April 2nd: Charles Coe 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 the first Monday of February, Stone Soup has the pleasure of welcoming Charles Coe, who will be the first performer for our celebration of National Poetry Month.

Charles Coe is the winner of an Artist Fellowship in Poetry from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and now coordinates the Council's literature and music grant programs. His work has appeared in numerous literary reviews and magazines. A volume of his poetry, Picnic on the Moon, has been published by Leapfrog Press. Charles also appears on two spoken-word CDs: Get Ready for Boston, a collection of stories and songs about Boston neighborhoods, and on One Side of the River, an anthology of Cambridge and Somerville poets.

His poems have been set to music by composers Julia Carey, Beth Denisch and Robert Moran. In addition to poetry, Charles writes feature articles and book reviews that have appeared in publications such as Harvard Magazine, The Boston Phoenix, and The Boston Globe. Charles is also co-chair of the Boston Chapter of the National Writers Union--a labor union for freelance writers.


Inventory
For the poets of Norfolk Correctional Institution

As a child, I kept track
of certain things: crack in the sidewalk
between the bus stop and school,
names of streets between the bridge
and our family's house,
toy soldiers lined up on a shelf.

Now the list of things I've lost, or forgotten,
or thrown away, at times seems longer
than the list of what remains; this feeling
often visits uninvited, late at night,
when every breath is a footstep
measuring the miles till dawn.

But this morning, when I walked across the yard,
the sun suddenly shoved through the clouds
to warm my face,
and later I was surprised by a small kindness
from an unexpected source. This life
is not the one I would have chosen;
but I will try to keep an open hand
for the gifts is spreads each day across my path,
like Easter eggs hidden in the grass.

--Charles Coe

Stone Soup Features for March

March 5th: Bill Perrault and Sue Red.

March 12th: Poet and Venue Host Molly Lynn Watt.

March 19th: Tim Gager Returns.

March 26th: G Emil Reutter Returns.

March 26th: G. Emil Reutter 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 26th, Stone Soup will see the return of poet, fiction writer, and essayist G. Emil Reutter.

G Emil Reutter is an author/essayist and traveling poet currently hailing from Lower Bucks County Pennsylvania. His poetry, short fiction and essays have been published widely in the small and electronic press. He has presented his poetry at numerous venues in the Mid-Atlantic, Northeast and Southwest areas of the United States.

He has authored several collections to include Life Views (2004/2007), The Jonesville Collection(2004/2006) and Asphalt Road(2004/2006) published by Stone Garden, Stirring Within Poems and Tales From Mount Carmel(2006) published by Blazevox Books and Direction Unknown, a poetry chapbook forthcoming from Moon Printing and Publishing. A number of projects are in submission status.

His poetry/prose/essays have been published widely in the small and electronic press. A sample poem follows.


Shadows in the Daylight

Lurking as a stalker would
Movements invisible to most
Faint, slide and move
From building to building, image to image
Shadows in the daylight abound
Until you see one…not cast from an image
One that may not be a shadow at all

--G Emil Reutter


Click here for visit the author's website.

March 19th: Tim Gager 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 19th, Stone Soup welcomes Tim Gager back.

Timothy Gager is the author of Short Street and Twenty-SixPack, both collections of short fiction and the e-book, TheDamned Middle. His first book of poetry, The Same Corner of The Bar, is available through Ibbetson Street Press and his most recent, We Needed A Night Out, was released in 2006. He hosts the Dire Literary Series in Cambridge, Massachusetts every month and is the co-founder ofSomerville News Writers Festival.

His short stories appeared in Word Riot, Midnight Mind Magazine, Scene Boston, Theive's Jargon, The Insights Anthology, VerbSap, Swankwriting (83 Words), Story Garden and Write This Magazine. Timothy's poetry has been published in Ibbetson Street, Poems for All,Erato, Poetry Life and Times, Spare Change, The SomervilleNews, Generation X National Journal, High Horse, Third LungReview, 63 Channels and Poesy XXIV. His poetry has beennominated for two Cambridge Poetry Awards.

Timothy is the founding co-editor of The Heat City LiteraryReview and has edited the book, Out of the Blue WritersUnite: A Book of Poetry and Prose from the Out of the BlueArt Gallery.

A graduate of the University of Delaware, Timothy lives inDedham, Massachusetts and is employed as a social worker.

Click here for a sample of Tim Gager's work.

March 12th: Molly Lynn Watt 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 12th, poet, editor, and poetry host Molly Lynn Watt will be reading a selection from her new release.

Molly Lynn Watt's book of poetry, Shadow People, was released this year from Ibbetson Street Press. Her poems have appeared recently in HILR Review, South Carolina Review, Types and Shadows Review, Friends Journal, Spare Change, The Wilderness Literary Review and other places. Her other recent credits include editing the forthcoming 2006 Bagel Bards Anthology and creating the reading theater "George and Ruth: Songs and Letters of the Spanish Civil War," created and performed with Dan Lynn Watt (available on CD).

she leads poetry workshops, hosts the Cambridge Cohousing Fireside Readings (now in its 8th season) and writes daytrip articles for the Occasional Moose. A sample poem follows.


Aurora Borealis

We’ve become night travelers
creeping along Alaskan highways
for one more chance encounter.
She—beguiling hooker
draped in ruby satins—
flashes along Earth’s silhouette
doing hijinks across the skies
dazzling frost crystals in riverbeds
whispering to crackling ground
to join her juicy dance—then ripples on.

We are shadow peoples
talking her by moonlight
desirous of another glimpse
as she rides the mountain ridges.
We’ll wait all night for one caress
from her expanding waves of sheen.
But she’s a neon flirt
who swirls and flares
cavorting through celestial skies—
a good-time girl—
she soars alone.

--Molly Lynn Watt

March 5th: Bill Perrault and Sue Red 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 6th, friends and Stone Soup regulars Bill Perrault and Red return to feature.


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 and, 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 BlueWriters Unite Anthology, and his poetry can be seen on 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

Sue Red is a poetess, short story writer and jewelry maker living in Somerville, Mass. May December is her first and certainly not last book of poetry. Red grew up in northern New Jersey and didn’t start writing until after high school. Shegraduated from Vermont College, Montpelier with a B.A. in poetry andcreative writing. The focus of her thesis was Sylvia Plath’s poetry and how it wasinfluenced by her turbulent relationship with Ted Hughes. The same emotional intensity is visible in Red’s poems. She considers Sylvia a soul who guides her on her journeys, both creative and emotional. Upon moving to the Boston area, she began reading at the open mics at the Out of the Blue art gallery inCambridge. She still frequents that venue as well as others in the New England area. Red’s handmade beaded jewelry is often available at Out of the Blue as well.

Click here for a sample of Bill Perrault's work.

Click here for Sue Red's web page.

February 26th: Patrick J. Melvin Features

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 February 26th, we welcome local poet and open mike veteran Patrick J. Melvin, who has offered his bio note and sample poem as one and the same:


Rumors

not much is known about pat,
who surfaced years ago
on the cambridge poetry scene.
here are the rumors.

pat's real name is alfredo fettuccine,

and he is the offspring
of w.c. fields and marlene dietrich.

at the age of seven
pat was toilet-trained by harry potter

one of his poems came in 1st place
in the nacy locke memorial novice award
issued by the poet's roundtable of arkansas.

the difference between pat and a bowl
of peas is that the peas are greener
and possess a higher IQ.

rumor has it that this
is pat's first feature.

he has never played eddie haskell
on "leave it to beaver"
or spoken the phrase,
"nice blouse, mrs. cleavage."

pat learned all his street sense
in the bowery over trashcan fires
with the likes of tom waits
dylan and big bird.

his poetry has appeared
in the haight ashbury literary journal,
mobius, calliope, the pinehurst journal,
social anarchism, as well as other
journals in the small press field.

pat has robbed more banks
than jesse james,
but jesse's knocked off more trains.

he is the unholy union of nostradamus
and quasimodo, the prophet
of big bang and mind-zero.

in 2000 pat's poem "enigma"
(about prison violence)
was considered for a pushcart prize
by the editors of halj.

pats uncle was charles bukowski -
twice removed.

when he's not composing
magnetic poetry, pat sells
girl scout cookies in central square.

he originally wrote the book-length poem
"the wasteland" and invented
the internet (not al gore),
texas holdem, and gloves
with no fingers

the only difference between pat and
salvador dali (other than the obvious)
is that pat is truly mad.

pat is the reincarnation
of the star-spangled guitar
used by hendrix at woodstock.

--patrick j. melvin

Upcoming Stone Soup Features

Additional information to be added to the site soon.

Tonight: Welcome to Stone Soup the award-winning writer and performer J*me.

February 19th: Timothy Lagerstedt and Suzanne Masciarelli perform.

February 26th: Respected open miker Pat Melvin has his first Stone Soup feature.

March 5th: Stone Soup's Media Master Bill Perrault celebrates his birthday with a reading alongside Sue Red.

March 12th: Host of the Cambridge Cohousing Fireside Readings, Molly Lynn Watt, reads from her new book, Shadow People.

February 19th: Timothy Lagerstedt and Suzanne Masciarelli 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 February 19th, Timothy Lagerstedt reads from a collection of one hundred poems published under the title of Bohemian Bongo Poetry, with Suzanne Masciarelli on accompanying percussion.

Bohemian Bongo Poetry is a collection of short stories with varied topics constructed using a verse pair rhyming format. Plot and character composition run wild inside this experiment in creativity conducted on the streets of Boston in an intentionally compressed time capsule.

Tim Lagerstedt is an active business partner in the information venture of TS Productions. Under the pen name of Timothy Carl, TS Productions published its first novel in 2003. A second novel and several children’s books are also in the works. Lagerstedt is a native of Brockton, Massachusetts, where he currently lives. He works full time as an electrical engineer supporting an automated manufacturing operation in South Boston.

Suzanne Masciarelli plays the bongo drums during the presentation aspect of Bohemian Bongo Poetry. Suzanne is an active business partner in the TS Productions operation, personifying the intrinsically creative manifestation captured in all of their products. Born and raised in the metro-west region of Massachusetts, Suzanne relocated to Brockton in the year 2000. She attained her Associates Degree at Massasoit Community College in Brockton and now works full time as an executive administrative assistant in the biomedical business. A sample from the book follows.


Chihuahua’s sandbox stands alone in the corner,
It has become her place of honor.

Trained to piddle just like a cat,
She must see the power in that.

No more trips outside in winter,
Frozen tail despite the sweater.

In the evening when guests abound,
And people gather to expound.

About the virtue of this sacred pet,
Who spared the rug and saves the vet.

Of surgery although not voluntary,
Will assure this dog remains solitary.

Won’t be required because she’s clean,
Although at times a bit obscene.

So turn your back and hold your hat,
Because this dog is going out back.

February 12th: J*me Features


Photo by Christine Bower

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 February 12th, we welcome performance poet J*me, as he features at Stone Soup for the first time as part of a string of winter performances in the Boston area and New York.

Over the past 4 years, the award winning poet and performer J*me, who is also known as James Caroline, has made a name for himself nationally through slams and features. In February of 2006 he toured the West Coast with Def Poetry's Caroline Harvey on the highly successful, I See Red tour. His work is a rare mix of literary craft and vulnerability, and the intensity of his performances has garnered comparisons to Patti Smith. J*me was voted Best Local Author in the 2006 Boston Phoenix poll. He is a multiple winner of Cambridge Poetry Awards for Best Erotic Male Performance Poet and Best Slam Poet Male.

He has guest-lectured and performed at Mount Ida College, Hampshire College, Emerson College and Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey. In May of 2007 he will be performing and teaching at The Saints and Sinners Literary Festival in New Orleans with Dorothy Allison. He has studied with Anya Achtenberg, Patricia Smith, Regie Gibson, Sascha Feinstein, and Toni Amato. During the spring of 2004 he directed and performed in Musician and the Muse , a performance of poetry and music at The Cambridge Multicultural Arts Center featuring Nicole Terez, Tom Daley, Regie Gibson, and Iyeoka Okoawo. He has competed with two National Slam teams, and represented the Cantab Lounge in the first Individual World Poetry Slam. In 1997 he was commissioned to write the vocal text and act as artistic sound director for Naked Truths; Voices of Shame, Sexuality, and Eating Disorders in Women, which was performed at the HERE multimedia center in Manhattan. He's been published in Quarry, Subliminal, Pinned Down by Pronouns (a Lambda Literary Award Finalist for 2004), The Shadow Sacrament, the Cascadia Review, and Painted Bride Quarterly .

Click here for J*me's MySpace site for sample poems.

Click here for a recent article on J*me.

February 5th: David Cooper Features The Work of Rachel Eshed



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 February 5th, David Cooper will read from his recently published translation of Israeli poet Rachel Eshed's book Little Promises, published by Mayapple Press.

David Cooper earned an MA in creative writing at The City College of CUNY where he won the Academy of American Poets Prize. His ebooks are published by http://pulpbits.com and his poems are anthologized in XY Files: Poems On The Male Experience (Santa Fe: Sherman Asher Publishing, 1997). His translation of Israeli poet Rachel Eshed's second book Havtachot Ktanot (Little Promises) is published by Mayapple Press. His poems and translations have appeared or are forthcoming in numerous periodicals. He was a finalist in the 1999 Snake Nation Press book contest, has been a semi-finalist in several other national contests, and was nominated for a 2006 Pushcart Prize. He is seeking a print publisher for his two ebooks of original poems.

Rachel Eshed's first book , Hayiti Rak Mifratz (I was Only An Inlet) was published in 1988 by Eked. In 1995 her second book, Havtachot Ktanot (Little Promises) was published by Kibbutz Hameuchad. In 1992 the manuscript of this book was awarded the ACUM Prize (ACUM is the Israeli equivalent of ASCAP) in a blindly judged competition. Poems from this book were published in daily newspapers and in the periodical Aley Siach (Shrub Leaves). In 1999 her third book, Shkufa Bachalon (Transparent In The Window), was published by Carmel. In 2001 the book was awarded the Bernstein Prize for Original Hebrew Poetry.Her fourth book, Regesh Hu Mutarot (Feeling Is A Luxury) is forthcoming next year from Carmel.

In its Hebrew original, this collection of intense erotic poetry won the 1992 ACUM prize in Israel. Novelist Tsipi Keller says, "It is hard to speak of Rachel Eshed's poetry without mentioning 'fire' : her poems virtually burn on the page, and David Cooper's renditions not only do justice to the original but magnify its richness." One of the poems in this book has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

Click here for David Cooper's web site.

Click here for a sample of David Cooper's poetry.

Click here for a sample of Rachel Eshed's Poetry.

January 29th: Adam Thielker Returns


Photo by Bill Perrault

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 January 29th, open mike faithful Adam Thielker returns to Stone Soup for another well-deserved feature. His first Chapbook, Rat Tar Art, will be availabe the day of the feature.

Adam Thielker has written and performed his own poetry in Cambridge since 2002. He started reading at the Cantab's Boston Poetry Slam, but does not slam. He just reads. The first evening he came to Stone Soup at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery, both Jack Powers and Bill Barum recited while lying on the floor, under the watchful eye of Bill Perrault and his video camera. He felt he had found a home. Shortly afterward, Bill Perrault asked him to feature.

Within a year, a feature at the Cantab followed, as well as a further feature at Stone Soup at the request of Chad Parenteau. Now with the arrival of Rat Tar Art, just in time for a third Stone Soup Feature, the public at large may take his work home and put it on their own shelves.

A sample poem follows below:


The First Christmas
After The Last Supper

Across the air
The hungry band
In every town around
On empty pots and pans
Make empty clang
To Justice.
Where is justice?

Their hungry songs
Loudly din
Beat by empty spoons
Herding the echoes
Into the square.
Where is the King?
Where is supper?


--Adam Thielker

January 22nd: Ron Goba and Keith Nystrom 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 January 22nd, Stone Soup once again celebrates the influential Friends of Poetry with Ron Goba Keith Nystrom.

Ron Goba is a retired english teacher (a career he began in 1958), a member of Friends of Poetry, and the author of such collections as The Music Box, The Custom of Quoting Someone, and his most recent, Collage As Silkscreen. For several years, he was known as the doorman for the weekly Boston Poetry Slam at the Cantab.

Keith Nystrom first started writing and reading poetry at the Cantab Lounge in Cambridge Massachusetts.He has been published in Defined Providence and Sensations Magazine, and is the co-founder of the small press publishing group Friends of Poetry.He currently workshops poems with Ronald J. Goba, Nathaniel Connors , and Prabakar T. Rajan.

Click here for a sample of Ron Goba's work.

Click here for a sample of Keith Nystrom's work.

Reminder

Coleen T. Houlihan and Chris Robbins read tonight at Stone Soup.

We apologize for the lack of posting over the last month. Expect more posts and news soon.

Upcoming Features

January 8th: Coleen T. Houlihan and Chris Robbins.

January 15th: Poet and Editor Christine Gelineau has her first Stone Soup feature.

January 22nd: Friends of Poetry Ron Goba and Keith Nystrom.

January 29th: Adam Thielker has another well-deserved feature.

January 15th: Christine Gelineau Features


Photo by Jonathan Dunlap

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 January15th, Stone Soup welcomes Christine Gelineau as well as surprise guest readers from the upcoming French Connections anthology.

Christine Gelineau is the author of Remorseless Loyalty, which was published this year by Ashland Poetry Press as the winner of the Richard Snyder Memorial Prize. Remorseless Loyalty has been nominated for the Los Angeles Times Book Awards. She is also the author of two chapbooks from FootHills Publishing, North American Song Line (2001) and In the Greenwood World (2006), and the co-editor (with Jack Bedell) of French Connections: A Gathering of Franco-American Poets (forthcoming in 2007). Gelineau's poetry, essays and reviews have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including Prairie Schooner, Connecticut Review, The Iron Horse Review, Green Mountains Review, Georgia Review, American Literary Review and others. Her poems have twice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and her essay "Foal Watch" is cited as a "Notable Essay" in the 2004 Best American Essays. Gelineau lives on a farm in upstate New York. She teaches at Binghamton University, where she is Associate Director of the Creative Writing Program and coordinator of the Readers' Series. She also teaches poetry in the low-residency graduate writing program at Wilkes University.

Click here for samples of Gelineau's work.

January 8th: Coleen T. Houlihan and Chris Robbins Feature

Photos by Bill Perrault

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 January 8th, Stone Soup celebrates the first feature of the year with the unlikely pairing of Stone Soup regulars Coleen T. Houlihan and Chris Robbins.



Coleen T. Houlihan is a novelist and poet who studiedwriting at Wellesley College. She has featured atStone Soup, Best Sellers, the Sherman Cafe and WaldenPoetry Series and published poetry in The Alewife, TheWilderness House Literary Review, Ibbetson StreetPress, Spare Change and abroad. Her poetry could bedescribed as sensual, magical, light and dark, withimages so vivid you can lose yourself in herhauntingly beautiful world. She has released twochapbooks, the most recent titled, This Human Heart, acollection of eight poems spanning several years.



Chris Robbins was born in Boston, MA, in 1965, not that this crap is actually important. He graduated Whitman-Hanson High in 1984, earning a B. S. degree ('cause, fact it people, that's all a high school diploma is really worth these days). In 1993, after writing poetry and otherwise wasting ink for nine years, Chris wrote a bunch of fixed form poems and, attempting to emulate one of his favorite classic rock bands, Jethro Tull, self-published a chapbook called Bard's Ambition. Now, 14 years later, he's at it again, this time with a chapbook of love and human equality poetry, appropriately called Love Among Equals.

Samples of both poets' work follow.


Sitting alone in a bar

Sepia distills from fixtures
into my clear, cold glass.
We both sit at the round table,
big enough for three or four
but I am the only one breathing, breathing.
Shallow inhalations, I will my ribcage
to lean outward, daring it to enter
the surrounding world.
My foot is not a follower,
it tabs beat to music
whose lyrics are lost
to immediate human sound.
Gregarious little fool-
no horror movie is this,
I have it by the bone, tissue, cartilage.
I have it by the root.
It stops moving.

My body is contorted into four limbs
and an Eiffel Tower spine.
I think I have trapped my soul too
but the eyes dart about,
dart about, look alive.
We know what happens to the doe
who under car lights freezes.
But what about her eyes?

I’ve always been untouchable.
I’ve always been teasing.
I’ve always been untouchable,
silently, secretly, bleeding.

Sepia distills.
It is my blood in this room.
I am the warden of my body;
she says I will die in this tomb.


--Coleen T. Houlihan


Womanist Writer's Day
Dedicated to the authors of Home Girls; A Black Feminist Anthology

Ebony Sappho, I love and admire you dearly
Even though I'll never wear your ring,
You brought me nurturing wisdom that helps me see clearly
so I'll praise your homegirl spirit when I sing.
You write about natural hair and nurturing ties.
Forsaking the fake shield of silence to fight repression,
You take a stand against homophobic lies
and the doublethink that causes your double oppression.
With empathic insight and independent grace,
You rescue your sisters from shackles of abuse and fear.
When you valiantly speak your voice in a feminist place,
We know for a fact we'll find no bull "sheep" around here!
In conclusion, succinctly put, I have to say
that we should declare a "Womanist Writer's Day."


--Chris Robbins

Tonight

Enzo Surin Features.

Come back to this website later this week for more updates, including holiday information and the first features of 2007.

Upcoming

A list of future features as Stone Soup winds down for the year.

November 27th: Poet, comedian, artist, and activist Janet Cormier.

December 4th: Paul Hapenny visits Stone Soup before heading back to Hollywood.

December 11th: Enzo Surin brings his new chapbook to his feature.

December 18th: The return of Aldo Tambellini.

December 18th: Aldo Tambellini Features


Photo by Anna Salamone

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 December 18, Aldo Tambelllini returns to Out of The Blue and Stone Soup.

Aldo Tambellini was born in Syracuse, New York in 1930, his father from Sao Paolo, Brazil, his mother from Italy. He was taken to Italy at the age of eighteen months where he lived in Lucca (Tuscany). At the age of ten, he was enrolled in the Scuola D'Arte, A. Passaglia. His neighborhood was bombed during WWII; twenty-one of his friends and neighbors died and he miraculously survived. In 1946, Aldo returned to the United States. With a full scholarship at Syracuse University he received a BFA in Painting, '54 and a Teaching Fellowship at the University of Notre Dame, '59, studying with world-renowned sculptor, Ivan Mastrovic.

Aldo moved to New York City, Lower East Side, in the summer of '59. He was the founder of the artistic underground, counter-culture group called 'Group Center" which connected painters, sculptors, poets, photographers, musicians and dancers active outside of the art establishment, organizing alternative ways and non-traditional presentation of the artists work to the public. They engaged in social-political activities. In 1965, he began painting directly on film beginning his "Black Film Series" of which, "Black TV," (made using both film and video) was the winner of the International Grand Prix, Oberhausen Film Festival, 1969 and is in the Museum of Modern Art Collection.

Simultaneously, Aldo began a series of "Electromedia Performances" which organically brought together, projected paintings, film, video, poetry, light, dance, sound and live musicians which The New York Herald Tribune called Tambellini's Rebellion in Art Form. The last performance, "Black Zero,"part of Intermedia 68, was at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, NY. In '66, Aldo and Elsa Tambellini founded the Gate Theatre, in New York's East Village, the only daily public theatre showing avant-garde independent filmmakers. In 1967, he co-founded with Otto Piene, the Black Gate, a second theatre which presented live multi-media (Electromedia) performances and installations.

He pioneered in the video art movement in the late 60's and his first video was broadcast on ABC TV News NY in '67. With Otto Piene, Aldo created "Black Gate Cologne," the first national TV broadcast by artists in Cologne Germany, in '68. Aldo was part of the first broadcast by artists, "Medium is the Medium," on WBGH, Boston, MA. In '69. For his media work, he received several grants from the NY State Council for the Arts and exhibited extensively in the United States, Europe, Brazil and Japan. He participated in the Sao Paolo Biennale in Brazil in '83.

From 1976 to 1984, Aldo was a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Visual Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. As a Fellow at CAVS he conducted workshops and organized with "communicationsphere" as series of international interactive Media Communication Projects. Although Aldo was involved in writing poetry most of his life, since '84, he has concentrated on writing and performing his poetry with music, video projection, and has participated in many radio shows and countless poetry venues. He ran his own venue called "The People's Poetry" in Cambridge, MA. He has been published in journals, magazines and several anthologies. His poems have been translated into Italian, Sicilian and Russian. Most recently, his visual poems have been exhibited in Berlin, Germany at the No! ART Show and at the Altered Esthetics Gallery, in the Guerilla Art Exhibit, in Minnisota. He is a founding member of "Poets Against the Killing Fields<" an anti-war group of political and social poets in Massachusetts. He has produced his first digital film, "Listen" which incorporates his anti-war and political poetry, animation/video and film clips. This film premiered at the HOWL Festival in 2004 in New York City. And won First Place in the Short Experimental Film by an Independent Filmmaker category at the at the New England Film Festival in October 2005 and the Syracuse International Film Festival in 2006. The film has been chosen to be screened in several film festivals throughout the United States and Europe. The digital triptych,-1 (Minus One) was presented at the 2005 HOWL Festival in New York City and includes pieces of Aldo's early video work, poetry and digital images.

Click here for a sampling of the author's work.

December 11th: Enzo Surin Features


Photo by Lila Khan

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 December 11th, Enzo Surin returns to familiar ground to promote his new chapbook from Finishing Line Press, Higher Ground.

Enzo Surin, born in Petion-ville, Haiti in 1977, migrated to Queens, New York in 1986 where he spent most of his youth. A graduate of Framingham State College in Framingham, MA with a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology, he has counseled college students, presented on diversity related topics, conflict mediation and health and wellness. A recipient of a Salem State Poetry Seminarscholarship, Enzo’s poems have appeared in The Caribbean Writer, Soundings East, Pine Island Journal of New England Poetry, Red River Review, Firefly Magazine, Poetry Magazine, among other literary journals. He is a member of the Virginia Writer’s Club and currently serves as editor for Joy of Writing, a literary publication for Literacy Volunteers of Charlottesville/Albemarle County in Charlottesville, VA. He founded and served as editor of Introspection, a former Wentworth Institute of Technology literary newsletter. Enzo has participated in poetry readings inNew Jersey, Chicago, New York, and Massachusetts and is a regular reader at the Out of the Blue Art Gallery in Cambridge, MA. He currently resides in Boston, MA, where he works for Bunker Hill Community College Library and looks to continue his involvement with literacy efforts.

Photo and bio from author's website, which can be visited by clicking here. A sample poem follows.

poetry in nine rounds

I

night canvas is serene, absent of patrol,
void of the undercover vignettes that swing
through these tenements in search of rock cubes—
the national symbol of withered urbanites.

old-laced Converses perform a high wire act
on the avenue, an anthology's written in their fade.
laughter on the corner vibrates like the bass in a drum.
outside Papi's Bodega, a chromed-wheel Escalade

multiplies the ghost of Tupac Shakur from its speakers:
I wonder if heaven's got a ghetto.
the night drowns in a native glare, suffocating
this thug air, and lays down bereft of memories.

inside, young black order chase arcade mortality
with quarters. any landscape is better than the one here.
each step taken toward higher ground feels cold and lonely—
we inherit this grief each day we step into the a.m.

II

these blacks faces with razor smiles
are my brothers and my sisters;
crowd of trees forms the pillars behind them,
cracked concrete forms the foundation.

stones on the side of roads filled with weed
and old tires, broke down hearts and old hymns,
have been resting for decadent years; laid to rest
for reasons that still forge through this hood:
segregation, thuglife, mismanagement of love....

their residue linking old-school and new generational heroes:
the rapper, the ball-player, the comedian—no longer
the granddads, the grandmamma, the preachers—their spirituals
lost in this modern urban parable.

we wonder why our children face the day malnourished,
when no new heroes tell them to stay away from the river;
no one tells them it is not the Nile—it is manmade on this side,
it is a battered woman, birthing dead fish from her womb.

III

the sidewalk
folds
into the man
who staggered in a hooded sweatshirt,
pant leg in blood, pale as I've ever seen
dark skin, eyes loaded ready to cock-back,
his gaze landing a thickness in my stomach.

i've seen it before.
we've seen it before
in the retreat of our living room
where words come cleaner and men
in costumed clothing grapple with prepared lines.

but this isn't a movie—

—this is Winthrop and Thorndale
where an elementary school rounds the corner,
where the men in white tee-shirts hem up foot traffic;
their chambers usually loaded, but today
empty as winter flower boxes.


--Enzo Surin

December 4th: Paul Hapenny Features

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 December 4th, we welcome Paul Hapenny, who will take time off from his busy schedule to read a selection of his poetry.

The Boston and Nova Scotia based, mixed race, playwright and screenwriter, Paul Hapenny, has had a long and productive career in legitimate theatre and feature films. He’s the screenwriter of more than a dozen screenplays including "Vig" for Lion’s Gate, "The Insider" for Jerry Bruckheimer /Paramount Pictures, "The Untitled Paul Hapenny Project" for WB, "Nest of Vipers" for MGM and more.

His plays including"Vig," "Vignettes of a Masculine Tableau," and "Sacrament" have been produced to great acclaim and have won multiple awards in Canada, the US and Overseas. The Los Angeles Times called "Vig" "one of the best American plays. He’s scheduled to direct his newest play, "March Morning Frost," starring the Stratford Ontario Shakespeare Festival‘s leading man, Victor Talmadge in Los Angeles in the Spring.

Paul has also been a News Reporter for CBC English and Radio Canada French News Services. He covered Canadian politics for La Presse Canadienne/Canadian Press. He’s recently returned to writing poetry. It’s a discipline he hasn’t attempted since his first tentative readings at Stone Soup Poetry more than 25 years ago.

Paul attributes his writing abilities to a fortuitous blend of Native American and Irish ancestors. "All of my ancestors, Celtic and Aboriginal were grounded in a storytelling tradition. No one I knew ever told a joke. It was always a performance piece. And both ethnic groups had the inherent ability to laugh at life’s absurdities. The worse a situation got, the harder they laughed. I hope my work can honor even a fraction of what those two peoples and their cultures passed down to me."

A sample poem follows below.


A Novia Scotia Winter's Lament

Winter naked branches
hold stark against a slate grey sky
a lost goose circles
trying to find south
in a season stayed far too long

My back molds to the rock
embracing pain of sharp edges
and the salt tang haunts
longings of your sex
wet around my insistent tongue

Marsh grass brown and bending
under January’s frozen grip
will it green again
under April sun
and complete the ancient cycle

I look to Gunning Cove
across the bay houses huddled
against wind and wave
wood smoke chimney’s scent
a house, a home, I’ve never known

An old Cape Islander
inshore bound riding low with catch
and trumpeted by
squalling gulls returns
to talk and glance and fevered nights

Oh how much I envy
simple joys and so much I would
give to you if you
would only see me
here shorn of pretense and of pride

The wind tacks sou’east from
Sandy Point whipping whitecaps into
fine salt spray nettles
rend my flesh and pain
validates the depth of my want


From water we have come
to water I would go if I
possessed the courage
to dive into the
icy blue harbor of your eyes

But it’s just a pipedream
a desperation born not of
loss but of never
having held your breath
in mine my flesh in yours as one

Winter naked branches
gash thickening snow pregnant clouds
a lost goose settles
tries to save itself
and brays all alone at the storm


--Paul Hapenny

Stone Soup on the 13th

Tony Brown features tomorrow.

Look back here later next week for updates and features for the month of December.

Stone Soup Tonight

Luke Warm Water Performs Tonight.

Reminder

Rick McIntyre reads on October 30th.

October 21st: John Hodgen to Feature at Open Bark

Open Bark is Deb Priestly's open mike event that happens every Saturday night starting at 8:00 p.m. at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery at 106 Prospect Street in Cambridge. This week, Open Bark will feature poet Shrewsbury native John Hodgen will be reading from his new book, Grace.

Winner of the 2005 Donald Hall Prize in Poetry. Hodgen, who teaches writing at Assumption College in Worcester, has two other prize-winning books, and his poems, according to Ha Jin, National Book Award winner and professor at Boston University, contain "a voice that speaks directly from the heart."

His publications include the anthologies Witness and Wait: Thirteen Poets From New England and Something and We Teach Them All: Teachers Writing About Diversity. His other honors include the Grolier Prize in Poetry in 1980 and an Arvon Foundation Award (Kensington, England) in 1981.

Open Bark Announces Features


Photo by Bill Perrault

The Open Bark is Deb Pirestly's open mike event that occurs every Saturday night at the Out of the Blue Art Gallery on 106 Prospect Street in Cambridge, starting at 8:00.

Priestly has recently teamed with Mike Amado (pictured above, from his October 2nd Stone Soup performance) in an effort to start including regular features at the Open Bark.

A seperate web site and email adress for the Open Bark will be announced soon. Those interested in featuring for the Open Bark can send an email to stonesouppoetry@yahoo.com for the time being.

Upcoming Stone Soup Features

October 9th: Deborah Priestly reads from her upcoming book.

October 16th: Multi-media visual and performance artist Poet Radiant Jasmin features.

October 23rd: Joe Santos, AKA Santos Sussio has his first feature ever at Stone Soup.

October 30: The return of Ryk McIntire!

November 6th: Poet and Activist Luke Warm Water features.

November 13th: Performance Poet Tony Brown returns.

November 20th: Open mike regular Gordon Marshall gets a 30 minute window.

November 27th: Poet, Commedian and Visual Artist Janet Cormier Features.

November 27th: Janet Cormier Features



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 November27th, poet, commedian, visual artist, activist and organizer Janet Cormier shows off her many hats at Stone Soup.

"I have been writing all my life. Before I could read or write, I loved creating stories. Once I learned the alphabet there was no stopping me.

"I started writing poetry in jr. high school. It started with a homework asignment. Our teacher brought in a stack of photos. She said to pick one and write a poem about the photo. In the last couple of years, I have writeen poems about that experience and about writing poetry.

"I also do stand-up comedy and am a visual artist. I have always been an artist, but didn't claim the title until 1999. At the same time I started doing stand-up comedy. The combination works well for me. My process is that I start out paining, but the image becomes verbal, and it turns into a poem or a joke. I find that the different media inspire the images, mood and rhythym of my work."

Cormiers' writing has appeared in local newspapers. She has read in Cambridge, Jamaica Plain, Malden as well as various local TV programs, most redcently for Somerville Community Access Television. She hosted a reading for the Franklin Libray in Franklin, Massachusetts and currently hosts Cormier's Comedy Madness every month at All Asia, located on 334 Mass Ave in Cambridge.

A sample poem follows below.

Worlding

Our rights, like leaves
dragged into a muddy whirlpool.
I can barely see the Stature of Liberty!

--Janet Cormier

November 20th: Gordon Marshall Features



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 November 20th, Gordon Marshall, a regular in Stone Soup's weekly open mike, will have the chance to flex his muscles for an entire thirty minute feature.

This will be Gordon Marshall's first solo reading since Jack Powers featured him at Charlie's Tap in the summer of 1986. Gordon was born in New Haven, CT, in 1963. He has been writing poetry, with some periods of down time, for 25 years, balancing the practice, like most poets, with work and school. He worked for several years in the financial industry, received a degree at UMass Boston, and went back into the financial scene to get an M.A. in English in December 2005.

over a period of twenty years, Gordon has surreptitiously moved from a neo-classical style, to one that may be described as neo-surrealist. His photographic treatments of nature written in metric forms in the '80's have given way to recent prose and free-verse outings, where shots of nature and urban life rub up against spectral memories and deconstructed dreams. Think Cesar Vallegjo growing up in Surburban Boston.

Marshall grew up in surburban Boston (Hingham) on the South Shore. He attended both public and private schools. He liked drawing and music, and studied jazz and classical piano at the South Shore Conservatory in Hingham. He like to ski as a child--enjoying it more an exceling at it-- and he also liked, and continues to like, to sail around the Boston Harbor islands. All these things infuse his poetry.

Marshall's hero is William Wordsworth, and his ambition is to realize Wordsworth's vision of the Philosophic Poem. He works at a bookstore and would like to teach creative writing someday. He lives in Boston's North End. A sample poem follows.


Player Piano

Blow my dreams into dust, dirt darling; tear out my tongue and hang it on a hook. Twist my eyes like tangerines, and tell my dirtiest secrets to your sister. Sleep with me under the stars of soap operas; spill my seed into the stream of your thought. Hang out with me at the club on 52nd Street, where the cool-jazz clarinetist climbs his chords. Pick up a flute and blow blue notes in my ear. I'll buy you a mint julep, a plate of non pareilis and a canape. I'll suck on your straw and steer your hand to the remote on the camel hair couch. Let's watch the fish flow across the flat screen TV. Let's linger in the lava lamp light. Let's walk outside to my walk-up, and wheel through William Shakespeare, or William Wordsworth, or William Blake. For love's sake, take a break from heartache; rake the flakes of flaring from the brakes of shame. Verify the verve of the verse. Clarify the clusters of luster, dust off the must of my soul. Let it roll.

--Gordon Marshall

November 13th: Tony Brown Features



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 November 13th, Stone Soup welcomespoet and venue host Tony Brown back to Stone Soup.

Tony Brown is an award winning published poet and performer whose work straddles the line between page and stage. His work has appeared in journals such as The Furnace Review, The November 3rd Club, Home Planet News; his poems have been anthologized in volumes such as 100 Poets Against the War (Salt Publishing) and In Our Own Words: Poems from Generation X (MPW Books). He has been involved with slam poetry for many years in many capacities, has read and performed his work all over the US, and currently runs a reading series in Providence RI. He also is a columnist at gotpoetry.com. A sample poem--previously unpublished--follows below.

German

He announces that the poem
he'll be reading is a gift
from the ancient ones
unveiling the dangers of the coming
ultra-fascism.
Then he begins in German
and if he could speak German
at anything more
than a freshman level
we might find
less menace to his voice.
Instead the elementary cadence
marches uninflected
over art into history.
We catch snips of words
and phrases, some in English:
holy war,
Taliban,
Allah,
Jehovah,
Freemasons,
KGB.
We shift in our seats,
startle when he reaches
under his shirt. Nothing
is forthcoming but no one
relaxes. His voice rises
to a near shout. He concludes
with English: "man cannot destroy
the earth, he is of the earth." We
are not comforted, we who are in
this room full of smart people terrified by
a strange man reading a bad poem
in halting German. But when he is done
we applaud, looking around to see
who is applauding, who is not, who sees us
applauding.

--Tony Brown

November 6th: Luke Warm Water Features



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 November 6th, Stone Soup welcomes poet and activist Luke Warm Water.

Luke Warm Water is an enrolled member of the Oglala Lakota tribe who was born and raised in Rapid City, South Dakota. Luke writes within the context of contemporary American Indians, mostly within urban communities. Many of his poems contain unsafe topics; they have perspectives of racial issues past and present, along with adult themes and content. But his poems also have a sense of hope and a thread of humor, often dark humor.

In 2005, Luke was awarded two artist fellowships for his poetry. Since 2000, Luke has featured at poetry venues throughout the U.S. and in Europe. He also won several Poetry Slams from Oregon to Germany. Recent publication credits include: Drumvoices Revue, