3/21/14

April 14: LightSpeed Arafat 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 April 14, get a Taste of Boston Flavor with LightSpeed Arafat, a father, come-unity activist and entrepreneur promoting visual art, media design, music, performance art and various other kinds of cultural enrichment. He is dedicated to using his talents for the betterment of inner city communities in Boston and beyond.

Arafat is a firm believer in the power of individuals and families to provide for and heal themselves. In 2008 Arafat founded LightSpeed Entertainment, Inc., beginning a life of business dedicated to edutainment, and cultural therapy enlightening himself and others on their natural capacity to thrive.

Toni Bee is happy to host this event with Chad Parenteau!


April 7: Jason Wright 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 April 7, we welcome Oddball Magazine Editor Jason Wright back to the podium.

Jason Wright is a Graduate of UMass Boston, recent guest on Wheel of Fortune, and self proclaimed champion of mental illness. He co-published five issues of the print journal Oddball Magazine before moving the journal online to oddballmagazine.com, which he still runs and edit today, featuring poetry and prose from a multitude of contributors as local as Cambridge, Massachusetts and as remote as the African country Tunisia.

He has been featured on Talk Up with Charlie Peters, and a frequent performer at The Middle East, Cantab Lounge, Cafe Luna, and other local venues. He currently resides in Somerville, Massachusetts, where he was recently featured in it's new local journal, The Scout.. His poem, "Strong as Boston Skyline" was recently chosen for the 2014 Mayor’s Prose & Poetry Program focusing on the Marathon tragedy of last year.

3/20/14

The Mayor's Prose & Poetry Selections, April 2014

Greetings Boston Writers and Poets, here are the latest winners for the April installment of The Mayor’s Prose & Poetry Program focusing on the Marathon tragedy of last year. One or two poems from each poet were chosen by the Poet Laureate Sam Cornish. The chosen poems will be printed and hung in various locations around Boston City Hall very soon and an opening reading and reception will take place sometime after April 22nd. Congratulations to the winners and keep an eye out for the next Call for Poetry from the Mayor’s Office of Arts, Tourism and Special Events and the City of Boston.


Alexis Ivy / From My Fire Eascape

Chad Parenteau / Mom at the Marathon

Lisa Fay / The Noise of Terror

Linda Carney Goodrich / Pleasure Bay

Michael Burke II / In April Boston roads turn pale

Holly Guran / To Cleanse

Holly Guran / A Hot Wind Blows

Dorothy E. Morris / Elegy

Jason Wright / Strong as Boston Skyline

Jane Jacobson / Buxton to Boston

Louisa Clerici / The Photographer’s Marathon

Carol Masshardt / September in Boston, 2013

Kurt Cole Eidsvig / The Rainest June & The Hottest July (excerpt)

 and 9th grader Kevin Downing! / Death is in the Field Today


Special THANKS go out  to Poet Laureate Sam Cornish for the time and effort he has invested over the last several years on the Mayor’s Prose & Poetry Program. He was a conscientious and learned juror, choosing poems for numerous installments of Poetry on the walls of Boston City Hall. Thank you Sam and thank you all for participating in this artistic process!

--
John Crowley
Curator/Exhibitions Coordinator

3/7/14

March 31: Ryk McIntyre 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 March 31, we welcome the return of Ryk McIntyre.

Ryk McIntyre has been a legendary presence on the New England poetry scene for decades. Which is to say, he is rarely photographed and not everyone is convinced he really exists. He has toured extensively around the continental United States and Canada, appearing on stages as varied as NYC’s New School, Portsmouth NH’s Music Hall, Lollapalooza and the very first “Legends of The Slam” Showcase, at the National Poetry Slam in 2006 in Austin, TX. He has also appeared at countless poetry venues, festivals and house parties. He was even on 5 NPS Slam Teams...you’d think some of those people would have had cameras, He has been published widely, most notably, in The Worcester Review, Off the Coast, Short Fuse-An Anthology of New Fusion Poets, and Aim for the Head - An Anthology of Zombie Poetry. He is currently touring and reading from his new book After Everything Burns (Sargent Press)



March 24: Clay Ventre 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 March 24, join us for an evening with Clay Ventre, one of the organizers of the Zig Zag Poetry open mic.  Attendance is recommended as this show will not be televised.  For more on Clay Ventre, like his Facebook page.




March 17: Gemma Cooper-Novack 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 March 17, we introduce Stone Soup's audience to Gemma Cooper-Novack.

Gemma Cooper-Novack is a writer, writing coach, and arts educator who lived in New York, Chicago, and Pokuase, Ghana before moving to Boston. Her poetry has appeared in more than a dozen journals, including Amethyst Arsenic, Ballard Street Poetry Journal (Pushcart Prize nomination), Hanging Loose, Lyre Lyre, PressBoardPress, The Saint Ann’s Review, Spry, and Tampa Review Online, and is forthcoming in Cider Press Review; her fiction has been published in Elsewhere and Printer’s Devil Review. Gemma’s plays have been produced in Chicago and New York, and her articles have appeared on Feminist Review and Elevate Difference and in NASPA Knowledge Communities. She enjoys baking cookies and walking on stilts in her spare time.


Tell-Tale Inklings Seeks Submits

Tell-Tale Inklings seeks character studies for its “free trial” first issue, Autumn 2014.  Narrative poems (50-line maximum) and flash fiction (1,000-word maximum) only.
The poem or story must have a beginning, middle, and end and reveal something about the character(s).  It needn’t be an Earth-shattering secret or personality flaw, but readers should think or feel something about the character(s) by the end.  The namesake Edgar Allan Poe avowed that a story ought to be readable in its entirety in one sitting.  Who are we to argue with Poe?  Feel free to challenge us with another time period, foreign planet, etc.  Kindly don’t challenge our tastebuds, though.  Gratuitous sex, graphic violence or anything defamatory/hateful, rantingly political, et cetera will not be published.

Submit a maximum of 5 poems and/or two stories in the body of an e-mail to making2@outlook.com.  Left-margin aligned, 12-pt. font  Deadline: May 15, 2014. 

Payment is nothing but glory, and the writer relinquishes monetary claims should the work eventually appear in print form.  The first issue will be online as a page of the Tell-Tale Chapbooks (TTC) web site.  TTC is a small press, and the publisher hopes that the free online first issue of Tell-Tale Inklings will be the last.  That is, one hopes that enough interest is shown in the “free trial” to inspire a 4-page broadsheet that can be purchased via mail or downloaded.


March 10: Mignon Ariel King 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 March 10, we have the long-awaited return of local author and new publisher Mignon Ariel King, who will be celebrating the release of her newest collection.

Mignon Ariel King is a third-generation New Englander who was born in Boston City Hospital.  An alumna of Girls' Latin School and the Graduate Program in English at Simmons College, she identifies as a womanist writer.  Her current autobiographical collection of poetry "What Good is a View of the Charles...?" was inspired both by the poetry of Charles Bukowski and by King's lifetime of living in Massachusetts.  It is Volume 2 of a trilogy within a trilogy.

This year, the writer celebrates being 50 by publishing in all three of her writing genres: poetry, memoir, and novella.  She is the Publisher of Hidden Charm Press and Tell-Tale Chapbooks.  She is also a Classic Hard Rock and sports fan.  For more info on her current projects, check out the blog Making Books at mignonarielking.wordpress.com

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