Encyclopedia Show: Somerville for Thursday, September 10, 2015 — S3V1: INSECTS

Encyclopedia Show: Somerville — INSECTS on September 10, 2015! Art by Melissa Newman-Evans.

Encyclopedia Show: Somerville — INSECTS on September 10, 2015! Art by Melissa Newman-Evans.

Thursday, September 10, 2015
The Davis Square Theatre
255 Elm St. in Somerville
7pm doors, 8pm-10pm show
all ages, $10/$7 sliding scale
click for Facebook event

The Boston Poetry Slam and Catherine Martin present the SEASON OPENER REBOOT in a slightly educational monthly series!

Our theme for this month’s show will be INSECTS! After a full year on break, we’ll kick off our third season with some creepy-crawly fun! (And there will be art about insects, too.)

The Encyclopedia Show Somerville is a franchise event, wherein invited artists from a variety of performance disciplines present all-new, original works on sub-topics of a single theme. A recurring cast of hosts and characters welcomes the artists with open arms and minds, while the resident Fact Checker is charged with maintaining the integrity of the Encyclopedic Truth of the show. Presenting all-original guest performances from local artists, plus work from our recurring cast members:

  • Rob Crean and Chloé Cunha provide clever banter and funny accents appropriate for CO-HOSTING
  • The Michael J. Epstein Memorial Library offers MUSICAL SUPPORT
  • Wes Hazard dispenses QUESTIONABLE EXPERTISE with panache and aplomb
  • and Intern Steve Subrizi is almost certainly scared of bees.

Live Fact Checking is reluctantly provided by Jack van Sly from the Institute of Human Knowledge and Hygiene. The personal assistant to Mr. van Sly is Jade Sylvan.

This show in our monthly Encylopedia Show: Somerville series takes place at the Davis Square Theatre, 255 Elm St. in Somerville. Doors and the theatre bar open for a pre-show welcome party at 7:00. The show begins promptly at 8:00 and finishes at 10:00, including a short intermission. This is an all ages show! Admission is $10, or $7 for students, teachers, or guests in Prohibition-era dress.

Cantab Recap for Wednesday, September 9, 2015

The illimitable Franny Choi, outgoing Providence Poetry SlamMaster and one of our favorite locals, was the most excellent headliner at the Cantab last night. If you are still hungry for more of her powerful imagery, you can of course order her book online— but you can also check out her blog for the new poem she premiered with us to kick off her feature. Timely, intense, correct: Franny Choi, everybody.

The night’s slam was full of great surprises from start to finish, with a threesome of wildly opinionated judges and just a few audience members with ideas about poetry, too. The final round was a nailbiter with Bull-City-transplant-to-Harvard Dasan Ahanu (welcome north, Dasan!) and mostly-New-England-local Zeke Russell. After an intense slam, Zeke chose to bring the funny for the final poem of the night and won the hearts of the judges and the room.

Next Boston Poetry Slam shows: we’re back in the Cantab next week with NYC powerhouse poet Venessa Marco! But surely you can’t be expected to wait six whole days for more poetry… So we are proud to remind you that the Encyclopedia Show Somerville returns to the Davis Square Theater this very Thursday evening for the season’s debut show, all about INSECTS. See you there!

Tips from the Bar: It’s Just How They Do It

Write about a conversation between statues.

Bonus MacKenzie family prompt: write about a color. Don’t pick blue.

Cantab Feature for Wednesday, September 9, 2015: Franny Choi

Providence poet Franny Choi. Photo by Alex Kime.

Providence poet Franny Choi. Photo by Alex Kime.

Franny Choi is the author of Floating, Brilliant, Gone (Write Bloody Publishing, 2014) and a recipient of the Poetry Foundation’s Frederick Bock Prize. Her work has been featured by the Huffington Post and appeared in journals including Poetry magazine, The Journal, PANK, and Redivider. She is a VONA Fellow, a Project VOICE teaching artist, and a member of the Dark Noise Collective. She lives in the biggest city in the smallest state.

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.

Moonlighting: A Queer Open Mic and Reading Series Featuring Jasmin Roberts on September 3, 2015

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

The featured reader for September 3, 2015 is Jasmin Roberts.

Jasmin Roberts, Pioneer Valley poet.

Jasmin Roberts, Pioneer Valley poet.

Jasmin Roberts hails from Brooklyn, NY, and has lived in the Pioneer Valley for the last 7 years. She is a graduate of Oberlin College, where she majored in Creative Writing and Psychology. She joined the local poetry scene in 2013, and competed in the 2015 National Poetry Slam as a member of the Northampton Poetry team. She not only prides herself on creating new poetry weekly, but also new words. Some of her favorites include “fuckability” and “homotastic.” In the span of three minutes, she will make you laugh your ass off and question your place in the world, and she’ll do it all sporting 4-inch heels.

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 Recap for Wednesday, September 2, 2015

Did you survive move-in day, BPS fans? If you’re reading this, let’s hope it means you escaped your new apartment filled with boxes for the relative safety of the Cantab Lounge last night. A homey crowd was there to greet Tom Daley and House You Cannot Reach; Tom gave a rousing set, impeccably performed and blissfully uninterrupted, at the first outing for his new book. Lovely! The slam was a four-poet affair, boiling down to a venom-laden showdown between Bobby Crawford and Simone Beaubien. Simone took the win and the $10, which means Bobby earned the right to keep reading as many poems as possible in the subsequent season’s slams until he wins one.

Next week: we return refreshed from Labor Day for the extremely excellent Franny Choi. But first: TONIGHT is the September installation of Moonlighting! You can catch Jasmin Roberts rocking the house over at Fazenda Coffee Roasters starting around 7:30; get yourself free of your apartment chores one more time and get some well-deserved coffee and poetry

Tips from the Bar: The Tom Daley Prompt

Aphorisms: write a list of new ones. Or pick one, take it apart, and put it back together.

Cantab Feature for Wednesday, September 2, 2015: Tom Daley

Local poet, workshop leader, and listener Tom Daley. Photo by Devin Altobello.

Local poet, workshop leader, and listener Tom Daley. Photo by Devin Altobello.

Tom Daley leads writing workshops in the Boston area and online for poets and writers working in creative prose. Recipient of the Dana Award in Poetry and the Charles and Fanny Fay Wood Prize from the Academy of American Poets, his poetry has appeared in Harvard Review, Massachusetts Review, 32 Poems, Fence, Denver Quarterly, Crazyhorse, Barrow Street, Prairie Schooner, Witness, Poetry Ireland Review, Del Sol Review, and elsewhere. He is the author of two plays, Every Broom and Bridget—Emily Dickinson and Her Irish Servants and In His Ecstasy—The Passion of Gerard Manley Hopkins, which he performs as one-man shows. FutureCycle Press published his first-full length collection of poetry, House You Cannot Reach—Poems in the Voice of My Mother and Other Poems, in the summer of 2015.

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 26, 2015

Sure, it might not seem like a sold-out show and an open mic that fills by 7:30 is a slow night at the Cantab, but it’s worth remembering: the wildly popular months of September and October are approaching quickly, so you might join the regulars in being thankful for a little late-August elbow room downstairs at the show. This past Wednesday, a short-form-heavy open mic rocked the stage in time for an intimate feature from Ann Arbor’s Scott Beal. Scott read and performed from his latest book, Wait ‘Til You Have Real Problems (Dzanc Books), drawing us into the woods and back, shaking up our natural sensibilities, and making forlorn but clever octopuses of us all.

The first slam of the new series was a six-man affair, culminating in a pitched battle between Ed Wilkinson’s maybe-weirdest-ever slammed poem and Marshall Gillson’s no-holds-barred off-stage performance of his final piece. Marshall took the win, qualifying this 2015 Boston Poetry Slam Team member for the 2016 team slams nice and early.

Next week: poems on poems on poems! On Wednesday, the Cantab will hear from regular Tom Daley, launching his new book, House You Cannot Reach, and the open poetry slam 8×8 will continue with the second slam in the series. Plus, we’ll celebrate September at Moonlighting on Thursday with Jasmin Roberts, Noho powerhouse poet. Yes!

Tips from the Bar: School Daze

Write a poem about a schoolteacher you hated. Analyze: were they right about you?