Stone Soup Poetry

2012-01-30T20:00:00.000-05:00

2012-01-27T18:54:00.000-05:00

February 6th: Laura Brown-Lavoie & Antonia Lassar Feature

Stone Soup Poetry meets from 8-10 p.m. every Monday at the at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery at 106 Prospect Street with an open mike sign-up at 7:30 p.m. Stone Soup kicks off February with the first Boston-area features from poets Laura Brown-Lavoie and Antonia Lassar! Laura will be doing a full feature, and Antonia will be on hand for a spotlight feature.

Hosted by Michael F. Gill. There will be an open mic featuring live jazz piano by Michael Monroe. $3 suggested donation to help cover our rent at the Out of the Blue Art gallery.

Laura Brown-Lavoie is a spoken word poet from Providence, RI. A newcomer to the national slam scene, she was the 2011 Providence Grand Slam Champion and had the opportunity to perform on finals stage at the National Poetry Slam, where she and her Providence teammates took 3rd place. When she isn't writing, Laura works as an urban farmer, growing food on vacant lots across Providence. While much of her poetry is inspired by her interactions with the urban natural environment, she also writes to interrogate the use of language in politics and the mainstream media, and, of course, to figure out where the heck she is in all of this. She is committed to spoken word performance as a means of fostering creative community in a culture where too often people are isolated from one another in favor of glowing screens. Her mom is a high school English teacher, and her dad is a storyteller, and she takes any opportunity she can to be in rooms full of people where beautiful things are being said out loud. Oh, and Laura fuckin loves public libraries.

Antonia Lassar is thrilled to see you! Antonia’s home lies somewhere between Boston, Massachusetts and everywhere else. She has studied Theatre Arts at both Boston University and the University of Cape Town. Four years ago, Antonia would have called you crazier than Charlie Sheen if you threatened she would become a poet, but thanks to some brilliant mentoring from Boston and beyond, she hopes one day to become a famous poet/ actress/ activist/ vegan. She has performed at UCT’s Hiddingh campus, at The Boston Playwright’s Theatre, and in Las Vegas as the 2008 national high school speech and debate Storytelling champion. Antonia is constantly thanking her family, (You know in my head, because phone calls are expensive. Yes mom, I’m doing fine…) particularly for their rare breed of crazy that has shaped her as a poet and is an endless source of hilarity to write about.

2012-01-27T08:09:00.004-05:00

January 30th: Owen Maresh Features

Stone Soup Poetry meets from 8-10 p.m. every Monday at the at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery at 106 Prospect Street with an open mike sign-up at 7:30 p.m. On January 30th, we close out January with the debut poetry feature of Owen Maresh.

Owen Maresh is a mathematics artist living near Inman Square. He likes visualization and is leery of endless towers of abstraction. He describes his creative writing style as "a chiaroscuro of eroded bananas, or a conglomeration of malfunctioning robotic bees". At present, he is working on finding methods of visualizing funky quasiconformal automorphisms of Julia sets.

2012-01-16T10:12:00.000-05:00

Tonight

Martha Boss Features.

2012-01-09T17:54:00.001-05:00

Tonight

Dennis Daly features!

2012-01-03T04:51:00.001-05:00

January 23rd: Timothy Gager Features

Stone Soup Poetry meets from 8-10 p.m. every Monday at the at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery at 106 Prospect Street with an open mike sign-up at 7:30 p.m. On January 23rd, we feature the return of Timothy Gager to our podium.

Timothy Gager is the author of eight books of fiction and poetry. He has had over 250 piece published in the last five years and of those eight have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He lives on www.timothygager.com

2012-01-02T08:17:00.000-05:00

Tonight

Kain and Loveland Ring in The New Year.

2012-01-02T06:36:00.001-05:00

January 16th: Martha Boss Features

Stone Soup Poetry meets from 8-10 p.m. every Monday at the at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery at 106 Prospect Street with an open mike sign-up at 7:30 p.m. On January 16th, we enjoy a long-awaited full-length feature from local poet, Bagel Bard and longtime Stone Soup open miker, Martha Boss. She writes:

Bio:

i don't have
a traditional bio.
& I didn't have
a formal education.

i did have
a variety
of jobs,
husbands,
children & grandchildren.

they all kept
& keep me
constantly tracking
the poem.
they were & are
my accredited hours.

translated correctly
poems are bios.
more specifically
i have had poems published in The Aurorean,
The Register, Light, Spare Change,
Suny Review, Salt Works Press
& Others.
March Hare published
my book "Twine," a collection of poems
in 2009.

my favorite venue
for publishing poetry
is Spare Change.
my favorite venue
for reading it
is Stone Soup

Three Holiday Poems

2011-12-31T17:36:00.002-05:00

Performed during month of December.

R. Wayne Nickerson Jazzes Up Shel Silverstein

"Merry Merry," A Poem by Tom Daley

"Calling for Peace," A Poem by Samantha Jane

2011-12-31T01:30:00.008-05:00

January 9th: Dennis Daly Features

Stone Soup Poetry meets from 8-10 p.m. every Monday at the at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery at 106 Prospect Street with an open mike sign-up at 7:30 p.m. On January 9th, we enjoy a full-length feature from poet Dennis Daly.

Dennis Daly was born in Salem Massachusetts. He graduated from Boston College with a B.S. degree and earned a Master of Arts degree at Northeastern University. At Northeastern he studied poetry under Samuel French Morse.

For ten years Dennis worked for the General Electric Company. He became a union activist and was elected into the leadership of the 9000 member Local 201 of the International Union of Electrical Workers. During this period he published and edited The Union Activist and the North Shore Union Leader. He also was the managing editor of the Electrical Union News.

Dennis has been published in numerous magazines and small poetry journals such as The Sou’wester, Lyric, Boston Today Magazine, Soundings East, Tendril, Poetry &, Green House, Lyrical Somerville, and is included with two other poets in a chapbook entitled 10 X 3, published by Northeastern University Press. He also has done a verse translation of Sophocles' Ajax, which will be published in the next issue of Wilderness House Literary Review. He reads his poems regularly at Stone Soup Poetry and the Walnut Street Coffee Cafehttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif in Lynn and is a member of the Bagel Bards.

In addition Dennis has published travel articles and many op-ed pieces in the Salem Evening News. He is currently working on two books of poetry.

Dennis lives in Salem Massachusetts with his wife, Joanne. They have four children.

Visit the poet's blog.

2011-12-27T18:07:00.003-05:00

January 2nd: Christopher Kain and Valerie Loveland Feature at Stone Soup

Stone Soup Poetry meets from 8-10 p.m. every Monday at the at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery at 106 Prospect Street with an open mike sign-up at 7:30 p.m. On January 2nd, we kick off the new year the best way possible, juxtaposing the similar styles of two beloved local poets, Christoper Kain and Valerie Loveland.

Christopher Kain has been a regular a the Cantab Lounge's open mike for over a decade. He has published two books: homefront, with poems arranged by half hours of the day, and Twentieth Century Limited, with a poem for each year of the twentieth century. He is currently working on a collection called Janus: Looking Forward, Looking Back.

Valerie Loveland is the author of Reanimated, Somehow (Scrambler Books, 2009). Her work is anthologized in Best of the Web 2008, and has been featured at the 2009 Massachusetts Poetry Festival. She is a regular at open mics and writing groups around Boston and Cambridge. She works as an optician and lives in Action, Massachusetts.

2011-12-26T19:48:00.002-05:00

Happy Boxing Day

Celebrate it with Tom Daley.

2011-12-19T18:27:00.000-05:00

Tonight

Welcome back, Samantha Jane.

2011-12-12T03:18:00.000-05:00

Tonight

Gloria Monaghan features.

2011-12-08T01:00:00.002-05:00

Congratulations Bill Perrault

Congratulations to Bill Perrault, who recently won an award from the Lowell Telecommunications Corporation for Best Taped Show of 2011 for his weekly filming of Stone Soup Poetry.

2011-12-07T22:01:00.002-05:00

December 26th: Tom Daley 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. On December 26th, we close out 2011 with the awaited return of noted poet, playwright and instructor Tom Daley.

Tom Daley is privileged to work with the many fine writers who enroll in workshops he leads at the Online School of Poetry, Boston Center for Adult Education, and Lexington Community Education. He is grateful to editors who have published his work, but won’t bore you with a list of the journal names. He is the author of Every Broom and Bridget, a play about Emily Dickinson and her Irish servants. He worked as a machinist for many moons, and learned skills in that capacity that won him a seat in the Occupy Mount Parnassus Tent Pole Design Committee. He is currently looking for a campsite for a manuscript of his poems in the voice of his mother, House You Cannot Reach.

2011-12-07T20:32:00.001-05:00

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.

2011-12-07T17:25:00.003-05:00

December 12th: Gloria Monaghan 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. On December 12th, we welcome Gloria Monaghan, who will be debuting her new poetry collection Flawed from Finishing Line Press.

Gloria Monaghan is an Associate Professor at Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston. She teaches arts, humanities, and writing. She has been writing poetry since she was a teenager. Her influences include friends (many of them emerging from the Midwest as artists and musicians) and her professors. Her book, Flawed has recently been published by Finishing Line Press. Her work has also appeared in Spoonful, No Roses Review, Ninth Dimension, Slope, and Thirteen. She is working on her third collection of poetry. She also writes fiction and recently published and presented academic papers on music, technology and gender.

2011-12-02T17:42:00.002-05:00

December 5th: Helen R. Peterson 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. On December 5th, we welcome another visitor from our neighbors to the west in Connecticut as Helen R. Peterson debuts her new book.

Helen R. Peterson has been published in over 100 online and print journals, both nationally and internationally. Most recently she’s had work accepted at Word Riot, Juked, Existere, and Strong Verse. She was also featured in The Lunch Break Book published by Poet Plant Press, was the editor of the small print journal Chopper, and read at the Bowery Poetry Club in November. Recently she became the Poetry Editor of Waterhouse Review.
A mother of three living in Connecticut, you can find her blog at http://mspetersonexplains.wordpress.com/

2011-11-28T19:59:00.001-05:00

Tonight

Welcome, Ian Thal.

2011-11-21T14:21:00.001-05:00

Open Mike 11/21/11

Tonight, Stone Soup will have a pre-holiday open mike for all. Everyone welcome.

2011-11-14T14:23:00.000-05:00

Tonight!

Tony Toledo remembers Brother Blue!

2011-10-28T19:13:00.000-04:00

This Coming Monday

Aaron Goldstein Features.

2011-10-14T00:10:00.000-04:00

In light of Stone Soup's recent coverage and discussion of recent activist movements, we are pleased to publish an account of Occupy Boston from poet and past Stone Soup feature April Penn.

My personal story about Occupy Boston
by April Penn

What is it all about?

For those who don’t know what Occupy Boston is, let me explain in my own words: There is a public park in the middle of Boston’s financial center where protesters have gathered and set up a make-shift village of tents as a way to have an around-the-clock protest of the tremendous and growing economic inequality in this country and abroad. It was modeled off the movement in New York called Occupy Wall Street, inspired by Wisconsin’s occupation of the capital and the Arab spring which brought revolution in Egypt. Protesters in Boston, New York, and cities all over the country, also stand in opposition of corporate greed, corporate tax loopholes, special interests and lobbyists that buy out politicians. For example, CEO salaries have increased by 300 percent in the last 15 years, whereas the minimum wage has not been raised. Another issue is education. College students are graduating with an extreme amount of debt while there are fewer job prospects. Of those who are employed, many are under-employed (working part-time jobs) or being grossly underpaid. I myself am working two part-time jobs and am no stranger to minimum wage. I currently make about 20,000 dollars a year, for which I consider myself very lucky. I am also lucky that I don’t have any college debt due to the fact I was on scholarship. (I graduated third in my high school class and received numerous awards for writing.)

Getting back to the issues that Occupy Boston protesters and protesters in all the occupation movements are focused on, it is important to note that this is also an anti-war protest. On marches, protesters frequently chant: “How do you solve the deficit? End the wars and tax the rich! Other chants include, “What does democracy look like? This is what democracy looks like!” “Banks got bailed out. We got sold out.” “Who’s streets? Our streets!” “Money for jobs and education. Not for banks and corporations.”

What happened on Monday that resulted in Occupy Boston making national news?

I have been going to Occupy Boston marches and general assemblies (made up of the people who show up and vote on issues) since the movement kicked off in Dewey Square. I have been to several marches and numerous general assemblies as well as served as a sidewalk protester where I held a political sign (with the same kind of message as the chants previously noted). After going to the march on Columbus day, I had an appointment so I left for a few hours. On my way back home from the appointment, I got several text messages from comrades at Occupy Boston stating that we had an emergency situation. Police were planning to possibly shut down the latest expansion of the occupation into a field of grass across the street from the original occupation site. We had to expand because so many people brought tents and wanted to join the occupation movement that we were running out of room. In order to protect the occupation sight-- the meeting ground and heartland of the growing movement for economic change if not all out revolution—the general assembly met and we decided with a consensus that we would stay to occupy the sight of our peaceful protest. We locked arms in a circle around the tents while others with flags encircled us and many stood in front as another line of defense and look-out.

How did the police attack us?

