poem about his experience with bidets – I guess since the point of a bidet is to cleanse, then I hope no one will mind if I call that poem exceptionally… holy.

There were some shenanigans during the smoking section, as Kimi introduced her work as “a happy poem,” and host Michael F. Gill later announced that he misheard it as “a hockey poem.” Then, two poets later, AK announced that their pre-planned piece was…a hockey poem! One of the funniest bits of poem manifestation we have seen this year🔮

Then, we had our CAMP SLAM, hosted by myself and Aparna. Two teams – team Junk Bunk and team Mother Bunkers – battled head-to-head over seven themed rounds, while Aparna and myself provided half-improvised and half-scripted commentary, making for some typical Cantab Chaos. Highlights from the slam include Cameron’s dial tone poem, having the audience harmonize a dial tone sound; Mary and Edie’s piece that was a cento of their indie poems, that functioned almost as a conversation between the two pieces; uniquely beautiful memory-focused poems from Briana, Logan, and Lila; Edie doing a very impressive “instant blackout” for the surprise round (where teams were given five minutes to do a blackout of a previously read poem), and a literal “talent show” from team Mother Bunkers at the finale, highlighting the strengths of each camper.

After each bunk traded wins round-by-round, Mother Bunkers claimed the victory, winning homemade friendship bracelets and $15 each!!! It was a wacky, wonderful slam. Thank you to all slammers, judges, and audience members!

THIS WEEK! Our feature is Live Mammone. Liv Mammone (she/her) is an editor and poet from Long Island. Her poetry has appeared with Button Poetry, The Poetry Foundation, The Medical Journal of Australia, and in many places. In 2017, she competed for Union Square Slam as the first disabled woman to be on a New York national poetry slam team. She was also a finalist in the Capturing Fire National Poetry Slam in 2017. A Brooklyn Poets Fellow and Zoeglossia fellow, she is currently an editor at Game Over Books. In 2022, hers was one of the top ten most read poems at Split This Rock’s poetry database, The Quarry. Her first collection is forthcoming in 2025. Follow her on Instagram @mammoneliv.

See you then!

– Amy ✈️

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Cantab Recap For Wednesday, August 14th, 2024

It was another fun and festive night at the Cantab this past week, with an open mic packed with all-stars readers. Highlights include complimentary “I-Moved-To-New-England-From-Texas” poems from Brynna and Mary, Lila’s lush pastoral poem read off-book, odes to Frank O’Hara & Rainer Maria Rilke by Finn Flood and Nick Roberts, and Edie’s raucous piece about starting your own cult!

There were also some shenanigans when newcomer James accidentally signed up for the smoking section instead of the open mic, and later became an honorary smoking section member for one night only! This led quite nicely into the haiku slam, which had strong work from David Sherman and Conor, as well as another haiku group piece that failed to get out of the first round! You’d think the competition was rigged when our feature (and past haiku champion) RJ Walker breezed through the first two rounds, but in the end, it was Lynnette who stole the win and the $17 at the last second.

Speaking of RJ Walker, what a treat of a feature he gave us this past week! This is the kind of hard-working off-kilter performance poetry our venue has always yearned to cultivate, and RJ moved gracefully and effortlessly through a series of elegies before bringing down the house with a (pretty disturbing) piece in the voice of the Kool-Aid Man, and then finishing with a series of poems about highly-specific Pokémon. Be sure to watch the replay on our Instagram if you get a chance!

Tonight, pack your duffel bags and sign your permission slips, because we will be having the slam of your end-of-summer dreams: The Campfire Slam! It’s not tacky, it’s camp. It’s not camp, it’s a redemption arc for every bad campfire s’more you’ve burned to bits. Watch as two four-person “bunks” compete in SEVEN camp-themed head-to-head rounds for the crown declaring the campy-est campers of all camp! You do NOT want to miss this silly, action-packed, surprise-filled night!

P.S. Our slam team will be competing at Slam Free or Die’s Grudge Match Slam this Thursday in Manchester, NH! Hope you can make it down!

