The Channel Cafe at 300 Summer Street is pleased to announce the kickoff of a new series of Friday night performances featuring local poets, musicians, video artists, and theatre troupes. In addition to the entertainment, the Cafe will be serving full a dinner menu, beer, and wine; light hors d’oeuvres are free.
The first performance will be this Friday, March 21, featuring James Caroline and Caroline Harvey.
Over the past 4 years, the award winning poet and performer James Caroline, also known as J*me, has made a name for himself nationally through slams and features. James is currently the front man for the band Miette. His work is a rare mix of literary craft and vulnerability, and the intensity of his performances has garnered comparisons to Patti Smith. James was voted Best Local Author in the 2006 Boston Phoenix poll. He is a multiple winner of Cambridge Poetry Awards for Best Erotic Male Performance Poet and Best Slam Poet Male . He has guest-lectured and performed at Mount Ida College, Hampshire College, Emerson College and Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey. In May of 2007 he taught and performed at The Saints and Sinners Literary Festival in New Orleans. He has studied with Anya Achtenberg, Patricia Smith, Regie Gibson, Sascha Feinstein, and Toni Amato. He has competed with three National Slam teams, and represented the Cantab Lounge in the first Individual World Poetry Slam. He’s been published in Quarry, Subliminal, Pinned Down by Pronouns (a Lambda Literary Award Finalist for 2004), The Shadow Sacrament, the Cascadia Review, and Painted Bride Quarterly.
Caroline Harvey melts authenticity, wordplay and body language together to redefine the craft of spoken word. After earning a Masters Degree in Dance from UCLA, she quickly made a name for herself in the slam world with her confessional, gritty verse and strong physical presence. She won her way onto the San Jose Slam Team in 2004, the Cantab’s Boston Poetry Slam Team in 2005 and appeared on HBO’s Def Poetry the same year. Her work has been described as both “playful, with bite” and “harrowing and haunted,” detailing in unflinching honesty her journeys through addiction and mental illness to a place of strength and healing. Caroline was the performance mentor for the 2003 San Francisco/Berkeley Unified Slam Team and helped lead them to a first place victory at Western Regionals. She also served as the performance coach for the 2004 UC Berkeley Slam team, who placed first at College Nationals. Caroline is co-host and co-founder of Slam Marin, a spoken word juggling act and variety feature showcase that most recently shook the stage at The Marin County Fair. She has been featured at clubs, bars, high schools and universities across the country, and teaches performance poetry workshops for such organizations as Kids Take the Stage and Youth Speaks.
Doors at 6:30 pm; show at 7:30 pm. Admission is free, suggested donation is $5—support local artists. The Channel Cafe is located at 300 Summer Street, Boston (two blocks from South Station). The FPAC Art Gallery, located in the Cafe area, will be open during the evening.
