Stone Soup Poetry meets from 8-10 p.m. every Monday at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery, now at its new location at 541 Massachusetts Avenue in Central Square Cambridge, Massachusetts with an open mike sign-up at 7:30 p.m. On March 23, Stone Soup is pleased to welcome respected performance poet and venue host VCR to its podium.
VCR (Vernon C. Robinson) is a Dorchester native born and raised in Boston. He has been writing, reciting and performing poetry/spoken word for over a decade, not to mention that he’s been emceeing (rapping) for over 25 years. As a poet, VCR has performed at several local open mic spots and gathering as a feature and participant. Venues include Afrocentrics, the Lizard Lounge in Cambridge, The Milky Way Lounge, Ogunnaike Galleria, Strand Theatre and more. He has poetically graced the same stage and opened up for such acts as Dead Prez, S.O.S. Band, Amiri Baraka, Pharoahe Monch, Suheir Hammad,Saul Williams, Lakeside, New Birth, Last Poets, Les Nubians, Jessica Care Moore, Georgia ME and other well-known artists. Besides the Boston and Cambridge areas, he has taken his poetry at cities and states such as New York (including the famous Nuyorican Poets CafĂ©), Atlanta, Chicago, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Dallas, Cleveland, New Hampshire, Baltimore, Los Angeles and surprisingly Cuba where he met the legendary Assata Shakur. In 2015, he was an opening act for the ArtsEmerson musical/play “Breath & Imagination” in Boston.
VCR is also a cultural event organizer under the company known as BloodSkinLand Productions. From that umbrella, he has created many annual gatherings which include Winter Words, Maylennium, Devotion…Black Love Day, Megacipher, SistaHood, Body Language, Afro-Cinema, Young Gifted & Black and The Red Black & Green Affair (a dedication to Marcus Garvey). His most recognized gathering is an ongoing event called VerBaLizAtiOn which is currently the longest-running open mic spot in the Boston area of nearly a decade and a half.
Through VCR’s performances, there is an array of memorable poems that are popular to the ears of spectators who have witnessed his stage presence whenever blessed the microphone. Poems such as “Tooth Decay”, “Alphabet Killaz” and “Pigs – That Other White Meat” are among the favorites from supporters of VCR’s work. In fact, those three pieces and others can be found on the debut CD of VCR entitled “Poetic Insanity”. VCR has been nominated for best male spoken word artist at the 2006 New England Urban Music Awards and twice for best spoken word artist at the 2006 & 2007 M.I.C. Hip-Hop Awards. In 2011, he became an awardee of the NAACP Image Awards of the Boston chapter. Recently in 2014 he was awarded the Ralph F. Browne Jr. Juneteenth Incentive Award for his continuous work through VerBaLizAtiOn. Currently, he’s working on a second poetry CD and planning on a book of his poems in the near future. Please stay tuned!