– MFG 🚪

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Cantab Recap For Wednesday, August 7th, 2024

Hey Cantab!! We had a jam-packed Wednesday last week, in which we sold out twenty minutes before the show even started! Beforehand, we had a fabulous workshop by Alex Kist that made people think about home, creatively visualize their feelings, and turn it into a poem. During the mic, there were impassioned poems such as Ilse’s poem on Aerosmith cancelling their farewell tour and newcomer Shy absolutely blowing us all away, not just with their top-notch craft, but by informing us that there are no good guavas in Texas! Additionally, there was a more somber note to the night, with loss, nostalgia, family trauma, and illness all showing up in different ways in peoples’ poems. Goes to show how comfortable folks are expressing the range of what we all experience at points in our lives, and it made for a very well-rounded and reflective night.

The ✏️Line of the Wednesday✏️ is from Will, with “I’ve been my own savior too many times to believe Jesus ever was”

Our feature was Amelia Díaz-Ettinger, who walked—or should I say “flew”—us through her poems across several books, most of which pertaining to birds. It was a calm, thoughtful, and caring reading, with Amelia weaving in anecdotes throughout, whether they were about her own unique backstory, historical facts about the island of Culebra, or, of course, several facts about birds. The poems were insightful and clever, making for a peaceful end to very full night at the Cantab (both emotionally and physically).

Tonight, get ready for another feature from across the country: RJ Walker is a performance poet and voice actor from Salt Lake City, Utah. RJ Has performed at the national poetry slam numerous times, representing Salt Lake City, and Sugar House Utah. At the Individual World Poetry Slam he was a showcased poet on final stage and placed 6th overall at the 2017 Individual world poetry slam. RJ won the NPS Spirit of the Slam award for organizing the first Compliment Deathmatch event. The next year he placed 4th at the National Poetry Slam with the Salt City Unified team. He is a winner of the Button Poetry video contest. Locally, RJ is the host and operator of The Greenhouse Effect Open Mic, SLC’s longest running open mic style event. RJ is a TEDX SLC speaker and is the creative mind behind Lords of Misrule Theatre Company.

See you then!

– Amy ✈️

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Cantab Recap For Wednesday, July 31th, 2024

Hi Cantab! What a jam-packed Wednesday we had last week! On the mic, we had hilarity from Danny, who did an ode to a fart, and not to… gas him up, but it was incredible. Kaitie D performed a very moving piece about Gaza that involved multiple participants symbolically lying flat on stage one-by-one. Edie’s poem passionately responded to Kat Anderson’s recent poem about Furby, consequently making the room enamored with trying to figure out if Furby truly is… demon-spawn.

The ✏️Line of the Wednesday ✏️is from Kaitie D, with “If we can’t see the bodies along the horizon we can trick ourselves out of their existence”

Our feature was Youssef Mohamed, a beloved regular who is moving soon. This feature was not just an incredible display of art and skill, but a proud and bittersweet sendoff for a member of our community. Youssef performed pieces spanning the breadth and depth of his work, from sentimental pieces with carefully-placed imagery to revelations from anime. He ended his feature by finishing his final poem from offstage to convey a powerful message. Lastly, as Youssef has consistently judged multiple slams over the past few months, several members of the audience partook in a project where they raised whiteboards after each poem, triumphantly displaying high scores (several of which well over 10).

Tonight, we have Amelia Díaz Ettinger as our feature! In an earlier version of herself, Amelia Díaz Ettinger studied birds. Birds have been a constant in her life both professionally and personally. In her newest collection, These Hollowed Bones, she merges her love and knowledge of her feather neighbors with the issues that are always present in her mind: immigration, motherhood, racism, and home.

Before the show, we will have a workshop by Alex Kist at 6:30! The entry fee is $10-20 sliding scale. In this generative workshop, we’ll be looking at poems that work to capture a complicated subject: home. We will delve into this subject—questioning what qualifies home, how can the concept cause struggle and what redeems it.

Note: There is a 20-person cap on the workshop, and workshop attendees get first access to open mic sign-up sheet.