The police came in and issued a warning saying that if we did not disperse we would be arrested. There were large trucks nearby which we knew were to clear all the tents and items on the greenway. We held our ground and repeated that our constitutional right to freedom of speech and assembly permitted us to be there. The police burst in from the rear of the greenway and knocked over many veterans for peace who were holding flags. They pushed those who were locking arms in the circle. When the police pushed me, I couldn’t help but step back and back because I would lose my footing. The line of people locking arms to my right fell so I was split from them. My comrade to my left was still locking arms with him but no one was on his other side because that is where the police broke the circle and began bringing down the tents. Police were manhandling someone further down the circle to my right. They arrested my comrade to the left and I was left standing on my own. The police officer put my hands behind my back and cuffed me with plastic ties. I walked out to the street with him without speaking or putting up any fight. He had me stand between what he called “paddy wagons.” I prefer to avoid such a racial slur against the Irish and instead say “police wagon.” Then he had me walk with him to the back of one police wagon. I was the first to get in so I had to scoot all the way to the back. Eight other women soon joined me. I quickly learned that the police had banded some of the other woman’s arms so tight they were losing sensation in their hands and fingers. When they asked a police officer to loosen it, the female police officer who began asking us for names, height, weight, birth date, said she didn’t care if it hurt. Fortunately, mine were on loosely so I didn’t have any trouble with loosing sensation. The police wagon was dark as we bumped along the road. We sang songs like Amazing Grace and talked about our backgrounds. We debated about whether the police were part of the 99 percent—the working class who are subject to the oppression of the ruling class state. I believe that the police may come from a working class background but the institution of the police sides with the ruling class. In New York, for example, the NYPD received millions of dollars in donations from JP Morgan before the police decided to arrest 700 protesters. Once we got to the police station, they kept us in a small cinder block holding cell. Our numbers in that one holding cell grew from nine to 18 women as more arrived at the station. In all about 140 peaceful protesters were arrested and dispersed to nearby jails. There was some writing on the cinder block wall that appeared to be scrawled in blood. Some of the women asked a cop about the mysterious handwriting on the wall. One said it must be menstrual blood. Another suggested it might be from a wound. A police officer told us it spelled out the name of a gang. He made a joke saying, “If I give you a hammer will you stop hitting yourself in the head with it?” I didn’t understand his joke but he thought it was funny and kept repeating it. They took a group of us out of the holding cell because we had enough cash on us to make bail. They moved us to another holding cell where we waited for hours to be processed and released. It turned out that Occupy Boston had already raised enough money to cover everyone’s bail so I didn’t have to pay out of pocket. They fingerprinted me and scolded me for not having an ID but said they’d let me go anyway. I didn’t have an ID because I knew about the risk of arrest and had given Brenda my purse. I only kept some money on me just in case. I got a court summons for Thursday morning with the charge being “unlawful assembly.” Then I was released.

What happened after I got out of jail? And Concluding Reflections

A few comrades from Occupy Boston greeted me with a cheer so I smiled real big. Brenda arrived a few minutes later after she had finished driving someone else home. I was happy to see Brenda and gave her a big hug. I have a mix of emotions. I feel very loved because so many people helped support me in this process. I am grateful to everyone at Occupy Boston for carrying on the movement even in the face of personal sacrifice and the adversity that comes with police brutality. However, I also feel deeply hurt and confused why we everyday people were not permitted to peacefully assemble. I do not know what awaits me at court. It isn’t considered a serious offense so I probably won’t have to do much but pay a fine. Many people in our community, especially people of color, have endured far worse consequences at the hands of police brutality. I am humbled at my privilege as a white middle-class looking female. I am appalled that I can even refer to myself as privileged because most Americans like myself are far from privileged, from problems with healthcare to employment, education to police states, we are not going to be okay unless this movement continues to strengthen and give voice to the oppressed. We must tear down the capitalist system and replace it with one based not on human greed and profit but on human need where community and democracy are the highest goals.

2011-10-10T14:03:00.001-04:00

November 28th: Ian Thal 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. On November 28th, Ian Thal will be presenting Arlecchino Am Ravenous at Stone Soup, a one-act, one-man play which Ian describes as "a tale slapstick blasphemy and auto-canibalism" featuring Arlecchino, who before becoming a star of the commedia dell'arte and the inspiration for Harlequin, was a demonic figure of European folklore, even appearing as one of the "Evil-tails" in Dante's Inferno.

Ian Thal began writing poetry and doing performance art on the Boston scene in the late 90s, and was a regular at Stone Soup, he would later collaborate with James Van Looy and William J. Barnum in the poetry and mime troupe, Cosmic Spelunker Theater. A puppeteer and actor as well, he has also performed with Bread & Puppet Theatre, i Sebastiani, and the commedia dell'arte troupe, Teatro delle Maschere, of which he is the capocomico ("head comedian.") His play, Total War, was a semi-finalist in the 2009 Dorothy Silver Playwriting Competition, and its first reading was greeted with a protest on the sidewalk outside the venue. He is currently at work on another play, The Conversos of Venice. Ian has worked all over the Boston area as a theatre educator.

2011-10-05T22:08:00.004-04:00

November 14th: Tony Toledo Remembers Brother Blue

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 November 14th, Tony Toledo returns to the Out of The Blue to feature at Stone Soup to pay tribute to the late storytelling legend Brother Blue.

Tony Toledo spent many a Tuesday night with Brother Blue as his guide at the Tuesday Night Story Swaps. Brother Blue often said, "Tony, your voice is a trumpet! You and your lovely lady make a fine team." When Tony thinks of Blue he is happy and sad at the same time. Happy for the memory, sad Blue is not here to lead another swap. So next Monday Tony will be thinking of Brother Blue as he features at Stone Soup.

Come to hear some memories of one of Cambridge's finest fellows. A spoken salute if you will. Oh, don't worry, Tony will also share his poem of the Cat With a Drinking Problem, and What He Left Behind. There'll be a ghost story too just for the boo of it. See you Monday.

Tony Toledo lives on a massive one tenth of an acre estate in Beverly, MA that he bought with his storytelling. There is just enough room for his wife's basil, his books and their Corn Museum. Tony has been telling stories to pay the rent since 1990. Listeners at libraries, elementary schools and day cares all clap for more stories. Tony is 54 years old but reads at a 69 year old level.

2011-10-04T20:53:00.003-04:00

November 7th: D.A. Boucher, aka "Da Butcha," 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. On November 7, we celebrate the long poetic life of D.A. "Da Butcha" Boucher.

Da Butcha entered the Cambridge Poetry Scene November 4, 1991 joining the fun of Stone Soup Poetry at T. T. the Bears Place. Through the ensuing twenty years, David Alan Boucher morphed into the Short Attention Span Poet, Art Fluff, then finally, Da Butcha, Short Attention Span King of Poetry.

Da Butcha's early sets were all of 30 seconds long & anything could happen during Butcha's set; his performance troupe, the Collective performed all over New England & has morphed as well, going from a bunch of Poets & Musicians, to Da Butcha & Ethan Mackler, who perform as, Da Butcha 'shoppe; Da Butcha also has an alternative set of musicians with whom he performs under the banner, Da Butcha & the Madcap Electric Jazz Band. Da Butcha has self published two chap books, Poetry Tales & Uncle Gay Dave, as well as numerous unpublished chap books, & one CD, with The Collective, Beyond the Page.

Da Butcha has written thousands of Poems, Stories, & Songs without music on subjects ranging from drug use to politics to queer & is known as the Poet who will write about a Taboo subject so that his peers don't have to. In short, Da Butcha is the best thing on stage since the Ramones & has proven time & again why he's the Short Attention Span King of Poetry, and he's humble, too.

Check out Da Butcha's 20th Anniversary Retrospective Show November 7, 2011, & experience twenty years of quality Poetry, this is not your grandfather's Poetry.

Warning: easily offended folks should definitely come to the show.

2011-10-04T20:50:00.000-04:00

October 31st: Aaron Goldstein Features

Stone Soup Poetry meets from 8-10 p.m. every Monday at the at the newly renamed Yarrow Gallery at 106 Prospect Street with an open mike sign-up at 7:30 p.m. On 31st, Stone Soup invites back Aaron Goldstein.

Aaron Goldstein has been writing poetry for nearly twenty years. Originally from Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada, Aaron came to Boston in 2000 to pursue happiness. A conservative in a field dominated by liberals, socialists and communists, Aaron used to antagonize the patrons and poets of the Cantab Lounge with his verse from the right until he was banned for life late last year.

Undeterred, Aaron has become an accomplished essayist on politics and other passions. He writes a weekly column and blogs daily for The American Spectator as well as contributing to other conservative blogs.

Aaron's poems were featured in the anthology Out of the Blue Writers Unite (2003). He has also put out two chapbooks Oysters & The Newborn Child: Melancholy & Dead Musicians (2003) and Woman in the Sky: Poems Inspired by Amelia Earhart & The Journey of Flight (2009).

Aaron, however, does not live by politics alone. His other passions include, but are not limited to, baseball, music and ketchup flavored potato chips. Aaron currently lives in Jamaica Plain where he shares space with the beloved Boston poet Christopher Kain.

2011-10-04T20:48:00.003-04:00

October 24th: Rene Schwiesow 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 October 24th, we welcome the debut Stone Soup feature for local poet Rene Schwiesow.

Rene Schwiesow came to the Boston Poetry Scene through drumming. In a fortuitous alignment of the planets and stars she met the late, great Mike Amado at a drum circle and the rest is history. Now she travels Boston, Cambridge and southeastern Massachusetts on a regular basis seeking to secure a spot on open mike lists. She is a co-host for the popular South Shore poetry venue, The Art of Words, where she not only reads poetry and introduces features and open mike readers, but also is maker of the meatballs served during intermission (recipe is strictly a secret, unless you ask her nicely).

A member of Somerville’s Bagel Bards and Plymouth’s Tidepool poets, Rene has been published in various publications including Muddy River Poetry Review, City Lights, Ibbetson Street Press, The Aurorean, and Bagel Bard and Tidepool Poet Anthologies. She is a reviewer for Boston Area Small Press and Poetry Scene and Wilderness House Press. She is currently working on a third manuscript. When she is not writing, reading or studying, she can be found with a Tarot deck, aligning chakras with Reiki, or shopping for boots in support of her shoe fetish.

2011-10-03T02:03:00.000-04:00

October 17th: James Van Looy and Ethan Mackler 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 October 17th, James Van Looy performs a tribute to late founder Jack Powers with musical accompaniment by Ethan Mackler.

James Van Looy has been a fixture in Boston’s poetry venues since the 1970s and performed with the Mirage Mime Theater from 1980 to 1987 during which time he was also taught classes offered by Mirage. From 1987 to 1988 he was a member of the Collective Mime. His poetry has been anthologized in Out of the Blue Writers Unite. He has run poetry workshops for Boston area homeless people at Pine Street Inn and St. Francis House since 1992 and regularly reads at Bay State Prison as part of their poetry program. Currently, Van Looy leads the Labyrinth Creative Movement Workshop. In 2008, Van Looy reunited with the performance troupe Cosmic Spelunker Theatre alongside Ian Thal and William J. Barnum to perform for Stone Soup.

Ethan Mackler has been involved in the Cambridge poetry scene, in a musical capacity, for over ten years. Whether backing poets as diverse as DA Boucher, Deb Priestly, Lee Kidd or a host of others with his trusty BG, he delights in the opportunity for spontaneity, musical and otherwise.

October 10th: Jack Scully and Nancy Brady Cunningham Debut Mike Amado's Book of Arrows

2011-09-30T16:16:00.003-04:00

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 October 10th, we celebrate the legacy of Mike Amado with Jack Scully and Nancy Brady Cunningham reading from Amado's first posthumous collection.

The late Mike Amado was the co-founder, along with Jack Scully, of two ongoing poetry venues in Plymouth, Massachusetts , Poetry: The Art of Words a monthly poetry series and The Poetry Showcase a yearly poetry reading held in conjunction with the Plymouth Guild for the Arts yearly juried art show. Mike Amado published three books of poetry during his short time on this earth. Scully and poet Nancy Brady Cunningham have edited his fourth book, The Book of Arrows.

Scully, who currently serves as the literary executor of Mike’s work has read Mike's poetry as a feature reader at Greater Brockton Poetry and Arts Society, Boston National Poetry Month Festival, Main Street Café, Poetry in the Village, Stone Soup Poetry and Salem Literary Festival 2010. He also serves as the unofficial photographer of numerous poetry venues

Nancy Brady Cunningham is a published poet and author of 5 books of non-fiction. Nancy has featured at many venues, including Boston’s First Night 2000 in Big Night at the Bookhouse at the Boston Public Library. Her international experience includes readings in Paris, Toronto, and Lesbos, Greece. She is the founding member of the poets’ theater troupe IYANU, which has performed in Cambridge at the Blacksmith House, Club Passim, and Squawk Coffee House, as well as in Easton at the Blackthorne Tavern.

2011-09-30T15:29:00.003-04:00

October 3rd: Elizabeth K. Doran 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. On October 3rd, eturning to feature at Stone Soup is local poet and regular open miker Elizabeth K. Doran.

Elizabeth K. Doran has been influenced as a poet by modern women writers such as Sharon Olds and Louis Gluck. Although she would never want to be called a "nature poet" nature is always present in her work. "Nature is part of the environment we all share and informs my sensibility," she says. Elizabeth is drawn to syllabics and loves long syllabic lines. A major influence is Eugino Montale who in 1975 was awarded the Nobel prize for literature.

She has been published in Poises and Spare Change news and has read at many Venues in Boston and beyond. She is the former host of poetry at Gallery Diablo.

