Cantab Feature for Wednesday, November 11, 2015: Joshua Bennett

Yonkers poet and Callaloo fellow Joshua Bennett.

Yonkers poet and Callaloo fellow Joshua Bennett.

Joshua Bennett hails from Yonkers, NY. He is a doctoral candidate in the English Department at Princeton University, and has received fellowships from the Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop, the School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences at MIT, the Josephine de Karman Fellowship Trust, and the Ford Foundation. Winner of the 2015 National Poetry Series, his poems have been published or are forthcoming in Beloit Poetry Journal, Callaloo, the Kenyon Review, New England Review, Women & Performance: a journal of feminist theory and elsewhere.

Joshua has recited his original work at venues such as The Sundance Film Festival, The NAACP Image Awards, and President Obama’s Evening of Poetry and Music at The White House. Penguin Books will publish his first collection of poems, The Sobbing School, in 2016. He is also the founding editor of Kinfolks: a journal of black expression.

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, November 4, 2015

Happy November, Cantabbers! It might feel like spring, but it’s election season… Which means we have some of our favorite thinkers and educators taking the stage as winter draws nigh. This past Wednesday, DC slam champ, NOLA poet, and Harvard doctoral candidate Clint Smith graced our stage, giving us plenty of food for thought with the dynamism we only wish our schoolteachers had all had. Clint’s still new to town, so don’t forget that he’s available for bookings and to invite to your readings: get at him at his personal website.

Our slam, one of the last eight remaining before team qualifiers, showed off a lot of poets getting serious about competition! Chief among these were finalists Chloé Cunha and Neiel Israel. Despite Chloé possibly having slammed more poems on the Cantab stage than anyone else this year, National Poetry Slam veteran Neiel took her first ever Cantab win. What a night!

Next week: we’re back with another brilliant thinker in residence in Cambridge… It’s Joshua Bennett, UPenn slam sensation and Kinfolks founding editor. Plus, we’ll finish the night with the third slam in the current 8×8 series. See you there!

Writing Prompt: Dragons Don’t Live There

Adam Stone still hates the moon. Try this: “a way to cure the moon’s morning breath.”

Bonus MacKenzie family prompt: make use of the idea of “murderous intent.”

Moonlighting: A Queer Open Mic and Reading Series featuring Claudia Wilson on November 5, 2015

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

The featured reader for November 5, 2015 is Claudia Wilson.

Claudia Wilson, Ohio transplant and recent grad.

Claudia Wilson, Ohio transplant and recent grad.

Claudia Wilson loves poetry and is from Cleveland/Columbus, Ohio. They recently graduated from Boston College where they studied Social Work. Claudia loves building community, listening to music, and watching Buffy The Vampire Slayer.

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 Feature for Wednesday, November 4, 2015: Clint Smith

Harvard-via-DC poet Clint Ward Smith.

Harvard-via-DC poet Clint Ward Smith.

Clint Smith is a 2014 National Poetry Slam champion, an Individual World Poetry Slam Finalist, a Callaloo Fellow, and has served as a cultural ambassador for the U.S. Department of State. His poetry has been published or is forthcoming in Kinfolks, American Literary Review, Still: The Journal, Winter Tangerine Review, Lime Hawk, Harvard Educational Review and elsewhere. He is a recipient of the National Science Foundation’s Graduate Research Fellowship with research interests that include critical pedagogy, mass incarceration, race, and inequality. He has been profiled in The Washington Post, Vox, The Huffington Post, The Root, NBC News and the book, “American Teacher: Heroes in the Classroom” (Welcome Books, 2013). His TED Talk, The Danger of Silence, has been viewed more the 2 million times and was named one of the top 20 TED Talks of 2014. His new TED Talk, How to Raise a Black Son in America, was released in April 2015.

Currently, he is a doctoral candidate in Education at Harvard University with a concentration in Culture, Institutions, and Society (CIS). He earned a BA in English from Davidson College and is an alumnus of the New Orleans Public School System. Clint enjoys wool socks, burritos, and 3v3 pickup soccer– not necessarily all at the same time. You can visit his website or follow him on Twitter.

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, October 28, 2015

Last night was a cozy, sweet evening at the Cantab– a nice switch-up from our usual packed-to-the-gills house, where nearly everyone had a seat and fans of the feature trickled in slowly with the rain. The centerpiece of the night was the excellently smart Melissa Lozada-Oliva, a genuine performer and thinker who hasn’t let the title of National Poetry Slam Champion stop her from bringing her constantly evolving voice to light in her new poems.

By the time we got to slamtime, the house was full and so was the first slam in the 8×8 series! Eight poets faced off for a chance to qualify for the 2016 Boston Poetry Slam team (and maybe to take on new champ Mckendy Fils-Aimé in December). The final round came down to a ramping-up Chloé Cunha and an absolutely ruthless Nora Meiners: the audience knows they lucked out getting to hear three poems from each of these powerhouses, but an extra round of applause went to Nora for capturing the win and the ten-dollar prize.

Next week: our feature will be another National Poetry Slam Champion, DC slam sensation and Harvard doctoral candidate Clint Smith! There’ll also be another open slam in this final series of the year, so get prepped this week in time to jump in.

BUT WAIT, THE RECAP’S NOT OVER: you might have seen that we had an official photographer in the house last night to catch a visual recap of the show. Check out some stills of the show’s performances:

Thanks to BPS official photographer Rich Beaubien for these lovely photos! (Readers, please be friendly and don’t forget to apply proper credit when sharing.)

Tips from the Bar: Daylight Savings Prompt

Write a poem considering something (other than linear time, say) that it makes no sense to change twice a year.

Cantab Feature for Wednesday, October 28, 2015: Melissa Lozada-Oliva

2015 NPS Champion Melissa Lozada-Oliva.

2015 NPS Champion Melissa Lozada-Oliva.

Melissa Lozada-Oliva is a spoken word poet and bookstore babe living in Boston. A gap-toothed bruja, Melissa believes in awkward silences, being loud, and saying no. Her poetry tries to capture the feeling her parents get when they meet someone from their home country and the feeling she gets when she’s late to a party. She is a National Poetry Slam Champion (2015) and a Brenda Moosey Video Slam Winner (2015). She has previously been published in Electric Cereal, Jaded Ibis Press, Microchondria and The Guardian.

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, October 21, 2015

On pretty much any Wednesday night at the Boston Poetry Slam, you could tell yourself you were looking forward to a diverse, solid, and highly original open mic, a standout feature, or a baller all-star poetry slam. When the stars align, though (not that you’d know from our lightless basement, but let’s metaphor for a change), you can get all three parts of the show to dovetail flawlessly. What a great night at the Boston Poetry Slam!

After a really excellent open mic, showing off some real-talk dialogue among regulars and offering some standout new readers (not to mention a couple of debut hosts), Tim Toaster Henderson took the stage. And by “took the stage,” we really mean “rolled the stage up into a six-dimensional cigar and took us on a magic Linklater carpet ride into intersectionality, bigot recognition, and cicada heaven.” Did you miss it? Would you love to see more? He’ll be at Slam Free or Die in Manchester tonight and the House Slam in Boston on Friday.

The slam was, as advertised, packed with all-star winners from the past eight weeks, all looking to try on the crown of the venue’s coveted Champion of Champions title! Last season’s champion, Mckendy Fils-Aimé, stood by in the wings, waiting for this season’s finale to mint an opponent for him: the champs 8×8 slam came down to Jess Riz and Emily O’Neill, both bringing illuminating, remarkable work straight from the page. After gaining some momentum in an early-night tiebreaker round, Emily took the big win for the season title! She elected to move on and challenge Mckendy for the venue champion title in the highly anticipated all-new-poem finale round. Both poets showcased their own voices beautifully, but an off-page debut poem by Mckendy took the win in a 3-2 split from the judges. Congratulations to everyone! Long live Mckendy Fils-Aimé, who’ll be defending his new title on December 30!

Next week (that’s right, the hits keep on coming): we’ll feature a National Poetry Slam Champion, Melissa Lozada-Oliva of the 2015 House Slam Team. Our open poetry slams will also begin again: eight weekly chances remain to qualify for the 2016 Boston Poetry Slam team.

Tips from the Bar: I Was Going to Park There

Produce a poetic rebuke for someone who stole your chair at a bar or a show.

Bonus points: try this in form (other than free verse).