See you there!

– Amy ✈️

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Cantab Recap For Wednesday, July 24th, 2024

What a night!! Cantabbers, we experienced a lot of firsts this past week—from first time debuts to our first nonstop memorized 29-minute-long feature. On the mic we had a total of 7 first timers, from Kelly with a fantastic extended metaphor on gender, to Kelly’s friend Jay with a tribute…to Kelly! It was a wholesome moment felt by the entire room, and exemplified by host Myles who was quoted saying “I fuckin’ love friendship.” Also notable was a surprise group piece! Kai and Edie, members of pick-up team SLG, got to show off their incredible, gravity-defying, lion-taming group piece on the never-ending gender “circus,” a poem that they did not get a chance to perform at Northbeast. They knocked everyone’s socks off with their performance, complete with matching fits!

The ✏️Line of the Wednesday✏️ is from Kelly, with “There is nothing rotting inside of you / the bees have found their honey”

Then, Tongo Eisen-Martin gave us an unprecedented feature. After asking how long he had on the mic, being told “30-minutes,” and responding “groovy,” Tongo wend up to the mic with nothing but his voice and memory, and performed a nonstop, completely memorized, 29-minute-long piece. We learned after the fact that this is not only something he does fairly regularly, but the piece was a mash-up of a series of longer individual poems, which was evident in the universe-traversing effect it had on all of us. Tongo made us rethink what we knew about society, government, truth, and poetry itself, taking us on a seamless journey spanning metaphors and harsh realities.

Coming up this week, we have a farewell feature from beloved regular Youssef Mohamed. Youssef is a Muslim-American poet and lawyer. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Frontier Poetry, Hayden’s Ferry Review, New South Journal, Ambit Magazine, Nimrod Journal, and elsewhere. He was also selected as a finalist for the 2020 Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry. He has clerked on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, and when not writing poems or drowning in judicial opinions, he stress drinks caffeinated beverages and listens to Studio Ghibli soundtracks. Youssef is your favorite poet’s favorite anime-girl connoisseur.

See you then!

– Amy ✈️

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Cantab Recap For Wednesday, July 17th, 2024

Hello Cantab poets! We had a very chill “calm before the storm” show this past Wednesday, as many people in our community were preparing for the 2024 Northbeast Regional Poetry Slam and Festival. Everyone who wanted to read got to read, and we heard great stuff from first-time readers Portia and Sophie, as well as the return of long-time veterans Ed Wilkinson and ‘Nuff Said.

The ✏️Line of the Wednesday✏️ is from Michael M, with “There are days I don’t count as days because what I thought was dawn was dusk.”

We also had a silent auction running throughout the night, with some great prizes like Myles’ “Masculinity Parable Tour” leather jacket, staff books bundles, mystery chapbooks, the ability to commission a poem from staff members, and one-on-one coaching sessions with Zeke Russell. I hope the winners all enjoy what they won, and thank you for helping fund Northbeast!

Tonight, we have the long-awaited/postponed feature from Tongo Eisen-Martin, the poet laurate of San Francisco!

Tongo Eisen-Martin was born in San Francisco and earned his MA at Columbia University. He is the author of someone’s dead already (Bootstrap Press, 2015), nominated for a California Book Award; and Heaven Is All Goodbyes (City Lights, 2017), which received a 2018 American Book Award, a 2018 California Book Award, was named a 2018 National California Booksellers Association Poetry Book of the Year, and was shortlisted for the 2018 Griffin International Poetry Prize. Eisen-Martin is also an educator and organizer whose work centers on issues of mass incarceration, extrajudicial killings of Black people, and human rights. He has taught at detention centers around the country and at the Institute for Research in African-American Studies at Columbia University. He lives in San Francisco.

See you there!

– MFG 🚪

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Cantab Recap For Wednesday, July 10th, 2024

Amy: Happy Wednesday, Cantab! I hope you’re all having a lovely summer! Last week we had a particularly amazing night with more newcomers and friendly faces than we could count! One of those first-timers was Callie, with a great poem repeating the phrase “The trouble is.…” Other first timers Ami and Dio gave us beautiful poems as well, making for a very supportive night with several bonus rounds of applause.

