Cantab Recap for Wednesday, August 2, 2017

Thank you, thank you, thank you! Plus three more thank-yous, because there are five poets and one coach all full of gratitude for the Cantab audience right now; over the course of the last four months, our little three-or-five-dollar-show has raised the not-insignificant amount of money necessary to register our team for the National Poetry Slam, get to Denver on an airplane, sleep in actual beds prior to competition and YES!– we even made our stretch goal of raising enough to bring the team back home at the end of the week.

The 2017 Boston Poetry Slam Team is: Brandon Melendez, Zeke Russell, Mckendy Fils-Aimé, Neiel Israel, Myles Em Taylor. Photo by Marshall Goff.

The 2017 Boston Poetry Slam Team is: Brandon Melendez, Zeke Russell, Mckendy Fils-Aimé, Neiel Israel, Myles Em Taylor. Photo by Marshall Goff.

For those not able to travel to the slam itself to cheer the team on, we hope you agree with us that this past week’s feature was the next best thing. The awesome fivesome of Zeke Russell, Neiel Israel, Mckendy Fils-Aimé, Brandon Melendez, and Myles Em Taylor brought their signature high-volume, high-tenderness work to the stage, both individually and in duets, trios, and a gloriously anxious quintet. Thanks to everyone who purchased chapbooks, authorized bootlegs, and patches; anyone who wants a copy of THIS ROLE WE WILL WIN NO AWARDS FOR or one of Myles’ signature Cantab awning patches will find them for sale at the door.

The team will bout on Tuesday at 7pm MST and then Wednesday at 9pm MST (send your friends in Denver to the McNichols building and the Epernay Lounge, respectively!), then await results of Thursday’s bouts to see who makes the Friday semi-finals. You’ll need to get connected with us on Facebook to see the results, but you might luck out and catch live scoring from some of the venues at npsdenver.com/scores.

And, of course, while just six folks are out of the venue next week, the all-star badass hosts you know and love will be holding down the open mic and a Champion of Champions poetry slam with RebeccaLynn and eight qualified challengers! Come hoot and holler and get your judging on next Wednesday.

Tips from the Bar: What You Believe

In Phillip B. Williams’ important long poem, Witness, the poet’s grandfather is credited with the following line: you cannot love a god that you fear.

Do you believe that’s true or false? And how?

You can read Witness online in its entirety. Give yourself plenty of time, both to read and sit with it, and be advised that the content upon which the poem turns is violent.

Cantab Feature for Wednesday, August 2, 2017: The 2017 Boston Poetry Slam Team

The 2017 Boston Poetry Slam Team is: Brandon Melendez, Zeke Russell, Mckendy Fils-Aimé, Neiel Israel, Myles Em Taylor. Photo by Marshall Goff.

The 2017 Boston Poetry Slam Team is: Brandon Melendez, Zeke Russell, Mckendy Fils-Aimé, Neiel Israel, Myles Em Taylor. Photo by Marshall Goff.

This night will mark the Cantab’s last show before the 2017 National Poetry Slam, when we send off the 2017 Boston Poetry Slam team to compete for a week in Denver, Colorado! Brandon Melendez, Zeke Russell, Mckendy Fils-Aimé, Neiel Israel, and Myles Em Taylor will have an extended feature set to bring out their top hits, one-off group pieces, and tender farewells before taking a run at the mile-high championship. It’s five all-star poets in one show, so get your requests in well before you get in line at the door! The team will have plenty of product on hand to help fundraise for their trip to NPS.

To learn more about this year’s Boston Poetry Slam Team, click here. We’ll do our best to keep you updated here with the team’s upcoming bout schedule at the National Poetry Slam, and links to help you follow along: the bout draw will be announced in early July.

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 begins at approximately 10:00. The show is 18+ (ID required) and the cover charge is $5.

Cantab Feature for Wednesday, August 1, 2018: Eloisa Amezcua

Shelterbelt Poetry Prizewinner Eloisa Amezcua. Photo by Chris Cheney.

