11/30/05

Out Of The Blue Benefit Link

Click here for updates on the December 10th raffle to benefit the Out Of The Blue Art Gallery. More information on the pieces being raffled will be available by the end of the week.

You can also purchase raffle tickets via a PayPal link on the site.
Out of The Blue Holiday Raffle

When: Saturday, December 10th, 12-5 p.m.

Where: Out of The Blue Art Gallery, 106 Prospect Street, Cambridge

Artists have donated various works like poetry books, framed photography, sculpture, and paintings for the benefit raffle. Come have food, drink, and see the entertainment. Enter to win an item, or purchase one of the many affordable pieces for sale.

Scheduled performers include:

Carolyn Gregory (poet)
Chad Parenteau (poet, co-host of Stone Soup Poetry)
Bill Perrault (poet, producer of Stone Soup TV series)
Deb Priestly (poet, Out of The Blue Sales Manager)
Meg Smith (poet, dancer)
Lynne Sticklor (The Prize Lady)

And an Open Mike as well.

Many ways to participate, whether or not you can attend the show:

$10 Two raffle tickets, and admission on December 10th.
$7 One raffle ticket, plus admission.
$5 One raffle ticket.
$4 Suggested Donation Admission only.
$? Donation to Out of the Blue.
$!! Participates in the open mike will be eligible for an exclusive raffle!

All money for purchased raffle tickets and donations will solely benefit the Out of The Blue art gallery. All art, time and food have been donated (thanks to the Middle East Café and other local venders and peoples).

We will continue to accept donations of artwork until the day of the event.

Raffle tickets sales will be going on all day- up to the drawing.

You will be notified if you win and are not in attendance.

Admission and raffle tickets will be available at the Out of The Blue Art gallery. For more information on the event, call Out of The Blue at 617-354-5287 or email Chad Parenteau at freakmachinepress@yahoo.com for more information.
Poem of The Week

Due to a late entry, we were not able to have a featured poem last week. We apologize and hope this doesn't happen again.

This week, we have Dan Shanahan, a veteran poet and an associate of Janaka Stucky who came to Stucky's November 21st reading and impressed in the open mike. Hopefully, he will have his own feature sometime in 2006.


A Silk Moth In Holyoke, Massachusetts

There was a moth
from Koboke, Japan
Who it is said made thread
With lineage from China,
Three thousand years old.
When its eggs hatched
Stars were stitched upon thier backs.
As caterpillars they mused and grazed
At zero speed on green fields
Of Mulberry leaves.
In such idle ways
They dreamed themseves
Into cocoons,
Dangled in their solitudes,
Pupas pulsing with the moon.
when they woke
Their work began
Spinning silk for my mother,
Who sewed by hand
Buttonholes and linings
I recall, for a sweater
She made for me one fall.

Boxi moth, furry,
Plain khaki tan,
My city was spun
From your imaginings.
You threaded the river
Through the needles of canals
Dug out with immigrant hands.
In your sleep you turned the mills
The cogs and wheels
Spooling bobbins by the millions
To bind this world in silk
And pay for the shop-floor girl's
Bottle of milk.

--Dan Shanahan

11/28/05

Upcoming Features

Don't forget our future features for the month of December. The poet for December 26th will be announced soon.

November 28th: Ryk McIntyre
December 5th: Victoria Bosch Murray
December 12th: John Sturm
December 19th: Philip burnham, Jr.

Janaka Stucky's November 21st Reading




Photo by Bill Perrault

Thanks to Janaka Stucky for reading at Stone Soup Poetry and introducing new people to the venue.
December 5th: Victoria Bosch Murray Features

Stone Soup Poetry meets from 8-10 p.m. every Monday at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery at 106 Prospect Street with an open mike sign-up at 7:30 p.m. Making her debut feature on December 5th will be poet and venue host Victoria Bosch Murray.