2011-09-26T17:52:00.001-04:00

September 26th: The "Chad F***ed Up" Open Mike Extravaganza

Due to more than one scheduling error and one too many events planned in a row (i.e. Chad f***ed up AGAIN), Stone Soup was unable to secure a feature for September 26th. As a result, the night belongs to the open mikers with an ultra-extended open mike segment. People always afraid of showing up late for the open mike, coming with a poem that's too long (note: this almost never happens) or not knowing whether a particular night is a good night to debut a different kind of poem, Stone Soup says "Come on down!" People who have been away are welcome. People who have never been are welcome. We want to hear from you.

Tomorrow, September 24th: Stone Soup Celebrates 100 Thousand Poets for Change

2011-09-23T17:52:00.000-04:00

Tomorrow, at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery on 106 Prospect Street, Central Square, Cambridge: Stone Soup joins over over 335 cities representing 68 countries to take part in this this global initiative promoting the themes of peace and social change with poetry readings, political demonstrations, community picnics, awareness events, parades, and more!

Poets: Come read and share your work, or email a poem to be read for the recording of the event.

Musicians: Lend your voices as well.

Art Lovers: Come enjoy the atmosphere of the gallery, free food, and the multitude of voices!

The show begins at 11:30. Slated performers include:

Walter Howard
R. Wayne Nickerson
Chad Parenteau
April Penn
Bill Perrault
Carol Weston

and many other old and new friends.

Email us with any questions: stonesouppoetry@yahoo.com

2011-09-16T16:27:00.003-04:00

September 19th: Gordon Marshall 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. On September 19th, we celebrate Gordon Marshall's return. Marshall will feature his latest book and be on hand to present this year's Jack Powers Stone Soup Savor Poetry Prize.

Gordon Marshall will be celebrating the release of his tenth volume of poetry, Poet of the Smashed Palace (Shires). Gordon is an accomplished jazz critic as well as poet. His criticism can be found on the All About Jazz website, as well as The New York City Jazz Record. His nine previous volumes of verse are available through Shires Press, Manchester Ctr, VT. He lives in Boston's North End.

2011-09-12T18:40:00.000-04:00

Reminder

Stuart Florsheim Tonight!

2011-09-12T12:25:00.005-04:00

September 24th: Stone Soup Celebrates 100 Thousand Poets for Change

Saturday, September 24 · 11:30am - 8:00pm
Out of the Blue Art Gallery
106 Prospect Street
Cambridge, MA

Poets around the world are planning individual events to take place simultaneously on September 24th in a demonstration/celebration of poetry to promote social and political change.

So far over 335 cities representing 68 countries have signed up to make this global initiative a success through poetry readings, political demonstrations, community picnics, awareness events, parades, and more!

Michael Rothenberg, the event's creator, envisions "a demonstration/celebration of poetry to promote serious social, environmental, and political change." Guidelines are peace and sustainability, and local groups define local issues within. Anyone with ideas of where to take this are welcome to contribute thoughts and more.

Stone Soup Poetry has elected to help Boston poets represent themselves for this event. The Out of The Blue Art Gallery Cambridge has allowed us to use their site as the initial "headquarters" as we seek volunteers and possibly other sites to hold this event simultaneously. If you have or know of a Boston area location that could offer us space for the day, please contact me at chadpoetforhire@yahoo.com or stonesouppoetry@yahoo.com as soon as you can.

Our tentative time frame is from 11:30 AM to 8:00 PM on Saturday, September 24th. But if we get enough volunteers to keep the celebration going, we will.

We are also looking for the following:

People wiling to read their poetry throughout the day. The more the merrier.

Musicians and other performers.

People willing to record the event for prosperity.

People willing to help set up streaming video which will be used in conjunction with the main 100 Thousand Poets for Change website.

We also hope to load YouTube segments throughout the day.

If you are a poet or other performer who would like to contribute to the Boston effort, contact me at chadpoetforhire@yahoo.com or stonesouppoetry@yahoo.com as soon a possible. We want as many possible to attend. Let's make this an event to remember.

Visit the 100 Thousand Poets for Change website for more news on this global event.

www.bigbridge.org/100thousandpoetsforchange/

2011-09-09T02:43:00.002-04:00

September 12th: Stuart Florsheim 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. On August 29th, we welcome back New York poet and past Stone Soup feature Stewart Florsheim to the podium.

Stewart Florsheim was born in New York City, the son of refugees from Hitler's Germany. He has received several awards for his poetry and was recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He has been widely published in magazines and anthologies. Stewart was the editor of Ghosts of the Holocaust, an anthology of poetry by children of Holocaust survivors (Wayne State University Press, 1989). He wrote the poetry chapbook, The Girl Eating Oysters (2River, 2004). In 2005, Stewart won the Blue Light Book Award for The Short Fall From Grace (Blue Light Press, 2006). His new collection, A Split Second of Light, was published by Blue Light Press in 2011 and received an Honorable Mention in the San Francisco Book Festival, honoring the best books published in the Spring of 2011.

He has been awarded residencies from Artcroft and the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts. Stewart also writes non-fiction. Stewart's day job is in the technical writing field. He is also co-chair of the Board of Directors of Compassion and Choices of Northern California, an organization that helps the terminally ill make end-of-life decisions. Stewart lives in the Bay Area with his wife, two daughters, and their dog, Roxie.

2011-08-21T03:23:00.003-04:00

August 29th: John Strum Performs 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 August 29th, the Boston poetry scene's star reciter, John Sturm, the Orator Extradinor, will be featuring some of his most popular recitations at Stone Soup. Audience members are encouraged to recite their own favorite poems on the open mike.

John Sturm has been performing at open mikes for the last few years at The Cantab, Club Passim, Out of The Blue and other venues. He has also performed at Forsyth Chapel for e.e. cummings' birthday anniversary.

2011-08-21T02:57:00.003-04:00

August 22nd: Diana Saenz and Marshall Harvey and Lowell Poets Galore 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 August 22nd, Bill Perault hosts an open mike filled with a contingency of poets from his hometown of Lowell, followed by his requested feature poets, Diana Senz and Marshall Harvey.

Diana Sáenz is a native of Los Angeles California, and has been writing poetry since the age of 15. Her plays have been produced around the country, and she is has three books of poetry presently for sale: An Ordindary Life Discussed, The Book of Eve, and Just This side of the 3rd Millenium. Diana and her husband, Marshall Harvey, whom she met in 1995 at Stone Soup Poetry when it was at TT The Bears, are the editors of Boston Poet Publication.

Marshall Harvey has been published in numerous journals and is the the author of Painted Light, published in 1994. He has also written a novel (The Psychic Lover) and an acclaimed study on iambic pentamet ("Iambic Pentameter from Shakespeare to Browning"). He is currently working on a theory on art.

Regarding The Caller on Today's On Point Radio Featuring Slam Poetry

2011-08-03T17:05:00.004-04:00

Let it be known that "Susie" who called WBUR today was NOT representing Stone Soup Poetry as a group. If you are going to make a comment about slam poetry, please stand on your own two feet and not on behind any banner you think we might be holding. In the last few years, Stone Soup has featured and appreciated poetry in all its forms and will continue to do so. Such comments made allegedly on our behalf do nothing but hurt us and the poetry scene as a whole.

2011-07-18T16:33:00.000-04:00

Tonight

John Landry and Jake St. John Feature.

2011-07-04T09:34:00.000-04:00

August 15th: The Highway Poets Return

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 August 15th, Stone Soup celebrates Biker Poetry Month with the return of The Highway Poets.

K.Peddlar Bridges is the co-founder of the Biker Poets & Writers Association and founder of the ROADPOET online magazine. He also serves as a columnist for CT Cruise News and motorcyclegoodies.com. An occasional writing workshop teacher, his work has appeared in numerous publications and has made many radio and television appearances.

Gypsypashn publishes in print and on the web regularly, she is well-known for her monthly column... in New England's Motorcyclist Post. She and Colorado's Gypsyrose produce 'Biker Bits,' a daily Biker Rights e-zine. In 2004, Gypsypashn published A Samplng of Soul, a collection of poetry.

Marc D. Goldfinger has been published by Ibbetson Street Press, The Aurorean, Pegasus, The Boston Poet, Clamor magazine, Earth First! and the Crooked River Press among others. He is currently the poetry editor of Spare Change News, a paper put out for the benefit of homeless people. He is a counselor for people with Substance Use Disorders and some of his work has been used to augment courses at the University of Massachusetts in Boston. His newest works include Essays On Major Mental Illness with a Co-Occurring Substance Use Disorder or What Came First: The Chicken or The White Horse.

2011-07-04T05:42:00.000-04:00

August 8th: Paul Boutchia 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. On August 8th, Stone Soup introduces fiction and poet Paul Boutchia to a new audience.

Paul Boutchia began writing eleven years ago, starting first with short stories and moving to poetry soon after. As a short story writer, Paul sought to explore themes such as redemption and forgiveness, religiousness and relationships. His poetry expands upon those themes and seeks to expose and elevate the strangeness and seemingly odd intersections that occur in everyday life.

Paul has studied with Cambridge poet Tom Daley in both his Boston Center and advanced poetry workshop for the past several years. Paul has participated in readings and open mic’s in Cambridge and recently featured at the Goba Salon.

Paul lives with his wife and two daughters in Melrose, MA

2011-07-03T21:47:00.003-04:00

August 1st: Laura Kiesel 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. On August 1st, welcome local poet, journalist and activist Laura Kiesel to her first Stone Soup feature.

Laura Kiesel was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. She received her B.A. in English (with a double minor in creative writing and journalism) from SUNY New Paltz in 2001, and a Master's in Natural Resources from the University of Vermont in 2009.

Laura started writing poetry at the age of 10, when her much older teenage cousin egged her into a poetry contest between the two of them and the adults in the family declared her the winner. Though she has gone on to write and publish in many other forms and genres, she still considers poetry her first and truest love, as well as her initial instinctual reaction to the world. Laura's articles have appeared in numerous outlets, including Vermont Woman, E Magazine, Earth Island Journal, MotherJones.com, Z Magazine, and SolveClimateNews.com. Her poems have been featured, or are forthcoming, in 12th Planet, Gin Bender, upstreet, Naugatuck River Review, and Amethyst Arsenic.

She presently resides in Somerville and works part-time as a freelance writer and editor and the other half of the time coordinating and instructing writing workshops and environmental programs for kids, teens and adults at various venues in the greater Boston area. She also has a popular blog called "Writing for Survival," which is about "sustainability, social justice, and scraping by as a scribe" at survivalwriter.blogspot.com.

2011-07-03T21:45:00.001-04:00

July 25th: The Bagel Bards Invade 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 July 25th, we welcome the local writers group The Bagel Bards as they celebrate the 6th volume of their annual anthology.

Infamous Somerville Bagel Bards to invade Stone Soup! A host of well-known, well-published Boston area writers will be reading from the recently published Bagel Bards #6. The Bagel Bards, who meet every Saturday morning at the Au Bon Pain in Davis Square, are an avante-garde group of writers who may or may not be considered “camp.” Award-winning poet, Lawrence Kessenich was this year’s editor. The introduction to the phenomenal work was written by Kathleen Spivack, also an award winning poet! The Bagel Bards are a group of wonderful, eclectic poets that you will not want to miss!

Kitty Beer
Molly Bennett
Barbara Bialick
Heather Campbell
Louisa Clerici
Adrienne Drobnes
Timothy Gager
Harris Gardner
Elizabeth Hanson
Doug Holder
Abbott Ikeler
Anne Ipsen
Irene Koronas
Linda Larson
Limin Mo
Luke Salisbury
Jack Scully
Zvi Sesling
Manson Solomon
Bert Stern
Paul Stone
Barbara Thomas
Amy Tighe
Chris Warner
Dan Lynn Watt
Molly Lynn Watt

Purchase a copy before the reading.

2011-07-03T21:42:00.002-04:00

July 18th: John Landry and Jake St. John Feature

Stone Soup Poetry meets from 8-10 p.m. every Monday at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery (located on 106 Prospect Street in Cambridge) with an open mike sign-up at 7:30 p.m. On July 18th, the venue welcomes the return of poets John Landry and Jake St. John.

John Landry has been reading for Stone Soup since 1973. He hails from New Bedford, where he ran a reading series and served as poet laureate. Bob Creeley named John his "memory guide" during his last teaching gig at Brown University. He served as contributing editor for the 50th anniversary anthology of Beatitude, and is a poetry editor for Newport Review. His book who will prune the plum tree when i'm gone/quién va a podar los ciruelos cuando me vaya was published in Chile in February 2010. He will read at the Gloucester Writers Center August 3. He resides in California.

Jake St. John currently writes out of New London, CT, where he also coordinates poetry readings in and around the New England area. He is the co-editor of Flying Fish and the editor of Elephant, two small press poetry magazines. His work has appeared in several print publications including Chronogram, Unarmed Journal and Fell Swoop. He has published five collections of poetry. His latest chapbook, Subterranean Skyline (Blasted Press), is set to be released in summer 2011.

July 11th: Brandon Amico and Derek Avila

2011-07-03T12:18:00.002-04:00

Stone Soup Poetry meets from 8-10 p.m. every Monday at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery (located on 106 Prospect Street in Cambridge) with an open mike sign-up at 7:30 p.m. On July 11th, we have the pleasure of featuring young writers from northern New England on tour, Brandon Amico and Derek Avila.

