Boston Poetry Slam - August Newsletter
Hello Poet!
Welcome back to another installment of the Boston Poetry Slam's monthly newsletter! We are coming off of a wonderful high of the NORTHBEAST REGIONAL Poetry Slam and Festival in July, where poets from SIXTEEN teams across New England and beyond competed in a series of slams, culminating in the crowning of this year’s winner🎖… CHARM CITY SLAM hailing from Baltimore, MD. Their sheer power and super-sharp group pieces were a tour-de-force in so many aspects of slam. Shoutout to all the teams, volunteers, attendees, workshop leaders, and the incredible NorthBeast staff for putting on an incredibly successful and community-oriented festival. Follow the Instagram @northbeast_regional for an ongoing recap of the festivities, and see below for some stunning photos from our finals ceremony (all courtesy of Ferns Francois @francoisveisuals)
Now Introducing: Community Nights!
Courtesy of our wonderful programming assistant Brynna Boyd, we have begun a monthly tradition here at the Cantab of COMMUNITY NIGHTS! These nights take place during the feature slot on approx. one Wednesday every month. They each have a different theme, however one thing they all have in common is the feature: YOU! That’s right, once a month we are offering the community a chance to take to the stage for some extended time on the mic to strut their stuff/bare their soul/perform the shit out of something/what have you in accordance to that night’s theme. For an example, our inaugural community night in July was “First Inspirations,” which you can read about in the monthly recap section below!
Our next community night is in a few short weeks (on 8/27) with the theme being “Multilingual Night!” If you would like to perform poems in a language other than English, now is your time to shine. To sign up, keep an eye out for the official link on Instagram, or email Brynna at brynna@bostonpoetryslam.com
Additionally, our September Community Night’s theme is “Zeke’s liner Notes: Nevermind’s 32nd Anniversary” on 9/24. The night will consist of poets using a song from Nirvana’s album Nevermind as a prompt. If you are interested in this super rad show, email Zeke at zekerussell@gmail.com
The Sealey Challenge:
For those who are unaware, August is a particularly special month for poets as the Sealey Challenge takes place throughout! The Sealey Challenge, created by Nicole Sealey, is simple (not necessarily easy!): Read a book a poems every day for the month of August. I’m not great at math, but that’s 31 books of poetry! I invite you all to participate. Additionally, we have prepared little checklist worksheets for you to fill out and to track your progress on the challenge, available every Wednesday at the Cantab! If you complete the entire worksheet, you will earn free entry for one night and a special prize!
Happy Reading :)
Monthly Recap:
We had an incredible month here at the Cantab, with a slam team finale/celebration, our first COMMUNITY NIGHT, tender and serendipitous open mics, and lots of newcomers.
Read on for the recaps of the last few Wednesdays, and a look ahead to the rest of the summer!
Open Mic Highlights
• Dedicated regular Cam S’s farewell love letter to the Cantab on the eve of his moving away from Boston. We’ll miss you Cam!
• Erica Garcia’s work poem “To The Person Who Steals The Magic Eraser” and the incredible inner monlogue turn that ended Ilse’s new piece about their mother
• A trio of DADS took the stage in a row on the open mic, including 2nd timer Greg M, who wrote a touching poem for their husband’s 40th anniversary, and the return of Aparna’s father Sanjay!
• Lauren’s “Random thoughts between 5:45 a.m. and 7 a.m.” that gained momentum and snappiness the closer it got to 7 a.m.
• The bitterness in Sue Savoy’s “I wish your name wasn’t on my tongue so often” turned into such beautiful poetry
• Ed’s breakup poem that ended with “love is the thing that knocks,” which promptly yours truly to knock on the microphone right before announcing the next poet
• The return of Briana Crockett to the mic after a bit of a hiatus, and Aparna’s “F word” poem that invoked their father (who was still in the room!)