Michael: We also had a showstopper of a poem from current slam team member Mary S, regarding whether or not you would have sex with your clone, and a surprising David Attenborough persona piece from Erika. The highlight of the smoking section was an epic “Corn Maze/Maize” themed group piece from our own Amy and Aparna, which involved many people in the audience holding up pictures of corn as they both walked throughout the entire room. Speaking of Aparna, her family was in the audience this past week! Both her and her father read poems based on the same prompt, to the delight of everyone watching.

Amy: The ✏️Line of the Wednesday✏️ is from Mahathi, with “You’re lucky all we want is equality”

After the open, we had our feature by Blue Nguyen. Blue gave us a more interactive feature, beginning with a grounding exercise, passing an orange around for people to smell, and ending with a communal “group poem” consisting of people in the audience shouting out words or phrases describing what queer love means to them. Outside of that, their clever phrasing and short, cutting lines made for a very profound feature that left you thoughtful and glued to your chair after each poem. Thank you Blue!

Michael: Tonight, we have a fundraiser and hype for the upcoming Northbeast Regional Poetry Slam and Festival, which is happening this weekend at The Foundry in Cambridge! Due to a COVID exposure, the Chicken slam (The BPS slam team vs Their Coaches) that was previously scheduled for tonight will not be happening, but there’ll still be plenty of poetry in our favorite dive bar basement! We’ll be having an extended open mic (with slots extended to 4 minutes for one night only,) some silent auctions for some hot-button items, and plenty of zines for purchase.

See you there! And also at Northbeast this weekend! Get your tickets now if you haven’t already!

– Amy ✈️ and MFG 🚪

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Cantab Recap For Wednesday, July 3rd, 2024

Hey Cantab!

Last week was proof you could always count on our wonderful community to bring the energy even in unexpected scenarios! Our mic was packed with talent this Wednesday: 1) Phoebe performed an extended metaphor (a REAL one, John Green, please take note) on standing at the edge of a subway platform 2) Cameron did a poem on Pagliacci the Clown, inspired by Myles’ Pagliacci poem a few months ago (who knows, this may start a Pagliacci trend!) 3) Otto Vock, one of the winners of the previous week’s Tag Team Slam, successfully caused the audience to shake in their collective boots while reminiscing on the time someone told them that “You only like poetry because it’s the only thing you’re good at.” Thank you Otto, and also oof.

The ✏️Line of the Wednesday✏️ this week is from Edie, with “I will only reopen my wounds to remove the rot”

Back to what I said about this being a very adaptable community, unfortunately Tongo, our feature for last week, had to reschedule for 7/24, so our staff whipped up a great idea for how to fill his slot. After our fabulous open mic we had an incredible three-tiered Haiku Slam! We had three categories: Traditional, Dirty, and Experimental. 14 haiku slammers signed up and battled it out head-to-head—the winners of each pairing determined by audience applause. We had some dirty…. list haiku from Chris, a roast of Myles’ outfit from Cameron, and some beautifully crafted traditional Haiku from newcomer Michael. In the end, Kai won the traditional round, Sam Bucci won the dirty round, and Youssef won the experimental round! Kai with their clever and witty haiku, Sam with her shocking and empowering haiku, and Youssef with his beautiful and mesmerizing haiku. When the three took the stage to declare the ultimate winner, Kai won by a hair! Congrats to all the slammers and thank you to our audience for all the cheers!

This week, our feature is Blue Nguyen! Blue Nguyen (they/he) (Instagram: @blue.ngu and on Twitter: @queerqhost) is a Vietnamese non-binary lesbian poet and community organizer based out of Boston, MA. They have been nominated for Best of the Net Anthology and Best New Poets Anthology. Their poetry can be found at The Mantle Poetry, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Protean Magazine, Prolit Magazine, DEAR Poetry Journal, Peach Mag, and more.

See you then!