Brandon Amico is a writer from Manchester, NH who hates writing bios but strangely enjoys talking about himself in the third person. His first chapbook, Sleepwalking, was published by Sargent Press in May 2011. He is frequently referred to by his friends as "that guy who won't shut up about poetry" or for short, "that guy who won't shut up." His poetry has been published or is forthcoming in a handful of literary magazines, including Northern New England Review, Borderline, and Midwest Literary Magazine. Brandon is a business student at the University of New Hampshire, where he is an editor of the school's literary magazine, Aegis, and has spent a semester abroad in Japan.

Derek Avila has been performing his writing for a little over two years now. In that time he has been a selected regional champion for the Poetry Out Loud competition, a finalist for the NH nationals team, Slam Free or Die, and will have a chapbook released through Sargent Press when money isn't so rare.

2011-07-01T07:21:00.003-04:00

July 4th: Stone Soup Welcomes Back James McCoy

Stone Soup Poetry meets from 8-10 p.m. every Monday at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery (located on 106 Prospect Street in Cambridge) with an open mike sign-up at 7:30 p.m. On July 4th, Stone Soup welcomes back one of the more elaborate participants on the open mike, James McCoy.

His work, including "Don't Quit Your Day Job" – the most viewed video on Chad Parenteau's FreakMachinePress YouTube website – has been described as "fearless ... moving from the workaday to the mythical."McCoy will tell other original rhyming narratives, including "Thompson Was My Only Failure", the story of Francis Thompson, a 19th-century poet, Catholic and failed boot-maker. "Poignant and sweet, as only James can be." By incorporating meter, McCoy gives his poems a heartbeat. "Let's talk about your performance and your poem! BOTH really amazing."

2011-06-24T01:12:00.000-04:00

June 27th: Deborah Priestly Features

Photo by Bill Perrault

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 June 27th, Out of The Blue co-founder Deborah Priestly returns to feature.

Deborah M. Priestly is co-founder of the Out of the Blue Art Gallery located in Cambridge, Mass at 106 Prospect Street with Tom Tipton, (founder, owner). She runs the Open Bark Poetry reading every Saturday night at the gallery. Her publication credits include Ibbetson Street, Spare Change, Poesy, Fresh!, Boston Poet, The Boston Herald, The Boston Girl Guide and Out of the Blue Writers Unite (which she also co-edited). She is the author of The Woman Has A Voice from Ibbetson Street Press, an eclectic combination of healing poetry and images of women in transition.

2011-06-19T01:48:00.002-04:00

June 20th: Chad Parenteau Features at Stone Soup (wait, what?)

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 June 20th, the host of Stone Soup takes center stage just this once (probably).

For one night only, the host of Stone Soup comes from behind the podium to...go back behind the podium for an extended reading of his work. This feature was brought about by popular demand (even before Chad did a whiny "why me" post), so don't miss out on this opportunity to see Stone Soup with Chad as a full feature for the first time since 2004. Hosted by Person or Persons yet unknown. Possibly some kind of robot.

2011-06-15T16:16:00.002-04:00

Bruins Haiku

Gloria Monaghan, poet and future Stone Soup feature, recently brought her class to Stone Soup to read on the open mike just before the Bruins game. They were challenged to send in their Bruins poems (haiku or otherwise) to be printed on this page. Here is what we were sent.

Boston ice brings strength.
The Bruins will take it home.
The Cup is waiting…

--Kevin Gebo

Swiftly gliding side to side
the Bruins soar, the fans pride
forever fighting, let's get the cup!

-Rebecca Cowee

2011-06-10T08:59:00.004-04:00

June 13th: Linda Lerner Returns

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 June 13th, we welcome back New York poet and Stone Soup friend Linda Lerner.

Linda Lerner was born and educated in New York City; her next full length collection will be published by New York Quarterly Books in the Spring, 2011.

She’s published thirteen collections of poetry. The most recent: Something Is Burning In Brooklyn (http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif2009, Iniquity Press/ Vendetta Books) Living In Dangerous Times (Presa Press, 2007) and City Woman (March Street Press, Fall, 2006, both Small Press Reviews’ Picks). Two previous collections also had that honor; she’s been nominated twice for a pushcart prize.

In 1995 she and Andrew Gettler began Poets on the Line, the first poetry anthology on the Net for which she received two grants. She is also a contributing editor of Home Planet News.

She’s published in the New York Quarterly, Onthebus, Louisiana Review, Paterson Literary Review, Ragged Lion Anthology, Chiron Review, Tribes, Van Gogh’s Ear, Home Planet News, New Verse News, Danse Macabre, Rusty Truck, et.al. She has given readings at the Bowery Poetry club (the Beat Hour) hosted by George Wallace, Smalls Jazz Club, Cornelia Street Cafe, and various other venues around NYC and throughout the country.

2011-05-30T18:33:00.001-04:00

Tonight at Stone Soup

R. Wayne Nickerson.

2011-05-27T03:18:00.003-04:00

June 6th: Michael F. Gill 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. On June 6th, we welcome Michael F. Gil with his debut feature.

Michael F. Gill started writing poetry on September 3rd, 2007, after a freak accident with perfection on the Boston Harbor Islands. He is the co-founder and the host of the Brighton Word Factory, a bi-weekly writing group in Boston. He enjoys the rare book rooms of libraries, the resonance of dadaist sound poetry, and waking up to bake bread with your name carved in it. He reads regularly at poetry open mics around Boston and Cambridge, and can be read regularly at www.bbtp.net and the Boston 365/365 blog.

May 16th: Who Wants to Be A Stone Soup Feature And Kick Off Chad Parenteau?

2011-05-16T17:56:00.002-04:00

PLANNED FEATURE GORDON MARSHALL HAS CANCELLED DUE TO ILLNESS.

As can be expected, noted egomaniac and Stone Soup Host Chad Parenteau has decided to be the stand-in feature for the night.

This must be stopped!!!!!!!!
...
Chad Parenteau has been brazen enough to charge poets for attending a venue that does not sell alcohol. He has been selfish enough to suffer a number of nervous breakdowns in private (tonight being the exception). This self-imposed 11th hour appointment of himself as feature is just the latest in poetry atrocities, not including his actual poems.

WE WANT YOU TO FEATURE IN HIS PLACE.

Tonight on May 16th, open Mikers are encouraged (to the point of begging) to come down and audition on the open mike to win a feature spot for the night, as voted on by those in attendance. Open Mikers, we need your help now more than ever. Critera includes having 15-25 minutes worth of work and NOT being Chad Parenteau. Once we figure out a winner, Chad will just be bludgeoned or something.

(note: there is currently no evidence that Chad put tonight's feature in the hospital in order to have the spotlight for himself, but we decided to put that in in Fox News fashion just so it can be misunderstood and spread as rumor)

OPEN MIKERS UNITE...AGAINST CHAD PARENTEAU!See More

Stone Soup May 9th

2011-05-09T18:59:00.000-04:00

From Host/Organizer Chad Parenteau:

Due to circumstances of my own making, I was not able to secure a feature for this week. I hope you will accept my apologies for doing this during the month of Stone Soup's 40th and that you'll consider sharing your voice on the open mike, which has always been an essential part of every Stone Soup for what has now been over 40 years. Features return next week, I promise.

2011-04-23T16:31:00.004-04:00

May 1st: Stone Soup's 40th Anniversary Tribute to Jack Powers, 6:00-9:00 PM

May 1st marks 40 years to the day that Stone Soup began as a weekly poetry series founded by Jack Powers. Join us at the International Community Church (30 Gordon Street in Allston) as members from Stone Soup's history celebrate the life of the man that inspired and spurred so many poetry movements in the Boston area. The time is from 6:00 to 9:00 PM.

Performers for the night include:

D.A. Boucher and Ethan Mackler (Da Butcha Shoppe)
David Fillingham
Walter Howard
Lee Litif
Gordon Marshhall
R. Wayne Nickerson
Bill Perrault
Andreas Powers
Sidewalk Sam
Ryan "Rat" Travis
James Van Looy
Carol Weston performing with bassist Jon Voight

More to be announced.

2011-04-23T14:30:00.000-04:00

May 30: R. Wayne Nickerson 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 May 30th, we finish Stone Soup's 40th anniversary celebration with the debut feature of long time friend to the venue, R. Wayne Nickerson.

R. Wayne Nickerson writes: "I started writing short stories and poetry at Riverview Hopefield School, A boarding school I attended from 1966-1968. I had a great English Teacher, Mr.s Prat, who encouraged her students to read both classics and new writers, which I still do to this day.

I also like to encourage people to do the same. I also paint and enjoy singing. I've been since age five and still own my first book. I started performing mine and others' work three work three years work three years ago. I pray I'll continue to do this for a long, long time. Viva Stone soup, viva fellow writers, good company, good life."

2011-04-23T14:00:00.001-04:00

May 23: 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. On May 23rd, we welcome the return of local legend Ryk McIntyre.

Ryk McIntyre is a Multi-Hyphen. Poet,-critic-performer-workshop facilitator-co-host at both GotPoetry! Live (Providence) and Cantab Lounge (Cambridge,MA), as well as a carbon-based life form and known biped... triped... whatever. Ryk has performed his work at Boston's ICA, NYC's New School, Portsmouth, NH's Music Hall and Lollapalooza, to name just a few, and opened for such acts as Leon redbone, Jim Carroll, Andre Codrescu, Reggie Gibson, to name-drop but a few.. He has toured the US, performing in countless Poetry, Music and Academic venues, and wants to share that rehearsing his poems in a mumbly, soto voce usually gets him the entire seat on trains, planes and buses. He is pleased to share this information. He's also a really good Dad to 2 sons and a daughter. He's most proud of that.

2011-04-23T13:30:00.000-04:00

May 16 Gordon Marshall 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 May 16th, we'll have the return of Gordon Marshall, author and founder of the Jack Powers Stone Soup Savor Poetry Prize.

Gordon Marshall will be celebrating the release of his tenth volume of poetry, Poet of the Smashed Palace (Shires). Gordon is an accomplished jazz critic as well as poet. His criticism can be found on the All About Jazz website, as well as The New York City Jazz Record. His nine previous volumes of verse are available through Shires Press, Manchester Ctr, VT. He lives in Boston's North End.

2011-04-23T13:10:00.006-04:00

May 2: Lynne Sticklor The Prize Lady and Walter Howard

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 May 2nd, we start our Monday celebrations of Stone Soup's 40th anniversary with a focus on The open mike with Lynne Sticklor helping to facilitate the open mike and featuring the open miker's open miker, "Sir" Walter Howard.

Lynne Sticklor, The Prize Lady, is a Performance & Visual Artist, Editor, Text & Graphics Designer and Poet. She is the sole creator of The Prize Lady Experience: a one-on-one performance art piece and a grand poetic theatrical show with chances to earn "Fabulous Prizes." She edited and designed oodles of books that were independently published by the poets as well as by Ibbetson Street Press and its imprint Singing Bone Press. She has been writing more poetry and damn! There's a book of her own forming a way to come out~

Walter Howard is a retired history professor, English teacher, and journalist. He is a member of the Longfellow Society, Natick Writers, and the Wayland Poetry Workshop. His poems have appeared in Motive, Longfellow Journal, Ibbetson Street Press, Journal of Modern Writing, Endicott Review, and others.

2011-04-04T17:30:00.000-04:00

Tonight Jennifer Kean kicks off National Poetry Month at Stone Soup.

2011-03-28T18:02:00.000-04:00

Tonight

Jen Campbell Features.

2011-03-27T20:50:00.002-04:00

April 25th: April Penn 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 25th, Stone Soup brings National Poetry Month to a satisfying conclusion as April Penn has her first feature at Stone Soup.

April Penn moved to Boston one year after graduating class of 2008 from Hood College in Frederick, Maryland. She earned a B.A. in English, specializing in American Transcendentalism and feminist experimental writing. She learned much more from the poetry scene in Boston, however, than she ever learned in school. She completed the 365 challenge to write 365 poems in a year for 2010 and is well on her way to doing the same in 2011. Working with poet Michael F. Gill, she was a founding member of the the Brighton Word Factory, a very productive writer's group that meets every other Thursday in Brighton. Her first chapbook, One inside the other, is a DIY success and owes much to the writing of Michelle Tea and Eileen Myles.

2011-03-21T20:45:00.004-04:00

April 18th: The Fifth and Sixth Horsemen Return

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 18th, the Fifth and Sixth Horsemen, Lee Litif and Chris Robbins, return for annual their Stone Soup. It is the most contraversal night of the year at Stone Soup, and you are invited to contribute your own outrageous material to the open mike to compliment the outrageousness on display.

The most infamous open miker at the venue. Lee Litif has been a regular contribution to the Stone Soup open mike since 1991. He's the author of several chapbooks, including Unpatriotic Flags and Abominating White Houses, Reckless Paella and Defecating Republicans, and Ultrasonic Amplifiers and Marshall Amps/Genital Wart Puking Rednecks. He's been described as "The love child of Gallagher and Larry Fischer with G.G. Allin as midwife" by Stone Soup host Chad Parenteau.

If you can imagine Alice Walker dating Jim Morrison and their kid having George Carlin and John Valby for teachers, you’d have a fair picture of Chris Robbins. His darker side is a cross between “Animal Farm” and “Animal House”. Ever since he discovered that he has Asperger’s Syndrome, he quit writing feminist poems in favor of writing autistic ones because he believes that he’ll become more relevant that way. In other words, just like former Boston Red Sox player Manny Ramirez joining the Los Angeles Dodgers, Chris is playing on a different team now, but he’s still playing the same game.

2011-03-21T20:41:00.002-04:00

April 11th: Valerie Loveland Returns

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 11th, Stone Soup celebrates the return of Valerie Loveland.