Feature
The innovative and often-astounding Ilyus Evander was our feature this week, and they gave us a sneak condensed peek of their incredible poetry/theater show that will debuting this fall just outside Providence! We’ve been told not to spoil the surprises of the show beforehand, but the set did include a couple of Ilyus’ showstopping poems from recent tournaments (“Evidence of Absence vs Absence of Evidence,” performed to an empty stage) as well as a pre-taped narrator that transitioned the audience through each poem, and added some interactivity to the feature. Closing with a classic (“The three- headed hydra speaks”), Ilyus lefts us all aching to see the full production of the show! Make sure to check out their previous books, and we’ll post information on how to see the play as soon as we get it.
Open Mic Highlights
• The passing of Andrea Gibson led to an outpouring of support for this performance poetry legend, we had Andrea-inspired poems and tributes by Caroline Sims, Hunter, March Penn, and our hosts.
• Meredith’s “What do I do with all this spite” poem, featuring the line “Spite is wearing me as its skin”
• Oliver’s family-themed grocery store piece that may or may not involve a five-finger discount
• Allie Burke on fighting against their body and lapsed Christianity
• Isaiah with an excellent, extended (and very-Boston) metaphor about “Storrowing”
• Briana’s praise poem “Bless my tummy” and Zeke’s simultaneous ode to his mother and quilting
Feature
Our feature was the 2025 Boston Poetry Slam Team! Aside from the Team Selection Night, this annual tradition is always one of the punchiest and poignant nights of the year, as we get to hear all the polished individual and group pieces our team has been working on during one feature. You can re-watch the whole performance on our instagram page (and read the poems themselves in the team chapbook) but Amy, Myles, Jen, Kaitie, Aparna, and Ilse left everyone feeling inspired and proud of our scene. Group piece highlights include Jen and Amy’s stark piece on the power of gossip, Myles’ innovative “Intrusive Ghazel” with multiple repetitive voices going on in the background while the poem was being read, and a surprise Pandora’s Box/crossword-themed piece by Aparna and Kaitie. We will have copies of the team chapbook (while they last) at our show the next few weeks, so be sure to pick them up while you can!
Open Mic Highlights
Appropriate for our first community-themed night, this Wednesday was the most diverse open mics of the year, with wild swings in topic, mood, and genre!
• Greg M read John Donne and first-timer Vincent remixed/dismantled Percy Shelley’s “Ozymandias”
• Intricate and layered Golden Shovels from Kaitie D and Aparna that also expanded the form to include multiple quotes
• Outrageously queer and shamelessly horny poems by Alice Sparrow and Miche that torn the room into disbelief
• Naomi’s epic “Blue Clues”-themed / trans-coming-of-age piece
• Addy’s heart-wrenching and beautifully performed poem in Spanish (no translation needed to get the emotional effect)
• Otto’s surrealistic persona poem in the voice of Plastic, and the insatiable consumption humans have for it
• Skylar on how to be brave, and the experience of non-violent protest taken to the limit
• Sue Savoy covering Kevin Mahoney’s disturbing but funny “I-love-my-rat-roommates” poem that was performed on the Cantab stage decades ago.
Community Night!
For our first community night feature, we heard from open-mic regulars reading works by artists who first inspired them to write poetry. Host Brynna also provided a writing exercise encouraging us to pen a letter to local (or not local) poets, and then to actually send it to them. It was a warm, relaxed environment for a feature, as each reader was able to expand on why they chose the artist in question. Check out the list of covers below:
“Myself, First” by Ariana Brown
“Opportunity Wake Up” by Neil Hillborn
“Horse Boy,” by Bailey M, After Will Leonard
“Snakes in Your Arms” by Shira Erlichman
“Summer, Highland Falls” by Billy Joel
“Comfort Woman’s Gold” by Scott Woods
“Wet Paint” by Carlos Williams
“Photograph” by Andrea Gibson
Open Mic Highlights
• Somaia’s didactic poem on how to do fire eating at the Dyke March
• We got a farewell poem from open-mic regular and haiku finalist Siraj Ali, soon-to-be leaving us for Michigan. Siraj’s wry humor and quietly affecting miniature poems will be missed!