– Amy ✈️

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Cantab Recap For Wednesday, June 26th, 2024

Hi Cantabbers, and wow! We had quite the night last week. The energy was absolutely electric from before our sold-out show even began, which became even more noticeable as thunderous cheers and applause were prevalent throughout the opening spiel alone. 

There were so many highlights, so bear with me. Kai and Logan reprised their group piece from NorthBeast last year, which was made extra special by both of their moms being present to hear it. Ruby did an empowering poem on anti-fatness. There was a poem that may have broken the record for number of dad jokes told in poem form within three minutes. First-timer Meredith debuted with a Sisyphus poem on the express lane. Maura did what I will describe as an instant blackout poem, where she read from a text while blacking out portions of it with a sharpie along the way, then reading the leftover lines as a blackout poem. So impressive!!

Also, remember how I mentioned we were sold out? A line to get into the show remained well past 9 pm, and one of the folks waiting to get in was so eager to see the show that he may have offered $200, cash-in-hand, to the bouncer. Officially, we do not condone bribery in any form. Unofficially, that was kind of rad. 

The ✏️Line of the Wednesday✏️ is from Keaton, with “I am worth the soreness in your mouth in the morning”

We then had our Tag Team Slam, consisting of duos who each did an individual poem, then coming together for a group piece in the final round. We heard heart-wrenching work from Will and Mary, poems ranging from childhood emotional trauma to absurdist ice cream sandwiches from Amy and Aparna, the deeper meanings of niche anime plotlines from Youssef and Sara, but in the end, Otto and Alex took the win! Like their group piece, we were celebrating their names for the rest of the night :) Congrats to Otto and Alex, thank you to all the slammers and judges, and to Michael F. Gill for coming up with the idea for the slam! THIS WEEK! We have the incredible poet laureate of San Francisco – Tongo Eisen-Martin! Edit: Due to unforeseen circumstances, we are saddened to announce we are postponing Tongo Eisen-Martin’s feature that was supposed to take place tonight. We will keep you posted on when this incredible feature will be rescheduled.

In the meantime, DO NOT FRET! We will be having a last-minute haiku-themed night! First, Jade Kleiner will be running a pre-show haiku workshop at 6:30 pm. Suggested donation $10. Workshoppers will also have first access to the open mic. Then, in the feature slot, Jade will be doing a spotlight haiku set, which will be followed by a series of mini haiku slams!

See you then!

– Amy ✈️

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Cantab Recap For Wednesday, June 19th, 2024

Hello Cantab! We had a unique night this past Wednesday (Juneteenth!), with a slightly shortened open mic to allow room for four spotlight features (and a merch table) from black poets in our community. Our first spotlights were from new regulars Left Eye (who brought down the house with a poem on colonialism) and Donovan Beck (who read a trio of poems that touched on language, black history, and ancestry,) while we later heard a set from mynameisblueskye, a singer-songwriter and aspirational “poet laureate of black autism” that surprised and impressed. Finishing off the spotlights was our own beloved staff member and host, Briana Crockett, who read powerful works from her new chapbook that sold out in minutes!

Our feature was Stephanie Burt, a well-renowned local poet, teacher, and literary critic with a large bibliography of books to her name. Yet this was no academic exercise, it was in actuality a sprawling, genre-spanning, often off-the-cuff feature that felt like it could sustain its momentum for hours. Banter bled into poems bled into audience poem topic requests that were later fulfilled. There was also some really insightful work on how the X-Men and mutants relate to the trans experience, and even a poem about our own Central Square to cap things off. Thank you Stephanie!

By the way, if you haven’t heard, tickets for the 2024 Northbeast Regional are now on sale at Eventbrite! This will be one of the biggest performance poetry weekends of the year, with 16 teams from New England and beyond competing!

This Wednesday, it’s our first-ever tag team slam! Teams of two will face off in a three-round format, where each team member will do an individual poem in the first two rounds, and then perform a group piece together in the final round. The highest cumulative team score wins! Be sure to not miss it!

– MFG 🚪

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