Shelterbelt Poetry Prizewinner Eloisa Amezcua. Photo by Chris Cheney.

Eloisa Amezcua is an Arizona native. Her debut collection, From the Inside Quietly, is the inaugural winner of the Shelterbelt Poetry Prize selected by Ada Limón. A MacDowell fellow, she is the author of three chapbooks and founder/editor-in-chief of The Shallow Ends: A Journal of Poetry. Her poems and translations are published or forthcoming in Poetry Magazine, Kenyon Review, Gulf Coast, and others.

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, July 26, 2017

Poets! Listeners! Rowdy (but not overly rowdy) bar patrons! Thanks to everyone for filling up and selling out our little basement this past Wednesday for the incomparable Tatiana M.R. Johnson. Tatiana rocked the house with her vulnerability, intimacy, and unshy humor, bringing work straight from her beautiful new book, for the love of black girls. Sure, she sold out of the books she brought to the Cantab, but we know she’s got more in her back pocket: catch the artist on the open mic at the House Slam, or pick up her book directly from Amazon, or look for her book release feature at Make Shift Boston on August 22.

Our slam that night started off gently and rose to a rollicking finish between home-team rep Myles Taylor and bartender and Slam Free or Die slammer John Pinkham. Home field advantage is one thing, but permission to go behind the bar must be another: John took the top honors, earning $10 and the last spot in the August 9 Champion of Champions Slam. (That’s gonna be a hot one, by the way: reigning champ RebeccaLynn will be back from a writing retreat with a bucketload of new poems to defend her title.)

Can’t get enough poetry? No worries, we got you covered: next Wednesday, in the lee of the Fightin’ Moon (TM Zeke Russell), we’ll have a grand extended feature to send off the 2017 Boston Poetry Slam team! Zeke, Neiel Israel, Mckendy Fils-Aimé, Brandon Melendez, and Myles Em Taylor will take the stage to show off their Nationals-bound work. Pack a little extra cash, please: it’s a $5 cover this week for the team’s final push to fundraise to get to NPS in Denver, and there’ll be big ol’ chapbooks for sale all night. See you there!

Tips from the Bar: That’s Not What I Was Looking For

Write a poem that incorporates:

1. The worst cover of a song you like.
2. Terrible advice from someone you love, and/or great advice from someone you don’t respect.

Cantab Feature for Wednesday, July 26, 2017: Tatiana M.R. Johnson

Artist, writer, and Pushcart nominee Tatiana M.R. Johnson. Photo by Tim Carey.

Artist, writer, and Pushcart nominee Tatiana M.R. Johnson. Photo by Tim Carey.

Tatiana M.R. Johnson is a black woman artist, writer and 2017 Pushcart Prize XLI nominee from Boston, whose writing explores identity, trauma, especially inherited trauma and what it means to heal. She feels especially good when someone tells her that they felt something by reading her work.

Tatiana’s chapbook “for the love of black girls” was freshly released in July 2017, and is now available directly from the poet, or on Amazon (follow this link). She has been published in Fog Machine, Hypertrophic Press, Maps for Teeth Magazine, Madcap Review and Broad! Magazine. Read more of her work on her website: tatianamrjohnson.squarespace.com.

But wait… That’s not all! We’ll also present a spotlight from an old-guard west coast touring poet. The spotlight takes place as part of the open mic, so plan to arrive by 8:30 if you don’t want to miss this special appearance.

Bay Area poet and musician Sevan Kelee ("Lucky 7") Boult. Photo by Chani Bockwinkle.

Bay Area poet and musician Sevan Kelee (“Lucky 7”) Boult. Photo by Chani Bockwinkle.