• Kaitie D’s time-traveling piece that warped around from a 2018 uber ride to a frozen-in-time version of Trivial Pursuit from 1981
• Lauren’s “A Summer’s Worth of Therapy in under 3 minutes” and Jacqui’s poem that “asked wrinkles if they want to stay”
• The manifesto of the newly named Roxy Martinez-Dobbs (fka as Eddy), returning to the mic after an entrepreneurial absence
• A surprise return and hosting turn by former staff member Kat Anderson, who drove in from NY just to see our feature
• After the open mic, we had our haiku slam! There was some fun messing with the form tonight, with TJ Jones really extending his intro with a long-crashing wave of silence, and Shawn seeing how long he could draw out the title of his haiku before getting shooed off stage (we let him go on for like 30 seconds, maybe we’ll get the full version some other time!) In the final round, two-time defending haiku champion Aparna Paul and Skylar Pape had an equal amount of applause after two votes, with Skylar deferring the win to Aparna in the end.
Feature
Staff member and long-time open mic and slam favorite Briana Crockett was our feature tonight, celebrating the release of their new book, A Body of Want: A Galaxy of Other Trinkets, out on Game Over Books. It was a captivating performance, be sure to watch it again on our instagram feed if you weren’t there! Opening up with asking the entire audience to stand up, stretch, and hug themselves, Briana then settled into a set of well-crafted extended poems that touched on autonomy, the body, remediation, how “the revolution belongs to the soft touch of your sister”, and stories of growing up in Boston’s schools and churches. The most beautiful moment came during a poem dedicated to her high school bully Nicholas, who later became a victim of gun violence. Briana’s compassionate and empathic urge to “write him a different destiny” had a good deal of the audience moved to tears. Thank you, Briana, for sharing your work and being a part of this community!
Coming up at the Cantab:
8/13 - Tag Team Slam (email Myles myles@bostonpoetryslam.com if interested)
8/20 - Jess Yuan
8/27 - COMMUNITY NIGHT: Multilingual Night (email Brynna brynna@bostonpoetryslam.com if interested)
9/3 - Daniel Garwood
REMINDER: SLAM ADAMS CHAMPION OF CHAMPIONS!
The time has come! All winners from the last 8 months of Slam Adams will face off against reigning champion of champions Zeke Russell in a crazy slam at the Sam Adams Brewery in JP. Come one, come all, to find out if we will crown a new champion, or if Zeke will successfully defend his title. This is the biggest Slam Adams of the year - distract yourself from the chaos of Boston Move-In Day and grab a spot to watch (judges get in free!)
The CHAMPION OF CHAMPIONS Slam Adams is taking place MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 1ST! We hope to see you then.
General info about Slam Adams:
Looking for another poetry show? Looking to try out slamming in a low-stakes, highly-supportive environment? Do you like beer of the alcoholic or non-alcoholic varieties? Is "every Wednesday" simply not enough for you? Behold! Boston Poetry Slam has a monthly slam series at the Sam Adams Brewery in Jamaica Plain, appropriately named "Slam Adams."
Slam Adams is every first Monday of the month, from 6-8pm. It is slam-only, meaning no open mic. Cover is $4, but if you volunteer to judge you may get in free! Sign ups for the slam take place IN ADVANCE - if you would like to sign up, email myles@bostonpoetryslam.com.
About Boston Poetry Slam:
The core Boston Poetry Slam show runs at the Cantab Lounge in Cambridge, Mass. every Wednesday night, giving poets a chance to share their work in the open mic or slam and featuring a headlining poet or theme slam. Doors @7:15, show starts at 8pm. 21+. $4 cover (cash preferred, Venmo available). Follow our Instagram (below) for the most up-to-date info. The show and its community are curated entirely by unpaid volunteers.
The show and its community are curated entirely by unpaid volunteers. Boston Poetry Slam Inc is a registered 501c3 non-profit organization in the United States. Donations (https://bostonpoetryslam.com/donate) are tax deductible to the full extent provided by the law.
Website: https://bostonpoetryslam.com/
Instagram: @bostonpoetryslam
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bostonpoetryslam
Our official zine, The Cantabernacle, is available online and at our Wednesday night shows! Submissions are also now open for the next issue, so please send us your work at michael@bostonpoetryslam.com
Questions? Comments? Concerns? Fill out our anonymous feedback form and/or contact questions@bostonpoetryslam.com
Newsletter Credits: Written by Amy Argentar, edited by Michael F. Gill