Valerie Loveland is the author of Reanimated, Somehow (Scrambler Books, 2009). Her poetry has appeared in Dzanc Book's anthology Best of the Web 2008 and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She is a regular at various open mics around the Boston area and a co-founder of the poetry group Amethyst and Arsenic.

Valerie enjoys running and listening to audio poetry. She is an optician apprentice and lives and works in Acton, MA.

2011-03-21T20:22:00.004-04:00

April 4th: Jennifer Jean 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 4th, Stone Soup kicks off National Poetry Month with acclaimed local poet Jennifer Jean.

Jennifer Jean is the author of In the War (Big Table Publishing Co., 2010), a themed poetry chapbook about growing up as a bookworm amid urban warfare and spiritual famine in Los Angeles; as well it deals with her relationship with an absentee Vietnam War veteran father. Her work has been published in numerous journals, including North Dakota Quarterly, Denver Quarterly, Awakenings Review, Santa Clara Review, Southern California... Review, Caketrain, Relief Quarterly, The Wilderness House Review, The MOM Egg Journal, and Megaera. Notably, her work has appeared in the audio anthologies Whale Sound, and Two Weeks; also, she is the recipient of the Academy of American Poets Agnes Butler Award. She directs Thursday’s Theatre of Words & Music artist performance series at the Salem Athenaeum, is the librettist for the Fishwife Music Project, is an active member of the committee producing the Salem-based 2011 Massachusetts Poetry Festival, and she teaches writing and literature at Salem State University. Jennifer lives with her husband and two children in Salem, MA. For more on Jennifer, go to: www.fishwifetales.com

2011-03-21T17:18:00.000-04:00

Tonight

Martin Willitts Jr. and Linda Griggs.

2011-03-13T22:21:00.002-04:00

March 28th: Jen Campbell 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 28th, we welcome another friend back to Stone Soup.

Jen Campbell: She’s lived a life, but then so have you. She’s worked hard and tried to be good. She’s stood on the edge with wet toes and looked down over the edge. And sit back with a nice glass of scotch without a care. She’s an avid birder and psychic for hire. She’s a wife, a daughter, a sister, and a friend. She’s swished two words together and calls it a poem. She’s good with a pot, some heat, and a carrot. Her hair is combed, but her nails aren’t done. She only runs when she chased, but she enjoys a good walk across the length of Cambridge. None can call her a villain. But she’s just bad enough that none can call her nice. If this sounds like a treat, then come.

2011-03-03T20:59:00.005-05:00

March 21: Martin Willitts Jr and Linda Griggs Feature

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 22nd, we welcome the return of Martin Willitts Jr. and Linda Griggs.

Martin Willitts Jr and Linda Griggs are from Syracuse, New York.

Martin Willitts Jr graduated from Syracuse University with a MLS in Information Studies. He has been an oral storyteller, puppeteer, and “Science Magician” that can bounce eggs and throws ordinary playing cards into hypnotized watermelons. He is currently a Senior Librarian in upstate New York. He is a visual artist of Victorian and Chinese paper cutouts. He was one of nine winners of the international 2003 John Cotton Dana Award for library programs and publicity. He was the winner of the 2007 Chenango County Council of the Arts Individual Artist Award funded by the New York State Council on the Arts. He was recently nominated for two Best of The Net awards and his 5th Pushcart award. He has an online interview http://www.caperjournal.com/ (issue 8).

He has print chapbooks "Falling In and Out of Love" (Pudding House Publications, 2005), “Lowering Nets of Light” (Pudding House Publications, 2007), The Garden of French Horns” (Pudding House Publications, 2008), “Baskets of Tomorrow” (Flutter Press, 2009); online chapbooks "Farewell--the journey now begins" on (http://www.languageandculture.net/, 2006), “News from the Front” (http://www.slowtrains.com/, 2007), “Words & Paper” (http://www.threelightsgallery.com/, 2008); edited a poetry anthology about cancer, “Alternatives to Surrender” (Plain View Press, 2007); two full length books "The Secret Language of the Universe" (March Street Press, 2006), and “The Hummingbird” (March Street Press, 2009). He has four new chapbooks: “The Girl Who Sang Forth Horses” (Pudding House Publications, 2010), “Van Gogh’s Sunflowers for Cezanne” (Finishing Line Press, 2010), “True Simplicity” (Poets Wear Prada Press, 2011), and “Art Is Always an Impression of What an Artist Sees” (Muse Café, 2011). His website is: http://www.redroom.com/member/Willitts.
Linda Griggs has a BS in art education and a MPS degree in the Applied Work of the Humanistic Psychologists. Currently an adjunct professor at SUNY Empire State College, Syracuse Unit, she worked as an art teacher and private mental health counselor, and she has worked with at-risk youth in Syracuse. She is a Conscientious Objector Counselor, a past member of an anti-racist response group, and a member of Syracuse Interfaith Works. Linda was published in anthologies Poetry From Art (2008) and Poetry From Nature (2010). She has been a featured reader at Mud Puddle Cafe (New Paltz, NY) and Cubbyhole Cafe (Poughkeepsie, NY), and was a guest reader at Veela Festival (New Paltz, NY) and the Strathsmore Art Festival (Syracuse, NY). She wrote the chapbook "Love Poems of the Universe". She wrote and illustrated a children's book The Night of Starfish People, which is awaiting publication. She is the host and founder of the Palace Poetry Group (Syracuse, NY).

2011-02-23T23:36:00.003-05:00

March 14: Dick Lourie 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. On March 14th, we welcome esteemed author and musician Dick Lourie.

Dick Lourie is a poet and blues saxophone player whose two professions drew him to the Yazoo-Mississippi Delta. If the Delta Was the Sea, his eighth book of poems, explores the region’s rich heritage of music, history, and a diversity of cultures, particularly in the city of Clarksdale, long regarded as a center of Delta blues. The book results from Lourie’s frequent visits to the Delta over the past twelve years to play with lo...cal musicians and write about the area.

Dick Lourie’s poems have appeared widely for more than forty years, in such literary journals as ACM, Agni, The Arkansas Review, Exquisite Corpse, Lungfull!, The Massachusetts Review, Sun, Transfer, and Verse. Among his seven previous books are Stumbling (The Crossing Press) and Anima (Hanging Loose). His most recently published book, Ghost Radio, and Ghost Radio Blues, a companion CD, are both still available from Hanging Loose Press. Writing about Lourie’s poetry, Denise Levertov observed that his “voice speaks with a unique and convincing eloquence.”

“Dick Lourie has written a rich, spacious book. Observing the principles that ‘we are all embedded in history’ and that the individual ‘contains multitudes,’ these poems present a portrait of a place, Clarksdale, Mississippi, and its people, through a unique cultural and social perspective. Lourie has an impeccable ear for colloquial nuances and an acute eye . . . If the Delta Was the Sea is a genuine delight.”—Ha Jin

“Dick Lourie has something to say and he says it well. Here, in direct, clear, no-nonsense language, he tells the story of Clarksdale, in the heart of the Mississippi Delta. The voices of the town ring true, from blues legend Robert Johnson to civil rights leader Aaron Henry to Lin “Pap” Pang, an elder in the Chinese community, all presented with irony, humor and honest insight. This is a poet who fully understands the burdens and the blessings of history, and knows that there is much to celebrate in the spirit of the survivors.”—Martín Espada

2011-02-23T23:28:00.004-05:00

March 7th: Bill Perrault and Friends 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 7th, Stone Soup welcomes back friend Bill Perrault, who will be celebrating his birthday featuring alongside friends Walter Howard, Joanna Nealon, and Carol Weston.

Photo by Chad Parenteau

Bill Perrault was born and lived in Biddeford ME until he finished college for which he had paid by working as a weaver in the textilemills. From 1958 to 1960, the U S Army sent him to Germany as a medic andEducational Counselor. He took the opportunity to tour Europe at that time. When his tour of duty was over, he came home and six weeks later,he married his wife, Lorraine. In 1964, the first of their four children was born an...d, to date, they are now the proud grandparents of seven. After he and Lorraine married, he began his career teaching high school French and Latin in Maine and upper New York State. He did graduate studies at University of Maine and wrote his masters thesis on Guillaume Apollinaire. In 1973, he moved to Massachusetts to work for Polaroid. Bill now lives in Lowell. Throughout his life, he has enjoyed poetry andphotography. Bill was always the one with a notebook with him to write and a camera to take a picture. He never knew when he might be inspired or find a picture that just needed to be taken. In his retirement, the free time allows him to take these passions to a new level. If it’s joining the Poets in Boston for the Stone Soup Poets or producing local TV programs in Cambridge and Lowell, he is enjoying his creative life. Bill Has been published in the Stone Soup Anthology 2003, Out of the Blue Writers Unite Anthology, and various web pages, and if you are lucky enoughto be on his e-mail list, the poetry is Hot Off The Presses! Bill has featured, performed and sometimes hosted at open mikes all over NewEngland--including: COOL COFFEE in Biddeford, ME, Bestseller’s Cafe inMedford, MA his Walden Pond Series and, of course, Out Of the BlueGallery. Bill is a staple figure at the Gallery in Cambridge, MA and has faithfully supported the events they hold there every day/night of the week-- Stone Soup Poets, WordBeat, Open Bark and all.

Photo by Bill Perrault

Walter Howard is a retired history professor, English teacher, and journalist. He is a member of the Longfellow Society, Natick Writers, and the Wayland Poetry Workshop. His poems have appeared in Motive, Longfellow Journal, Ibbetson Street Press, Journal of Modern Writing, Endicott Review, and others.

Photo by Bill Perrault

Joanna Nealon is a Fullbright Scholar who has published five books. In addition to Stone Soup, she has read for various venues such as Tapestry of Voices, Ibbetson Street Press, Walden Pond Poetry and the Newton and Brockton Library series. She has been published in The Aurorean, Ibbetson Street Review, the Stone Soup anthologies, Cosmic Trend, Bitteroot, Northeast Corridor, and Poesis.

Photo by Bill Perrault

Carol Weston has featured many times with Stone Soup. She read alongside Jack Powers and Allen Ginsberg in 1973 in the former Charles Street Universalist Church. In the Winter of 1983, she was asked by Powers to feature in Boston's City Hall along with John Wieners. Her poetry has been published in The Farleigh Literary Review, Bomb, Stone Soup Anthology 2003, Spoonful and The Blind See Only This World.

2011-02-14T17:10:00.000-05:00

Reminder

Celebrate Valentines Day with Portia Brockway.

2011-01-21T22:48:00.002-05:00

February 28th: Mignon Ariel King 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. On February 28th, Mignon Ariel King returns to Stone Soup.

Mignon Ariel King was born in Boston City Hospital in 1964. It became apparent in kindergarten that she would probably be a bookworm and "city-girl" for life. After barely graduating from Boston Latin Academy and college thanks to language and visual arts abilities, she began a career as a formal scholar and experienced an intellectual and creative revitalization while earning a Master of Arts degree from the Graduate Program ...in English at Simmons College. Mignon was an adjunct English professor for about ten years, a database-clerical-research assistant in academic and nonprofit offices for a lot longer than ten years, and has filled in holes in her Swiss-cheesy resume with freelance proofreading and copyediting. For a list of publications and future events, visit her blog Making Poetry.

After 15 years of writing autobiography, Mignon Ariel King returns to her roots--love poems. Some are sweet, some are bitter, many are infused with lyrics from rock and pop artists from the '70s to the present. Roll on in to say goodbye to February with one last Valentine's Day celebration!

2011-01-21T22:43:00.002-05:00

February 21st: John Hodgen 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. On February 21st, we welcome John Hodgen, who will be reading from his newest poetry collection from the University of Pittsburg Press.

John Hodgen is visiting assistant professor of English at Assumption College in Worcester, Massachusetts. He is the author of four poetry collections: his newest, Heaven & Earth Holding Company; Grace, winner of the 2005 Donald Hall Prize in Poetry from AWP; In My Father’s House, winner of the Bluestem Award; and Bread Without Sorrow, winner of the Balcones Poetry Prize.

Hodgen is the recipient of numerous other awards, including the 2005 Foley Poetry Prize, the 2005 Ruth Stone Poetry Prize, the Grolier Prize, an Arvon Foundation Award, and the 2000 Massachusetts Cultural Commission Artist Foundation Grant in Poetry.

2011-01-21T22:27:00.002-05:00

February 14th: Portia Brockway 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. On February 14th, we take the erotic route in celebrating Valentines Day this year with Portia Brockway.

Portia Brockway’s poetry and essays have been published by Poetry Motel, 57 Inc., Yoga International, and dozens of other publications. She was a finalist for “Best Female Love Poem” and “Best Female Erotic Poem” at the Cambridge Poetry Awards. Her abstract photography has been published many times in the “random shots” column of the hip Boston newspaper The Weekly Dig. Portia is a yoga instructor of 20 years in Cambridge , MA , known for her vivid use of imagery to get to the heart of the moment. Her upcoming feature at Stone Soup, Hot Box Erotica, will portray perceptive, leading imagery that describes her correspondences with five gustatory male muses over the past year. Don’t miss it for a hot Valentine’s date!

2011-01-21T21:32:00.002-05:00

February 7th: Michael and Lucie Monroe

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 February 7th, we welcome two of the forces behind the popular poem a day 365 blog, Michael and Lucie Monroe.

Michael and Lucie Monroe are serial writers.

