12/7/11

December 19th: Samantha Jane Features at Stone Soup


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. On December 19th, we welcome back poet, visual artist and local Head-to-Head Haiku host Samantha Jane.

Samantha Jane is a poet-photographer-philosopher-person who lives on the Atlantic coast when she is not sailing. By night she is a performance poet and represented Boston Cantab at the 2004 National Poetry Slam and is a Head to Head Haikuslammaster. By day she is a nonprofit healthcare advocate and organization founder. She has no capital letters after her name to prove she knows anything, but served on the faculty at Harvard Medical School anyway for courses in Cybermedicine. She says “For me poetry is autonomic. It’s essential as breathing. It is a spiritual practice. Respire, Inspire, Live with Spirit. Call me a religious poet.” Samantha counts among her ministers many Cantab and National poets who reach the deep into the heart, especially Jack McCarthy who introduced her to “Slam” at the Isles of Shoals in 2002. She has been poet-in-residence and workshop leader there at the Star Island Natural History Conference for several seasons and is a member of the STAR ARTS colony. She is also an award-winning photographer. Images are just poems without words. She likes to play with the combination. Her poems tell stories that make the mundane germane to even to those who thought they didn't enjoy poetry before. For her poetry is a place to gather large chunks of hope from the roadsides we travel.