Bartender Adam Stone may be on vacation, but he’s still working on prompts so you can work on poems:
Use a scientific fact that can be broadly explained in one sentences as the basis for a three minute folktale.
Cantab Feature for January 3, 2018: Angelica Maria
Angelica Maria, 2017 National Poetry Slam Finalist. Photo courtesy marlono.com.
Angelica Maria is a poet and designer from Los Angeles, California. She was a finalist at the 2017 National Poetry Slam in Denver, Colorado, with Boston’s House Slam team. Angelica currently has a chapbook, Dolorosa, available on pizza pi press, on the nuances of female identity and second generation latinx feelings. She will be reciting a Ted Talk on the topic of self-love for Tedx Vail in February of 2018. Catch her on Instagram (angelicamalamaria) or Twitter (@malamamamaria).
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, December 27, 2017
Happy Old Year, Cantabbers! How pleasing to have enjoyed our last Wednesday of 2017 with seven-year-irregular Emily Duggan on the stage. Emily brought her poetry, theater, and ghostly skills to the show, taking us on a grand journey through the personal and the historical, all wrapped up in a delightful bundle of banter. We hope to see Emily again, no matter how irregularly, when she returns from her MFA program in Chicago.
The slam was a feisty foursome of– dare we say it– late-season rookies to the Cantab, all bringing fresh work and game skilled enough to distress the onlookers already qualified for team slams. The final round came down to Vicky Munyoz vs. José, whose work had dialogued beautifully with one another from jump. Of course, there’s only one ten-dollar bill for the winner, so someone had to take the fall… Vicky was graceful in an overtime defeat, as was our latest winner in a first slam triumph: congratulations to José, the antepenultimate qualifier for the 2018 Team Selection Slams.
Next week: let’s ring in 2018 for real, folks! Our feature will be Angelica Maria, 2017 National Poetry Slam Finalist and bombdiggity local from across the river. If you are sharpening your slam fangs (hey now), keep in mind that the slam that night will be the last in the current 8×8 series.
Cantab Feature for Wednesday, December 27, 2017: Emily Duggan
The Boston Poetry Slam is pleased to present a reschedule of our promised feature for August 16, 2017.
Poet and Ghost Host (really) Emily Duggan. Photo by Jason Kasman.
Emily Duggan has studied writing, performance poetry, straight and applied theatre, and improv, sketch, and stand-up comedy at Brandeis University, Emerson College, GrubStreet, The Second City— Chicago, and more. In the past three years, she has worked as a/an: traveling-children’s-theatre intern, K-12 tutor, improvisational illustrator, escape-room facilitator, puppet-theatre administrator, historic educator, psychologist’s assistant, documentary-theatre actor, dramaturg, and ghost (seriously) (dead seriously) (sorry not sorry) (actually sorry). In the summer of 2016, she may have been the first woman to print Paul Revere’s [in]famous engraving of the Boston Massacre in over 200 years — and on the same device he’d’ve used. After all that excitement and too much more, Emily fled Boston in August 2017, and she is currently a candidate for an MFA in Writing at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
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, December 20, 2017
Happy solstice time, Cantabbers; we were so pleased to celebrate one of the longest nights of the year with one of the premier curators in New England, Northampton poet Catherine Weiss. This editor-in-chief and slam founder showed off her slam cred both on and off the page, bringing her beautifully illustrated work to the merch table as well. Catherine’s stellar feature also set up a great open poetry slam, featuring Manchester 2017 IWPS rep Sara Mae vs. Boston Poetry Slam 2008 NPS rep Harlym125 in the final round; in a battle for the generations, Sara Mae took the win and the big $10 home in time for some holidays.
Next Wednesday: our last show of the calendar year will feature a much-missed sometime-regular home from her MFA program in Chicago… Emily Duggan, MFA candidate, dramaturg, and storyteller-poet. The open slam that night will be one of the last remaining to qualify to try out for the 2018 Boston Poetry Slam Team. See you there!
Tips from the Bar: Best Served Cold in a Tiny Dish
Writing prompt from Adam Stone for December 20, 2017.
The petty revenge prompt: write a very specific non-violent revenge fantasy that you are unlikely to actually follow through on.
Cantab Feature for Wednesday, December 20, 2017: Catherine Weiss
Northampton Grand Slam Champ and Pulp Slam curator Catherine Weiss. Photo by Nikolas Letendre-Cahillane.
Catherine Weiss loves poems. And friendship. And crying. Sometimes she loves them all at once. Catherine is known for her mix of tenderness and humor, and definitely not for punching through walls like the Hulk when she doesn’t win a slam. Her poetry has been published in Freezeray Poetry, Voicemail Poems, Gravel Mag, Jersey Devil Press, Drunk in a Midnight Choir, and elsewhere. She was the 2017 Grand Slam Champion of Northampton Poetry and is the editor-in-chief of SlamChop. In August 2017, she founded the poetry show Pulp Slam in Easthampton, Mass. More about Catherine can be found at http://catherineweiss.com.
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, December 13, 2017
It just wouldn’t be right to call Austin Hendricks‘ feature at the Cantab this past Wednesday “spider-infested;” after all, we invited the spiders over, enjoyed their company greatly, and, ultimately, were saddened to see their part in the feature end… So let’s call Austin’s carefully crafted, gently personal set something more like “spider-bedazzled” or “spiderfull” and hope that, if you missed it, you can get just an inkling of how safe, seen, and utterly charmed a well-placed spider poem can make you feel.
After Austin’s set, a mean foursome slammed off for a surprisingly crisp ten dollar prize; returning slammer Max May took the long road (via one tough tie) to the last round, only to be eliminated by an iceberg-staunch Cassandra de Alba at the final bell. Cassandra joins our crew of qualified slammers for the 2018 slam team; only three more chances remain!
Our next show on Wednesday, December 20, will feature Catherine Weiss, founder of Easthampton’s Pulp Slam and a proud Slytherin. And, yes, we’ll close the night with one of the final 8×8 slams of the season.
Cantab Feature for Wednesday, December 13, 2017: Austin Hendricks
Austin Hendricks: scientist, poet, and Cantab regular.
Austin Hendricks is a Boston-based poet and amateur spider enthusiast. She wandered into the Cantab Lounge five years ago and can still be found haunting the bar. While an undergraduate at Northeastern University, she was president of the Creative Writing Society and organized a number of writing-related events, culminating in a poetry reading series in collaboration with the NU English Department. Her poetry has been published in Freeze Ray Magazine and can be found on the SlamFind YouTube channel. She is currently a co-writer and voice actor for the sci-fi comedy podcast Solutions to Problems.
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, December 6, 2017
What an exceptional open mic this week, folks: really thoughtful work, a great range of emotion and entertainment, and a deep thread of generosity of spirit running through the night… Oh, wait, was it RebeccaLynn’s feature night? Well, that all makes perfect sense. RebeccaLynn took the stage in a whirlwind of one-to-two-minute poems, leaving us breathless in between but resuscitating us with the best bar banter in the biz. And okay, maybe you missed your chance at the night’s zines or beautiful broadsides (designed by Allison Truj), but you can still order a chapbook, Bloom, directly from the artist, or, even better, contribute to her fundraiser to get to this month’s Winter Tangerine workshop in NYC.
The night’s slam, the fourth in the final 8×8 of the season, was a great example of how competition really heats up in the winter: after three hard-fought rounds, Kye took the top score over Sara Mae in the final round. Kye joins a heckuva lineup getting ready for the 2018 Team Selection Slams in January.
Next week: spider enthusiast and poet Austin Hendricks arrives for a full feature. May we gently suggest you bring your science poems to the mic for this beloved local?
Boston Poetry Slam Online