For Michael the adventure started three years or so ago when he reluctantly attended his first poetry slam at the Cantab Lounge, right down the street. Years of religious showmanship finely found an outlet that made sense, and his fondness for the spoken word increased until he was one of a handful of crazy souls to complete the first 365 challenge in 2009 - in his case, under 10 months instead of a full year. Undeterred by his success, he became the blogmaster and overseer for the 2010 and 2011 editions. He might be the only poet alive to have written 730 poems in 730 days and live to tell the tale.

His contagious enthusiasm soon contaminated his lovely bride, a recent political refugee from France who had never written a line in English and didn't think she could ever compare to English speakers in their native language. But when you have style, you can't lose it – as could testify Lucie's school teachers all wowed by her French composition writing skills, cleverly dissimulating a complete lack of content. A natural born writer, and not one to refuse a challenge, she signed up for the 2010 edition of the 365, only to discover that, surprisingly enough, she did compare.

Whether they write separately, as a duo, or in a group setting, their styles, originally so different (funny, somber, angry or surreal for Michael – horrific, bittersweet, detail oriented and airy for Lucie) collide to make the kind of mash you're going to hear at Stone Soup on February 7th!

2011-01-03T17:54:00.002-05:00

Tonight

Lynne Sticklor has her first full feature at Stone Soup.

Gaults Cancelled, Open Mike Goes On

2010-12-27T18:10:00.000-05:00

Unfortunately, the roads where the Gaults live got hit harder than Boston's. As a result, they won't be able to come tonight but wish us well. An open mike will go on tonight, as it would be wrong for anyone else to substitute amid the storm and post holiday. If you're able to make it to the open mike, we'd be glad to have you.

2010-12-22T22:28:00.002-05:00

December 27th: Ed and Karen Gault Return

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 27th, we wrap up 2010 with an appearance from old friends, poets and artists Edward and Karen Gault.

Edward S. Gault was born and raised in the midwest, then moved East when he was fourteen and finished up High School in Bridgewater New Jersey. He holds a B.A. in Polititical and Historical Studies in 1985, and later received an M.ed at Curry College in 2001. He has been writing and publishing Poetry in Journey (Eden Waters Press) Spare Change, and Encore. His Photography has been published online in Spoonful, and in print in BostoNow. His Photography has been in a number of Boston area Art Shows including Out of the Blue Gallery and Jamaica Plain Open Studios.

Karen Szklany Gault has been writing poetry since she attended Marist College (BA 1986). Her hometown is Hawthorne, New York, with family ties to the historic town of Sleepy Hollow. Her final year at Marist was spent studying at the University College, Galway in Ireland, with a three-week whirlwind tour of the European continent snuck in. From1986-1988 she called Orange, California home, where she took classes in both the Music and Psychology departments at Chapman University. While studying there, she spent a week of cultural exchange with Mexican Students from the Universidad de la Ciudad de Mexico, partying and speaking with them in their native tongue. In 1996 she graduated from UMass Boston with a M.Ed. in Elementary Education. She co-taught Kindergarten and taught second grade, as well as serving as an historical interpreter at the Paul Revere House (where she met her husband, Edward Gault) and The Boston Tea Party Ship and Museum. She has a passion for the sea and maritime history and looks forward to publishing poetry and prose for the entertainment of young readers. Since 2004, when she delivered her daughter Cosette, she has been inspired to write more poetry and has been reading at Stone Soup, Open Bark, and Tapestry of Voices.

2010-12-18T01:28:00.001-05:00

December 20th: Stone Soup Presents a Pre-Holiday Rush Open Mike

This week, many of Stone Soup's poets and attendees will be getting ready to travel or otherwise prepare for the holidays. Therefore, we'll be preparing an extended, low maintenance open mike with no features or frills. Read holiday themed poems or whatever you like. It's one last opportunity to gather before the holiday rush takes over.

The dog is just here for show and will not be featuring.

2010-12-13T07:51:00.000-05:00

Reminder

Christopher Kain features at Stone Soup tonight.

2010-12-12T20:15:00.004-05:00

January 31st: Samantha Milowsky 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. On January 31st, Stone Soup continues its tradition of presenting new poets with Samantha Milowsky's first full-length feature.

Samantha Milowsky is founder of the poetry writers group Amethyst and Arsenic. Her work has appeared in journals such as 2River View, White Whale Review, Sundress, Frogpond, and Spoonful. She has performed her poems at venues around Boston and San Francisco. She has featured at the Jamaica Plain First Thursday poetry series and The Boston Conservatory Garden literary club. Her work has received a Pushcart Prize nomination.

2010-12-12T20:14:00.002-05:00

January 24th: G Emil Reutter and Diane Sahms-Guarnieri

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 January 24th, we welcome poets from the Fox Chase reading series, a long time friend of Stone Soup and Boston poets.

G Emil Reutter is a Philadelphia, Pa. based poet and author. He has worked in the factories, steel mills and rails of the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. His work has been widely published in the small and electronic press and eight volumes of his collections have been published. He has read his poetry at venues in New England, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Arizona and Texas. In 2007 he founded The Fox Chase Review and The Fox Chase Reading Series. His latest collection entitled Carvings was released in November by Stonegarden.net publishing.

Diane Sahms Guarnieri is a Philadelphia Poet. She is a graduate of East Stroudsburg State University and has performed post graduate work at Holy Family University. Her work has been published widely in the small and electronic press, Images of Being, her first full length collection is slated for release in October 2011. Currently the Poetry Editor of The Fox Chase Review (2009 –present), Diane served on the Editorial Board of Philadelphia Stories Magazine (2007-2009), founded The Fox Chase Reading Series “2nd Tuesdays Poetry Open Mic” (2009-present), found and lead The Center City Poets Workshop (2006-present). Diane has performed her poetry at venues in Philadelphia, Southeastern Pennsylvania and New York.

2010-12-12T19:54:00.003-05:00

January 17th: Ryan "Rat" Travis 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. On January 17th, we welcome back local longtime raconteur Ryan "Rat" Travis once again.

Ryan “Rat” Travis has visited the Deep South and lived to tell about it. An accomplished poet, in over 12 years, he’s performed all over New England, as well as New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Kentucky. He is best known in the open mic scene as Rat and is considered one of the most unpredictable performers out there. A member of the Barnum and Buddah Poetry Circus and a former member of the infamous “Collective”, he holds... the dubious distinction of being kicked off stage by long distance telephone while in Kentucky with the Poetry Circus.

Rat has been published in many magazines and online publications worldwide and he’s self-published 8 chapbooks over the years. His poetry encompasses many styles from children’s poetry, to sonnets and adult free verse. A self proclaimed Modern American Haiku Master, he has accomplished the daunting task of completing 1000 haiku in 100 days, which he hopes will be published within the next few years.

Ryan is also lead singer for the sludge death metal band Fog Wizard, who are working on their latest release, “Please Don’t Take Away My Lying To You From Me.” He is also a writer for audiotavern.com with his column Man, That’s Heavy. He is also a staff writer for gaspetc.com.

Rat currently resides in Salem, MA with his beautiful wife Holly and their wonderful black cat Midnight. He can often be found explaining where the restrooms are to the many guests that visit the information desk of a very famous museum on the Charles River or stalking the hallways of Count Orlok’s Nightmare Gallery throughout October.

You can contact the author at: poetfromhell@gmail.com

2010-12-12T19:52:00.001-05:00

January 10: Brian S. Ellis Returns

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 January 10th, we continue our celebration of the new with the just released second full length collection by reknowned local performance poet Brian S. Ellis.

Brian S. Ellis is a writer and performer based out of Jamaica Plain. He’s represented the Boston Poetry Slam at the National Poetry Slam and the Individual World Poetry Slam; co-founded the Whitehaus Family Record, a venue and arts collective in Jamaica Plain. He has published two full-length collections of poetry from Write Bloody Books: Uncontrolled Experiments In Freedom (2008) and Yesterday Won't Goodbye (2011). He has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize three times.

2010-12-12T19:51:00.002-05:00

January 3rd: Lynne Sticklor 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. On January 3rd, we welcome Lynne Sticklor with her first solo feature.

Lynne Sticklor has been a contributor in the local (and not so local) poetry scene since Stone Soup was at TT's, Middle East downstairs & the Zeitgeist, Out of the Blue was way down on Brookline ave and Joe Cook was thrilling upstairs at the Cantab with the electrifying third rail downstairs...

All the time spent editing, designing and creating in various places with great people, helping host Stone Soup, reading her favorite poets' pieces while encouraging other creative voices to be heard as a feature and during open mikes has been a fantastic creative journey but it's wonderfully exciting to be reading and writing her own poetry.

A book is a brewing~~~

2010-12-09T15:31:00.002-05:00

December 13th: Christopher Kain Returns

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 13th, we welcome back Christopher, who will read from his newest collection as we countdown to the end of 2010.

From Christopher Kain: "I first discovered reading poetry out loud as a junior at University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 1992. I walked into the Haymarket Cafe in Northampton, MA & at a small gathering read some of my work. in '95 & '96, I found poetry as a life-saver as I temped for a while in Washington, DC. I read poetry with the Federal Poets, the Alexandria Live Poets Society & the Writer's Center in Bethesda, MD. Poetry told me my life meant something.

"In '96, I moved to CT from there & read at open folk mics in Wethersfield & Middletown. While working for Borders, I published my first chapbook titled memory plays & organized a bi-weekly gathering of poets. in 2002, I moved to Boston (where I grew up) & started reading poetry at the Cantab. in 2008, I published another chapbook, titled homefront, that arranged poems by time of day. I'll be reading from my new work Twentieth Century Limited, which has a poem for every year of the twentieth century."

2010-12-06T19:42:00.001-05:00

Reminder

David R. Surette Features.

2010-11-29T08:02:00.000-05:00

Reminder

Rusty Barns Features at Stone Soup.

The Spare Change Tribute to Jack Powers

2010-11-27T01:02:00.002-05:00

Marc Goldfinger's tribute to the late Jack Powers was printed in the Spare Change newspaper and is now available for reading here.

2010-11-21T18:25:00.001-05:00

Links to Jack Powers Tributes by...

D.A. Boucher.

Tim Gager.

Erik Tate.

Yuri Hospodar.

Harris Gardner.

Doug Holder.

Gordon Marshall.

Pam Rosenblatt.

Ryan "Rat" Travis.

Dylan Ford.

Sidewalk Sam.

2010-11-21T17:36:00.003-05:00

A Tribute to Jack

Jack Powers spent every waking moment of his existence devoted to noble intentions and noble pursuits. He lived a noble life by practicing hundreds of little acts of nobility on a daily basis. He was a humanist. He was concerned with the condition of human-kind.

I was in awe of him for his devotion to the noble idea of poetry and for his absolute belief in the noble idea of Mankind. I worked with Jack constantly over the years on poetry and other artistic projects.

Let me tell you a story … Jack was the main person I relied upon when my wife, Tina, and I undertook a vast project to ennoble a loathsome passageway from Haymarket into the North End. Remember it? It was the Freedom Trail, a pedestrian footpath that meandered under the elevated expressway and was the principle entrance into the North End from Boston, before the Rose Kennedy Greenway was built. Rusty, decayed, filthy and forlorn, it became a dungeon-like flophouse for homeless people who panhandled tourists passing through.

Jack, Tina and I decided to turn the block long space from a dungeon into a noble medieval Italian cathedral that would provide an appropriate welcome to tourists into the North End. Jack helped us clean up three dump truck loads of trash that we containerized for the City to haul away. We installed trash barrels and Jack swept the block and cleaned up the area many times a day. Nancy Jameson built seven flower boxes, which Tina and Jack painted with Tuscan motifs and planted with flowers and then maintained daily. We got a lift from Modern Continental Construction Company for the entire summer. Jack donned breathing gear every day, raised himself up to the underside of the overhead highway two stories above us and cleaned and scraped away decades of filth, rust and debris.

Hardly any metal held that highway up when Jack finished. He removed tons of rust! Once cleaned, we painted the beams and supports that held up the highway to resemble ornate marble church pillars. The entire block long underside of the highway was painted like a royal-blue cathedral ceiling - a painted "heaven." Jack placed hundreds of gold stars in it. We painted dozens of cherubs flying among gold laced clouds in the blue, star-studded sky. We read poetry daily. We had violinists perform and singers sang arias along the walkway.

Jack thrilled to the whole enterprise and devoted himself entirely to it. It consumed five years of our lives. It was a celebration of the streets! It took one of the worst examples of public spiritless-ness and turned it into an exalted expression of high art.

It was what Jack was about. He was a poet … but he was so much more. He believed in people. He acted like a high priest of people in daily life. He believed in Boston. To him Boston was his temple. He tried to make daily life in Boston a holy experience. He was high-minded. He believed in the power of the little guy, you and me, to exalt ourselves and make of daily life a paradise.

Jack thought immense thoughts and lived an immense life and was completely undaunted by poverty and class disadvantages. He went about the City as a humble street servant, doing common day labor – like a serf, like a peasant, like a ditch digger, like a grape picker. He was proud to be identified with them. And as he grew more and more into that role, I thought more and more that he was like St Francis of Assisi and I was in awe of the hundreds of tiny corporal act of mercy that he would bestow on Boston streets daily. As he went about his appointed rounds, Jack was a holy man. He lived his last years a misunderstood saint, a downtrodden seer; sweeping our streets. His broom was like Demosthenese 's lantern – instead of looking for an honest man, Jack cleaned the pathways of Boston for us, because we were all honest men.

