Tips from the Bar: Cover-Up

Write about an undercover job that is not meant to be undercover, i.e.: Undercover Accountant, Undercover Entomologist, etc.

Cantab Feature for Wednesday, July 29, 2015: Aziza Barnes

Breakbeat poet Aziza Barnes from Bedstuy.

Breakbeat poet Aziza Barnes from Bedstuy.

Aziza Barnes is blk & alive. Born in Los Angeles, she currently lives in Bedstuy, New York. You can find her work currently or forthcoming in PANK, pluck!, Muzzle, Callaloo, Union Station, Phantom Limb, The Rumpus and The Breakbeat Poets, among other journals and collections. Her first chapbook, me Aunt Jemima and the nailgun, was the first winner of the Exploding Pinecone Prize and is published and available for purchase from Button Poetry. She is a poetry and non-fiction editor at Kinfolks Quarterly, a Callaloo fellow, a graduate from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, and a current candidate for her MFA in Poetry at University of Mississippi. She is a member of The Dance Cartel and the divine fabrics collective.

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 22, 2015

Okay, so we can agree that poets don’t need tragic things to happen to create great work… But, in the case of Ariel Baker-Gibbs’ farewell feature last night, both the open mic and the feature herself rose to the occasion with sweetness, sadness, and the snark we’ve come to love and expect from Ariel’s presence. This very smart soon-to-be-no-longer-local only has two Wednesdays left in town, so if you missed picking up So Far, her chapbook, catch her before she flies west in early August, possibly to a venue that has working air conditioning.

After Ariel’s feature, eight slammers took the stage in the hopes of riding the bittersweetly humid wave to the ten-dollar prize… Josh Elbaum and Zeke Russell both started strong from opposite sides of the 8×8 bracket, but when the smoke cleared, Josh was left standing victorious! Josh is the sixth winner of eight who earns an invite to the Champion of Champions Slam, scheduled for August 19.

Next week: MOAR POEMS!!!1!!111!!! The excellent Aziza Barnes is scheduled to visit us from NYC, and we’ll have the seventh poetry open slam in the 8×8. Come early! Stay late! Bring a fan!

Writing Prompts Galore

Tips from the Bar

Tips from the Bar: a weekly prompt series by bartender Adam Stone.

Looking for more summer writing prompts? Don’t worry, Adam Stone has had you covered since about 2008, when he began providing a weekly writing prompt at the Wednesday Cantab show. We’ve archived his prompts back to about 2011 or so: Tips from the Bar Archive. Thanks, Adam!

Cantab Feature for Wednesday, July 22, 2015: Ariel Baker-Gibbs

Canadian Cantab poet Ariel Baker-Gibbs. Photo by Amy Wilson.

Canadian Cantab poet Ariel Baker-Gibbs. Photo by Amy Wilson.

Ariel Baker-Gibbs’s childhood was split between Toronto, ON, and Hornby Island, B.C., and she grew up competing for space with the largest collection of children’s books anyone has ever seen. She has been a resident of Somerville, Mass., for the past four years, reading grody French post-structuralist philosophy and all the technology and new media theory for the MIT Press. She is off to rejoin her beloved intertidal creatures on the West Coast and to start a PhD in English at UC Berkeley where she plans to read, write, and sign various kinds of words about the role of fantasy in popular culture. You can google her and find many strange things.

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 15, 2015

Sure, sure, it’s blisteringly hot, swelteringly humid, and super-obviously only just past the midway point of the calendar… Still, it seems constantly surprising that July even exists and is happening to us right here. This past Wednesday, five teams prepping for the National Poetry Slam in August (so! soon!) got down on our dirty basement floor in the hopes of tuning up properly for the big show. At the end of four remarkable rounds, the standings were as follows:

1. The House Slam: 112.6
2. Slam Free or Die: 107.8
3. Seven Hills: 104.1
4. Northampton: 102.7
5. Boston Poetry Slam: 100.4

Congratulations to the House Slam, taking a win in their first-ever season, and best of luck to all the traveling teams! Extra thanks go to Meaghan Ford and Josh Elbaum, our intrepid sacrifices, as well as the five judges selected by ultra-competent bout manager Tom Slavin: Fiona, Julie, Colleen, Joanne & John, and Daysha!

Did you miss it? Well, boy-o, are you in luck this week: Christopher Clauss not only slammed for SFoD in the third round, but he got pictures of just about everyone else in the show. Here are a few selects for you to enjoy while you wait for next Wednesday’s feature: that’ll be a bittersweet farewell to not-with-us-long-enough local Ariel Baker-Gibbs.

Tips from the Bar: As Long As We’re Being Hypothetical

What piece of technology would have saved your failed relationship? I.e: a teleporter, a calculator, a time machine, a crowbar…

Cantab Feature for Wednesday, July 15, 2015: NorthBEAST Regional 5×4

The National Poetry Slam heads to Oakland, California, this August, and we want our New England teams to be ready to rumble! That means we’re making our own NPS-preview action right here on the east coast! Tonight, we’ll be featuring FIVE teams from New England in a semi-final format: that means five teams will go for four rounds, one of the riskiest, most whiplash-inducing slams the competition has to offer. If you’re wondering what slam looks like at its highest level, strap in and hold onto your whiskey, because this is it.

This second of two summertime 5x4s will pit the following Nationals-bound teams against one another:

This show will have a slightly shortened open mic and will sell out in exactly two hot seconds, people, so we advise arriving for door time at 7:15 if you want to get in to catch the show. Cover charge is $5 to help raise funds for our team to travel to Nationals in Oakland this August!

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

Cantab Recap for Wednesday, July 8, 2015

Yes! Yes! Yes! Robert Lashley came to see us this past Wednesday, and he brought down the house at the Cantab on the very last stop on his marathon tour. Sure, his work is incredibly solid and surprising, and, sure, his banter and performance were off the charts– but we know that one of our favorite parts of his feature was also when he was kind enough to honor Jack McCarthy right on our home stage. Thanks, Robert. (Did you missed your chance to buy his sell-out book? You can still order it from Small Doggies Press right here.)

After the feature, of course, we slam. This particular Wednesday saw eight poets crowd into the slam, jostling for both elbow room and bragging rights. The final round came down to the matchup of mortal enemies Ed Wilkinson vs. Sophia Holtz: despite Sophia showing off some Nationals-ready work, Ed took the win and the ten bucks. Watch out, 2016!

Next Wednesday show: OMG IT’S NORTHBEAST EVERYBODY. Our second of two five-team NorthBEAST Regional hits the stage next week, with performances from Slam Free or Die, Seven Hills Poetry Slam, The House Slam, Northampton Poetry Slam, and, of course, your home team. Remember that it’s a $5 night this week to raise money to send our team to Nationals!

Tips from the Bar: Out of the Frying Pan

Talk about falling off of the wagon and onto the bandwagon.