SevanKelee Boult (Lucky 7) is a well known Bay Area poet and performer, and a 2017 Queer Culture Center Emerging Artist. This UC Berkeley graduate has a minor in Theatre Arts and is continuously redefining her poetry and performance. Gracing such stages as The Palace of Fine Arts, Yerba Buena, De Young Museum, Brava Theater and The Marsh Theater(s) in San Francisco, she has also represented several Bay Area slam teams over the past fifteen years. In 2014, she became the only person in the Bay to win the honored title Grand Slam Champion of of different Bay Area Slam teams (SF, Berkeley, Oakland, and Palo Alto). SevanKelee’s poem “Cucumber” has been seen on HBO Real Sex since 2000, and her poem “Listening to Pain” appears in the spring 2017 issue of Foglifter Journal.

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, July 19, 2017

Oh, summer. A time for friends at the barbecue, late moonlit nights and, of course, reuniting with your long-lost bartender in a dirty Cambridge basement? You betcha: redheaded wildchild Melissa Newman-Evans came home last night, ready to tear down the walls with her characteristic volume and– is that uncharacteristic tenderness we detect? What has Denver done to our poet! For real, friends, if you’ve been missing The Hyphen in your life, she’s around for the weekend with no more shows, but a few more unique, Cantab-only chapbooks that she doesn’t need to pack back to the mountains: reach out through her website if you want one of your very own.

As you might have expected, after the close of the feature, the slam was topped by two strong-voiced non-dudes, as Nora Meiners and Anna Binkovitz faced off in the final round. Despite strong new work by Nora, Anna won the day, earning $10 towards another year’s lease in the Boston area. Thanks to our judges, staff, and stuffed-to-the-gills crowd who made for a great midsummer sold-out show.

Next week: did someone say Sold Out Show? Yup, and you’d best arrive early next Wednesday to see feature Tatiana M.R. Johnson, a House Slam favorite and a rare and glorious sighting on this side of the river. Tatiana hits the stage around 10pm with her new chapbook, “for the love of black girls,” but you just might want to get here early to catch an open mic spotlight from Bay Area mainstay and turn-of-the-millennium west-coast slam champ SevanKelee (a.k.a. “Lucky7”) Boult. Night owls can stick around for the eighth and final open poetry slam of the 8×8 series that will close the night. Come on out!

Cantab Feature for Wednesday, July 19, 2017: Melissa Newman-Evans

Melissa Newman-Evans: poet, bartender, graphic designer, force of nature. Photo by Meaghan Ford.

Melissa Newman-Evans: poet, bartender, graphic designer, force of nature. Photo by Meaghan Ford.

You probably recognize Melissa Newman-Evans from Button Poetry or being the other horrible redhead behind the bar a few years back, but she is also a Pushcart Prize nominated poet. She was a member of the 2012 and 2014 Boston Poetry Slam teams, and a National Poetry Slam Finalist with the 2015 Denver Mercury Poetry Slam team. Her work has been published in Bodega, Muzzle, Radius, and FRiGG, among others, and she holds the title of Prettiness Engineer at Drunk in a Midnight Choir. She likes her lipstick red.

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, July 13, 2017

Three down… Zero to go?! It’s hard to believe that our team 4×4 season has closed out so early this year, Cantabbers, but it’s so: with less than four weeks left to go until the National Poetry Slam, we’ve brought our last NorthBEAST team slam into the venue for the year. After a high-energy show hosted by Kieran Collier, lovingly bout managed by Nora Meiners, and objectively scored by Cassandra de Alba, the slam yielded the following results:

1. Boston Poetry Slam 106.7
2. Slam Free or Die 102.6
3. Lizard Lounge Poetry Jam 97.5
4. Mill City Slam 92.2

Thanks to all our teams for a fine showing, and to our hard-working and thoughtful judges, for making this 4×4 possible! Our slam team will appear next, shiny new chapbooks in hand, at the venue on August 2 for an hour-long send-off feature, but if you’re itching to watch them slam between now and then, you’re in luck: check the team schedule for their upcoming away gigs.

Next Wednesday: we’re back, obviously. But guess who else is back? Your favorite-or-second-favorite-red-headed bartender: Melissa Newman-Evans returns from Denver for a half-hour engagement, where this time you bring drinks to her. Oh, and there’s poetry, and it’s good. See you there!