He saw our beauty and our worth. He saw beauty in the mundane. He was a Johnny Appleseed of the streets. In his character as Jacques DeBris, he collected trash trophies and set them on little stages like sculptures. They were beautiful! They were wiser and kinder than anything Marcel Duchamp ever did.

Wisdom, vision, insight, hard work, deep down goodness, great humor, unending love… Jack was so beautiful.

Jack had no faults, or none worth mentioning. Certainly none to be mentioned on the glorious level on which he lived. His spirit… ah, that is his story! And we all have a story about Jack...

--Sidewalk Sam

2010-11-21T12:54:00.003-05:00

Memories of Jack

I lived in Boston for around two years in the late seventies, sometimes in dreary rented rooms, some of the time homeless. I worked and frequently slept at the Stone Soup gallery on Cambridge Street for about the latter half of that time. I was 22, down and out, betwixt and between, and full of hope and fear. I was trying to be a serious painter and writer, eating intermittently and drinking in the experience of penurious city living along with a great deal of cheap beer. I was making what would turn out to be some of the best paintings of my spotty output, and assisting Jack Powers as best I could with the many activities that took place in or around Stone Soup.

I first encountered Stone Soup some six or seven years earlier when my friend Rob Sweet and I would take the bus from Long Island to Boston, or stop in on our way while hitchhiking to Maine, to visit our friend, artist JoEllen Trilling, who was living at the pinnacle of South Russell Street on Beacon Hill. At that time she held the day job watching over (the then fairly new) Stone Soup, the job that I would inherit much later. JoEllen would sit in the gallery and paint all day and as she recently put it, “sell the occasional Commie pamphlet”. At that time (I believe) Jack’s paying gig was staging a series of pop concerts for the city on the Commons. I remember him talking about the many famous and eccentric performers whom he had been required to host and mollycoddle, and how few traits most of them demonstrated that would recommend them as human beings; with the outstanding exception of Smokey Robinson, a warm and decent gentleman who Jack admired ever-after to the point of adoration.

My stint at Stone Soup seemed heady, charming, and sometimes alarming. Stone Soup was among many other things, a magnet for strange, demented and damaged souls who found their way to the door by some mysterious process I never was able to discern. And there seemed so much going on in those days, most of it revolving around Jack and all of it competing for his over-promised time and divided attention. In the mornings I would open the door and drag a trestle table out onto the sidewalk in front of the gallery, loaded with coverless remaindered mass-market paperback books, donated by some bookstore that hadn’t been able to move them. I was always hoping to sell a few ten cent bodice-rippers or romance novels to the nurses trudging from the “T” station at the junction of Charles and Cambridge to begin their morning shifts. around the corner at Mass General. I was paid a dollar an hour for my presence (an inflationary improvement from JoEllen’s time – she had gotten fifty cents), but usually I would have to take in the dollar if I wanted it right away, which I always desperately did; for a cup of morning coffee, a 99 cent sandwich from the Yellow Submarine shop next door, smokes, or a six-pack.

Jack seemed to have many jobs at that time, and he would be constantly in motion throughout the day, bicycling across the Longfellow Bridge and up through Cambridge to do something at the Herter Center, running off to manage the Boston Urban Gardens program – and always showing-up late for rushed meetings with poets, painters, musicians, actors, supporters, detractors, bureaucrats, press people - or to hook-up at home with his girlfriend at the time, Chrissy - before running-off again to arrive late somewhere else for something else.

One of my responsibilities was to answer the phone, which rang constantly. For one thing, to take the endless messages for Jack, but also those for the “Stone Soup Movers”, a small hippie-sort of enterprise run by a nice bearded fellow with a truck whose name escapes me now. In exchange for this answering service and the use of the gallery’s name he gave Jack some percentage of the take to be put towards the storefront rent. The mover would stop in at some point to pick up his messages, make callbacks and give estimates on the pay phone. And sometimes, if he had a piano or other particularly large and unwieldy object to carefully urge up the steep, narrow, antique staircases of Boston walk-ups, he would press me and whoever else happened to be hanging around (and needed a few quick bucks) into temporary grunt service.

Since Jack and Chrissy lived in the apartment directly above the gallery, Jack would usually pop in whenever he stopped home for something between his various jobs and errands, just to check on what was going on and who had called, glance at the mail, and often to cadge a beer (if I had a six-pack going), or, as was more often the case, to share one from his upstairs inventory if I didn’t. Jack’s life then was measured out in hours of manic motion and harried activity between quiet moments stolen to suck down a quick beer.

“Hallelujah! Thank the Lawd Almighty for beer. Amen, Brother!” he might declaim, as he pulled the tab and took a long swallow. Sometimes he would also share an insight of the moment during these brief interludes, often a barely scrutable passing notion that had occurred to him en route from the last over-stay to the next late-arrival – “Dude! Every newsstand I see has a picture of that freakin Farrah Fawcett-Majors, with that nimbus of blonde perm curls... It just came to me, man, putting “Fawcett” in the middle of her name is intentional, y’ dig? Y’know, it’s like playin a fockin subliminal seduction trip on the dude subconscious – like a ‘faucet’, y’ know? Running like a faucet!” Or, “That fockin Jimmy Carter – he’s like a bright balloon with a slow leak, y’ dig?”

Beer finished, he’d be charging off, hustling like a man with something gaining on him. Jack and I would be friends for many years before we discovered that we shared more than an affinity for the flavor of beer. Both of us had been lifelong sufferers of chronic anxiety attacks – in my case somewhat milder, apparently, though mixed with bouts of depression. In Jack’s it was just unmitigated balls-to-the-wall panic, not the mild discomfort of social anxiety – but a crippling unrelenting horror that would follow him through all the days of his life like a hated shadow, making him fear for his own survival and question his fitness to live. But he had discovered at some point early on (as had I) that this cursed demon could be briefly nursed back to fitful sleep with a can of beer every so often.

Like JoEllen those many years before, I would sit there at the big desk all day, working on my paintings and waiting to see who or what might come through the front door. Sometimes my friend Rob Martin (Beauguerre to his family and friends) would stop in as he walked home to his Newbury Street digs from his long day at the piano tuning and repair school in the North End, to save himself the train fare. He had had thrust upon him during this time the care and maintenance of the battered Stone Soup upright piano, and often he would check its vital signs while shooting the breeze with me and fending-off the annoying lunatics and buttinskis in attendance. Beauguerre had spent an unsought tour of duty fighting strangers in Viet Nam ten years prior, and still carried the spiritual scarring of the jungle war within him. He was older than I, and far more serious and edgy and easily provoked in those days; far more likely to take offense at the ridiculous and confrontational hi-jinks of some of the Stone Soup denizens, while I was generally more easy going, or at least indifferent.

Jack and Beauguerre became good friends but always at a slight remove. With his knowledge and experience of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Beauguerre concluded that the dark furies assailing Jack were a distinct form of PTSD. Jack feared for Beau, sensed a dangerous storm roiling within him, and encouraged him to hold his internal war horrors up to the light by writing his way through them, and reading his poems aloud on Monday nights, setting him on a useful path towards greater catharsis.

Poet Paul McGee had held my post before me, and for a while we split the days, but he became weary of being tied down and eventually flaked-off entirely, though he would often stop by to talk and drink a beer. I still have a portrait I painted of him in those days, titled “Angel-Headed Hipster”. At poetry readings and while carousing the streets he and I would often end up in fist-fights for no good reason that I can recall. Paul was a more genuine street-person than I would ever be, and though smaller in stature probably could have kicked my ass with ease had he felt any real need or desire to.

A frequent visitor to Stone Soup then was “Bob The Bagman”, an itinerant street preacher and a fixture of Beacon Hill . Jack had a special empathy for Bob, and permitted him to flop in the building’s basement when his paranoia was in overdrive or the weather was too cold for sleeping in doorways or garbage alleys. Bob would come in during the day to criticize my painting and work on updating the loopy headlines displayed on his oft-repaired shopping bag. He would borrow from the sheets of oaktag and the magic markers Jack had gotten me to make signs and posters announcing various upcoming Stone Soup events and opportunities. Sometimes he would also make off with them, and other small items, but Jack never hassled him for doing so. While Bob re-taped his bag and drank sweet wine from the bottle he generally carried, he would explain to me the fine points of his doctrine, that “Cooking Food Was The Downfall Of Civilization” and “Inter-racial Marriage Causes Loss Of Sex Drive”.

Another common visitor was the squirrelly and impoverished Beat poet John Wieners, a gentle, timid soul and a veritable hermit at the time, who eschewed most human contact but would shuffle down the hill from his apartment on Joy Street to bum cigarette money from Jack. “I need some Ciggies, Jack”, or just “Ciggies, Jack?”, he would sheepishly warble. Jack had instructed me that if there was any money in the cash box when he came a-looking (there sometimes was a pittance), I should let him have what he needed. When Wieners got used to me, he began to hang around a bit, talking little in his hesitant, quavering voice, but apparently enjoying a few moments of unthreatening and undemanding society. I was unaware at the time of Wieners’ place of importance in the Beat pantheon, and just accepted him as another one the fallen angels in Jack’s protectorate.

When Jack’s troubles began I often considered his patience and unbounded solicitude to these two broken characters, and so many others, and wondered if they triggered a premonition of the trials he would later face.

Jack had initiated and was overseeing for the city a summer program that year (Poetry-Mobile? –something like that.) which consisted of sending a vanload of promising young poets into poor communities to read aloud and teach the rudiments of writing poems to urban kids. He also lent the gallery one night a week to a tortured self-help group called the “Mental Patients Liberation Front”, a rag-tag group of ex-mental hospital internees, trying to make a go of things in the real world without benefit of doctors or drugs. I would wait to let them in, and if I was in the middle of something, sometimes sit through part of their meetings. I can say with certainty that nobody but Jack would have extended them that courtesy nor trusted them with the gallery and to lock up after themselves.

Jack hosted jazz bands and one act plays (I particularly recall a spell-binding presentation of a Pirandello piece, starring Billy Barnum as “The Man With A Flower In His Mouth”) and even a few fine performances by an itinerant, seat-of-the-pants opera company. Then there was the raucous Monday night open-reading, which I usually attended, though I never participated beyond listening and making pertinent and impertinent wise-cracks, and fighting with McGee.

The Monday night readings were always interesting and sometimes a lot of fun. There was a fair amount of drinking, lots of zany behavior of the sort that years later would be termed “performance-art”. Jack was sort of the laissez-faire emcee/referee, and usually read a few of his own shorter pieces, spoken quietly in his impassioned and throaty baritone. There would be a mix of regulars and wide-eyed newcomers, weird “artistic” cliques, and poets representing every recognized and a few out-of-this-world genres of written word. Bill Kemmet was usually there, who I thought of then as the adult of the group. He had a regular day job and a family, I believe, and going to Stone Soup to read his poems was apparently his weekly pressure-valve night-out. I thought him a serious and accomplished poet, more conservative in appearance and behavior than many of the other less composed folks, but friendly and generous. After the reading, a few stalwarts would usually repair across Cambridge Street to the Harvard Gardens bar for a few nightcaps. This was apparently an important part of Bill’s night-out, and, since some of us rarely had any money in our pockets, Bill would sometimes insist in fellowship that we come along, and he would pick up the tab. Jack would always want to come, too, and would sometimes sneak across with us unless he was already in trouble with Chrissy for the usual scheduling infractions and terminal tardiness.

Another Stone Soup poet and friend of Jack’s was Robbie XII, a kind and civilized gentleman poet who lived up on Beacon Hill . He would sometimes host a spaghetti dinner at his apartment for a handful of friends in need or want of a good meal, before the reading, and sated with one of the many dishes he had learned to prepare during his travels in Italy, “Pasta with Fungi and Legumi”, or “Pasta Carbonara”, and red jug wine, we would all walk down the hill together to the reading.

A regular at the readings in those days was the arrogant and haughty Rando, who made little secret of his contempt for most everyone present, especially Jack. He was as tall as Jack, with pale white skin and long hair apparently dyed bright orange. He wore blue eye-shadow and other light make-up, and dressed in denim and leather, and jack-boots, (as did other members of his coterie). I had heard he was a professional baby-sitter, a fact which confounded me. He seemed to want to be considered Jack’s nemesis, and at the readings, rather than share his own writing, he would presume to annoyingly read from works by his favorite poets (notably Kenward Elmslie, “A girl machine – woo-woo...”) by way of instructing and enlightening (what he considered to be) the cretins around him.

There was a popular British TV show airing on PBS around that time called “Upstairs, Downstairs”, that focused on the vastly differing experiences of the British nobility (Upstairs) and their servants (Downstairs). Rando’s circle of black-leather dress-up boys, offended that only some of the participants at the Stone Soup readings (those who Jack liked and trusted) were ever invited upstairs to socialize in Jack and Chrissy’s apartment, took it upon themselves to use this presumed favoritism to drive a wedge between the attendees at the open reading, demanding a general boycott, characterizing it “Upstairs, Downstairs, at Stone Soup”. But nobody besides them liked them much, or gave a crap about this artificial schism, so it eventually fizzled and was forgotten.

One thing I tried to do at Stone Soup, and which I knew Jack appreciated and approved, was to straighten it up, and reduce somewhat the burden of clutter, dust and dirt. A friend of Jack’s from up the hill, a writer named Pat Harrison used to stop in occasionally to chat, alone or with her friend, the poet Anna Warrock, who had published her work in Stone Soup chapbooks. Finding that a broom made little headway, other than to cloud the gallery with a dense haze of disturbed dust, I borrowed a trusty old gray cylinder and snake-type vacuum cleaner from Pat, and vacuumed an unbelievable amount of vintage ground-in filth from the layers of well-worn Oriental carpets on the floors.

