Boston Poetry Slam Newsletter
Hello Poet!
Happy Fall!🍂
What an incredible, incredible start to a new season. After all the fun, celebrations, and triumph of NorthBeast in the Summer, we kicked off Autumn by welcoming in new regulars, audience members, and prospective 2027 slam team members into the Cantab Lounge.
Keep on reading to learn about some amazing shows coming up, get a glimpse into how to qualify for the 2027 slam season, and for opportunities to get more involved with Boston Poetry Slam by volunteering!
Volunteer with Boston Poetry Slam!🎤
Whether you’ve been coming to the show for decades or just days, there’s a way to get involved with Boston Poetry Slam. We know we have many very talented community members, and we’d love your help with marketing, outreach, nonprofit management, you NAME IT! If you want to volunteer with us, tell us what you can do and we will try to make a role that fits your capacity and skillset.
FILL OUT THE VOLUNTEER INTEREST FORM HERE!
Tonight’s Show: A Celebration and Book Release🎮
Tonight (11/4) is a very special Wednesday. Why? Our very own Kai Wallin, social media manager and Cantab regular for 8 years and counting, will be doing a featured set of poems. It is also their BOOK RELEASE SHOW, as their debut collection, Why Not Take a Break? is out TODAY with Game Over Books! You can buy their book here!
It’s also…their birthday! It’ll be a night of celebration, love, gamer vibes, and some amazing amazing poems.
If you enter the Cantab Lounge tonight, you are guaranteed to leave with at least one friend gained, and that friend is Kai :)
Event Spotlight: Halloween Slam! 🎃🐀
In yet another successful collaboration with the Rat City Arts Festival, we hosted a slam in Allston on 10/26. It was a themed Halloween Slam, so poets piled into O’Brien’s pub to show off their costumes, overall spookiness, and of course, POEMS. There were four teams - Ghosts👻, Vampires🧛, Werewolves🐺, and Pumpkins🎃. Poets, haunted as they may be, took to the stage and represented their teams with pride.
Here are some highlights:
The Pumpkin team rolled up with matching sunglasses, goodie bags, and plenty of pumpkin pie metaphors🥧
Team Ghost used poetry to communicate with queer ancestors over the phone☎️
Jennifer (Team Vampire) brought a famed vampiric figure, Elizabeth Báthory (also known as “the Blood Countess”) back to life in her poem🧛♀️
Zeke (Team Pumpkin) emotionally squashed everyone with a poem about forgiveness and family👨👩👧👦
Team Werewolf took the mini-trend of poets doing “I have two wolves inside me” poems and absolutely ran with it🐺🐺
Kelsey Chaplain (Team Vampire) returned to a BPS mic after years away with a classic poem about the Twilight baseball scene⚾
Jack the Star (Team Werewolf) shapeshifted from poem to freestyle rap about MythBusters!⭐
Myles, our host, closed the night with an ode to the BuzzFeed Unsolved boys🔍
Clearly, all teams showed out, but there did have to be a winner, though…
and that winner was TEAM PUMPKIN!🎃
We are always so grateful when we get to do some silly slams for the love of the game, and we are even more grateful to spread the love all over the Boston area. Thank you to all those who came out!
Slam Adams Season 4 is underway!🍻
Sign up for the next Slam Adams on 12/7 by emailing [email protected] or [email protected]. Our next Champion of Champions will be in February, so there’s only a couple more opportunities to qualify!
Let’s let the community know! Do you or someone you know really want to come to the Cantab for our Wednesday show, but they just can’t stay out that late on a weeknight?⏱️ Slam Adams is for YOU! It ends around 8pm (rather than 11pm!) and is a perfect gateway to the slam scene. Text your friends about this show!🤳
If you live in the Jamaica Plain area, we encourage you to SPREAD THE WORD to your neighbors - here is a link to a flyer📢 which you can print out and put up at your favorite local cafe/bar/bookstore/etc.
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 [email protected] or [email protected].
Coming up at Boston Poetry Slam📆
November 4 (tonight): Kai Wallin Book Release!
November 11: Shockie G
November 18: Cristin O’Keefe-Aptowicz
November 25: TBD (IT WILL LIKELY BE WEIRD)
December 2: OPEN POETRY SLAM
December 9: Isaiah Newman
See all of our upcoming shows at this link.
Wanna know what you missed the last few weeks at the Cantab?📝
You can read a recap of every Wednesday on our website. Check out the last few recaps below!
We want your feedback and ideas! Take our community survey now!📋
CALLING ALL BOSTON POETRY SLAM ATTENDEES! Do you have suggestions to improve the show? Features you’d like to see? Themed slam ideas? Perhaps something you’d been looking to share with our staff? We heavily encourage you to participate in our COMMUNITY SURVEY! We want to hear from you to help our show be the best it can be, and who better to provide that feedback than our community? The form can be found HERE or our website bostonpoetryslam.com. Still unsure? Talk to a staff member at our Wednesday night shows for more details.
We also have a running, short-and sweet anonymous feedback form here as well.
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. 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 [email protected]
Questions? Comments? Concerns? Fill out our anonymous feedback form and/or contact [email protected]
Newsletter Credits: Written by Amy Argentar, edited by Michael F. Gill
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