Victoria Bosch Murray, 2004 Cambridge Poetry Award recipient, has published poetry most recently in Poetic Voices Without Borders, Dos Pasos Review, Green Hills Literary Lantern, and Wolf Moon Press Journal. Murray has also published two chapbooks: Running A Red, and her most recent, Not to Scale. She is host of Poetribe in East Bridgewater, Massachusetts.

A sample poem of Murray's from Wolf Moon Press Journal.

11/23/05

November 28th: Ryk McIntyre Features



Stone Soup Poetry meets from 8-10 p.m. every Monday at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery at 106 Prospect Street with an open mike sign-up at 7:30 p.m. Returning to Stone Soup on November 28th will be performance poet Ryk McIntyre.

Ryk McIntyre is a three-time National Poetry Slam Team member, as well as Co-host at The Cantab Poetry Reading. He has toured nationally and in Canada, opening for acts as varied as Leon Redbone and Jim Carroll, as well as appearing as part of Lollapalooza 1994. He has been published in Short-Fuse: an Anthology of New Fusion Poets, 100 Poets Against The New World Order, Nth Position Magazine and The Worcester Review. He is also the author of four chapbooks, including his most recent, Love Is A Flashlight. He is a known biped.

A sample poem from Nth Position.


The latest PDF version of 100 Poets Against The War.

11/16/05

Janaka Stucky reads on November 21st

Click here for more informaiton.
Future Readings

November 28: performance poet Ryk McIntyre

December 5th: Victoria Bosch Murray, poet and host of Poetribe venue in Bridgewater


December 12th: Orator extraordinaire John Sturm


More information on these features and those for the rest of December will appear soon on the site.
Recent Readings

Bill Perrault offersmore scenes from past readings.


Coleen Houlihan, reading a selection of her work, including her novel-in-progress, Beautiful Bastard


Lowell poet Meg Smith, from this past Monday

11/14/05

Meg Smith Tonight

Don't forget about Meg Smith's return to Stone Soup tonight.
Poem Of The Week

We continue our new weekly feature with a new poem by Melissa Bates, a newcomer to the open mike at Stone Soup Poetry.


Waste

Tonight, I knew
this is where
the dead and the dying go.
So I took a step back,
crouched down
into the black
crescent of your shadow,
steadied my arms,
waited for your fall.

I knew in the way
I used to love
the slowing
of my own pulse,
How even the blue
of my vein
became both beautiful
and dangerous
under moonlight,
How silver flat blades
tasted like candy
underneath my tongue,
How blood was the only
proof of potency,
Knew.

Knew in the way
I used to catch sight
of myself in strange bathroom stalls,
arms curled around porcelain,
slick forehead lightening smack
against toilet seats
with each involuntary seize
of my body,
Knew.

Maybe this is why
I wanted to slip
my fingers underneath
your ribs,
lift you right off the ground,
scream something
about cracks
and time
and life
needing to be more
than just a habit,
do something other than
listen to your breath leak
like air from a tire,
a slow hiss
before the final pop.

See, tonight,
I saw you
in the mirror,
parchment paper thin skin
merely draping over bones,
head hanging down,
hair the color of
Scotch whiskey spilling
over egg breasts,
and I knew.

--Melissa Bates

11/7/05

Poem of The Week

The Stone Soup Poetry Site will now start publishing poetry from those who frequent the venue, in addition to the highlighted features, with a emphasis on finding new voices. That being said, we already break away from tradition by selecting for our first poem, "Untitled" by Walter Howard, who featured earlier in October but was unable to provide us a sample poem for the web site.


Untitled

I measure the beat of the
tired world's heart
choked with sadness
count the broken dream's silent tears
catch the lost child's lamentations
torment of the wind cast in chains
Paof the bird that has broken its wing
Wimpers of the faithful old hound, mercilessly kicked
the murdered heart's strains.

Go! Place roses on the cold
On the saring eyes of the dead.

--Walter Howard
Don't Forget

Coleen Houlihan tonight.
Another Past Performance


Photo by Bill Perrault

Robert Milby's performance on October 24th was a great success, and appropriate for the Haloween season. We will be posting information on the New York venues he hosts soon.