I asked Jack if I could gradually paint the dingy ceiling and walls to help pass the time, but Jack decided that, although I had the requisite experience and willingness to do it alone, the painting would better be done as a group effort, reflective of the supposed collective nature of the operation. A general call was put out for painting-party volunteers. Jack scratched-up the money for paint and brushes, and got some ladders together. Four or five of us showed up – me, Beauguerre, Paul McGee and I forget who else – maybe Jack’s cousin, Jim(?). It was truly a case of too many cooks, and particularly too many drinking cooks, a bit like a Three Stooges routine writ large. There was not much professionalism on display that night. Jack’s painting technique was more energetic than sublime. Paul had arrived well into his cups, and in short order fell off a ladder, taking a gallon of white paint with him which oozed across the newly burnished surface of the carpets. Jack contained himself, but a mournful overcast of infinite disappointment with mankind and profound disgust with subversive fate darkened his countenance.

Sometimes the Boogie-Woogie pianist Preacher Jack Lincoln Coughlin would stop by, and occasionally Jack would sponsor concerts for him, but a few times a group of us would ride the Blue Line out to Revere Beach to watch him perform in Eddie Ford’s “Shipwreck Inn”. The Preacher loved Jack Powers, and would perform Hank Williams tunes in his honor. As he played the waitresses would keep him supplied with bottles of Budweiser to replace his vital fluids; bottles which when drained, he would line up on the lid of the upright piano, as he sweated copiously and became more and more possessed by the spirit, and highly agitated as the evening wore on - launching into rapid-fire improvised sermons filled with hellfire and damnation, playing a running bass pattern with his left hand while performing (I believe they are called) arpeggios with his right, and he would bear witness to the angelic and saintly nature of Jack Powers”, gesture to the heavens and declare, “Lord, I’m reaching for you with my right hand, but I’m doing the devil’s work with my left!” At which point he might suddenly thrust up the piano lid for emphasis, and scatter the collected beer bottles in a tremendous glassy crash.

A dear friend of Jack’s who would stop by when he was in the city was artist and children’s book author David McPhail. If memory serves, David had as little knack for holding on to money as Jack did. One day he showed up and made a series of phone calls to a publisher demanding a hefty advance, and asking that it be messengered over to Stone Soup before the banks closed. The messenger eventually arrived, David went off to cash the check, and when he returned he immediately began distributing the money, by buying works off the walls (more, I suspect, out of generosity to the artists and to subsidize the gallery than anything else) including a pen and ink drawing I had done for the cover of a never-to-be-published Stone Soup collection of Paul McGee’s poems (Paul refused to do anything to move it forward. Paul would also be scheduled by Jack to give featured readings, and when the night arrived and an audience assembled, he would refuse to participate beyond repeatedly snarling, “Fuck Poetry!”).

I was truly enamored of the Stone Soup ideal, and was influenced by Jack’s singular concepts and his quixotic charitable impulses. At times when Stone Soup was briefly flush, every dunning piece of junk mail that arrived which included a self-addressed stamped reply envelope – from legitimate charitable fundraisers, to political party pan-handler’s, to various crackpot concern’s – each and every one of them got their envelope returned with a single buck in it. I questioned Jack about the wisdom and meaningfulness of this gesture, sending out these rather random and arbitrary drops in so many contradictory buckets. His explanation ran along a scribbly line somewhere between “Cast thy bread upon the waters” and Mao’s “Let one hundred flowers bloom”. I didn’t really get it, but thought it an amusing practice anyway.

Like with everything else he was doing, Jack was usually trying to recruit help with his monthly Senior Citizen’s dinner, which was held at one of the local churches on Beacon Hill . He would persuade local performers into doing a free show for the old folks and street people in attendance, but he usually did all or most of the shopping and cooking himself. He would carry on this tradition for decades despite growing resistance and disinterest later on from the changed church hierarchy. Jack and his dedication would outlive many of his contacts and confederates, those people who knew and respected his history and legacy, those who appreciated his long service to his down-on-their-luck fellow humans.

Many people got briefly caught up in Jack’s endeavors in the short time I was around. Two of them were my friends Antonia Bellanca and Sandy McArdle, who assisted with the arrangements for and publicizing of many events. In time, though, like most people assisting Jack, they burnt out, or became frustrated with Jack’s one-man-band style and his ever-on-the-run, short-shrift lick-and-a-promise participation in planning meetings. Ownership of Jack’s time and attention was always in dispute, and nobody who ever got some ever felt they’d got enough.

The metaphor of the Stone Soup story - that the stranger’s supposed magic stone in a kettle of boiling water would make a fine soup for all, but a soup that would be improved as each of the participants was induced to contribute an ingredient themselves - was initially extremely attractive and satisfying to me, though less so as my year passed and I became more jaded. Many people did put regularly put things into Jack’s pot, but as time went by I concluded that many more only reached into the pot when they wanted to take something out.

After I left Stone Soup and Boston, Jack and I stayed in touch over the years and decades, mostly by telephone, but occasionally in person - when he occasionally made a pilgrimage to New York I would go into the city and we would lift a few to Dylan Thomas at the White Horse Tavern; or the few times I passed through his radically changing Boston – once to attend a fundraiser in his honor at a church on Newbury Street.

My time in Boston , while an important and illuminating phase of my life, proved to me that I had neither the stamina nor the mettle to be a city person. Jack was not only a city person, but specifically, and tragically, I think, a Boston man - even long after the Boston he’d loved had become distorted beyond recognition and appropriated by moneyed interests. As the economic demands upon him grew, and his connections declined by attrition, and as Boston underwent a massive gentrification – “Economic cleansing”, as Jack called it – it became ever harder for him to earn the kind of meaningful money his life and new family required. The stress of making a living and living a life in hard times and with his options and opportunities blinking-out like guttering candles seemed to ever more deplete, though not defeat him.

When I was in Boston and even before I began working at Stone Soup, Jack had put my paintings on the walls. He would always remain generous with his praise and encouragement about both my paintings and writings, and while I was at Stone Soup I basked in this recognition and support. It would be the only true approbation my art would ever enjoy. Even as the other revolving and temporary shows came and went – by some dynamite artists, including one featuring the huge swirling Armegeddonistic cityscapes of Magnus Johnston (which would leap to my mind many years later as I watched on television as the twin towers fell), and the eclectic and copious output of the peculiar local genius Robert Bliss, as well as many others whose names I’ve forgotten – for all that time I always had a wall to myself. Three weeks after I had first put two paintings up at Stone Soup, somebody stole one of them, a small self-portrait in oil. Jack thought this event was worthy of celebration, clearly demonstrating that I had already attracted at least one devoted fan, albeit not a patron. We drank a beer in recognition of this back-handed compliment.

One of the last days I spent a day with Jack was in the late nineties, after his fortunes had already begun to plummet. He asked me to meet him at the bus station in Manhattan , to go along with him to visit the terminally ill Allen Ginsberg (who I’d met once or twice before with Jack). Though by then Jack had scarcely a pot left to piss in himself, he had made this difficult pilgrimage – five hours in on a Greyhound bus – he couldn’t afford to ride Amtrak - on behalf of John Wieners. Ginsberg had some sort of fund set up, to help out poets and writers on the skids, I believe, and Jack had been invited, or summoned, to come to Ginsberg’s loft in person to make the case for Wieners. Jack told me that John was at last coming out of his cocoon, had begun to do some readings and with just a little short-term support could perhaps once more become a viable poet, and person. With Ginsberg at the end stage of cancer, and lingering at death’s door, it was truly a last-ditch effort.

It was great walking through NYC with Jack, me (as ever) trying to keep up with his rapid, long-legged stride. We jumped a bus heading downtown, walked through the East Village streets, and finally got to Ginsberg’s home. Only to find that Allen had been taken to the hospital, and his assistant didn’t know when or if he might return. Jack had precious little time to waste, as he had to get back on the bus to be back in Boston that evening for his children, so after all he sadly made his pitch to Ginsberg’s patronizing and indifferent assistant. As far as I could tell the man was not terribly sympathetic to Jack and seemed bored and preoccupied during the presentation. When we left Jack was disappointed and crest-fallen. He had hoped to say a proper goodbye to Ginsberg, whom he’d known for twenty five or thirty years. He had hoped to secure a definite answer about financial aid for Wiener’s comeback. He had traveled all morning to extend two small kindnesses on behalf of two old friends, two men he respected and whose friendship had meant a great deal to him. We nipped into a tavern for a hasty parting beer, and split up near Penn Station.

Shortly after that day I was hit by a car, and was left disabled. My getting around would be severely constrained for a long time, and I never saw Jack again, though we continued to talk on the phone intermittently until he lost his capacity for speech. As Jack tried to stop drinking beer to ease the pressure being placed on him to do so, and gave himself over to the medical profession, hoping to find pharmaceutical relief from the pitched anxiety, his voice lost its deep timbre and took on ever more of the desperate pleading quality I remembered in Wieners’ voice those decades before. It became harder to have a meaningful conversation with Jack, impossible to make any personal connection through his consuming nervousness, and eventually harder to even conjure the old Jack in my mind as we spoke. I could feel his spirit waning and his personality receding further into the abyss with each call.

A mutual friend visited Boston a few years back, and called afterward to report having witnessed a wraith scrabbling hurriedly down Mass Avenue, like a grizzled gray ghost of Jack Powers, bent over, huddled and withdrawn – his eyes locked on the pavement, a wretched caricature of what had been a singular and outgoing man.

I wished then that I was in a position to free Jack from his economic free-fall and buy him all the beer he needed to shun further interference from the medical profession, and of well-meaning temperance twits. But I wasn’t there so I can’t know what was really going on. Maybe the beer alone stopped doing the trick for Jack, stopped working its passing magic: or maybe the constant stress added on top of outrunning the demons that pursued him for so long undermined his confidence, made his physical and mental prowess disintegrate. All I can say for sure is that Jack Powers was a highly functional, elaborately useful and charming human being when he was self-medicating with Tuborg Gold and Carling’s Black Label and Pabst Blue Ribbon. And I thought frequent beer breaks were little enough to ask in return for the mighty good he did with his life, for his many generous acts and altruistic gestures, for his encouragement and promotion of so many other artists, and for his own neglected body of work. I wished then there was some young Jack to look out for old Jack. But Jacks like Jack are rarer than unicorns; beings that exist only in myth and hard to come by in this crass age.

The saying goes, “It takes one to know one”, and having known many, I think I can say that Jack Powers was one of the loneliest people I’ve ever known, and loved. He was also one of the best, and most courageous. Jack was lonely in an unearthly private way that no amount of company can ever fully remedy, but which shared celebration and exchanged kindness and good fellowship can temporarily alleviate. And maybe get one safely to the next absolving can of beer.

--Dylan Ford

2010-11-18T23:40:00.003-05:00

December 6th: David R. Surette Returns

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 6th, we welcome the return of David R. Surette, who will be reading from his latest book.

David R. Surette’s new book of poetry is The Immaculate Conception Mothers‘ Club. He is the author of two other collections: Young Gentlemen’s School and Easy to Keep, Hard to Keep In. His poems have been published in literary journals such as Peregrine, Off the Coast, and Salamander and appear in the anthologies French Connections: A Gathering of Franco-American Poets and Cadence of Hooves: A Celebration of Horses. He has been a co-host of Poetribe, a contributing editor at Salamander, an instructor at the Cape Cod Writers’ Conference, and a contributor at the Bread Loaf Writing Conference. He has featured at poetry venues across New England such as the Boston Poetry Slam, Tapestry of Voices, Stone Soup, and The Poetry Hoot.

2010-11-18T23:40:00.002-05:00

November 29: Rusty Barnes 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. On November 29th, poet, fiction writer and editor Rusty Barnes has his first Stone Soup feature.

Rusty Barnes grew up in rural northern Appalachia. He received his B.A. from Mansfield University of Pennsylvania and his M.F.A. from Emerson College. His fiction, poetry and non-fiction have appeared in over a hundred fifty journals and anthologies. After editing fiction for the Beacon Street Review (now Redivider) and Zoetrope All-Story Extra, he co-founded Night Train, a literary journal which has been featured in the Boston Globe, The New York Times, and on National Public Radio. Sunnyoutside Press published a collection of his flash fiction,Breaking it Down, in November 2007. MiPOesias published his poetry chapbook Redneck Poems in October 2010. In early 2011, Sunnyoutside will publish his collection of traditional fiction, Mostly Redneck.

2010-11-15T16:32:00.000-05:00

Tonight's Feature!

The long awaited Bert Stern!

2010-11-07T22:55:00.003-05:00

November 22nd: Patrick Shaughnessy Returns

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 November 22nd, we welcome back Patrick Shaughnessy, who will be releasing a new anticipated chapbook collection of "nerd poems."

The first time Patrick S. was asked to submit a biography for a Stone Soup feature, he sat down with the intention of doing so, got distracted, and composed a rhyming sestina about Michael Dorn from "Star Trek: The Next Generation" which went on to win the Nerd Slam at the 2010 National Poetry Slam. This fact is not everything you may ever need to know about him, but it is representative.

Patrick S. was born and raised in Lowell, currently lives in Somerville, and will be debuting a chapbook entitled "The Biggest Nerd at the Poetry Slam". His previous features include Stone Soup, GotPoetry! Live, and Cantab Lounge.

2010-11-01T07:54:00.001-04:00

Reminder:

Jane Ormerod Features Tonight.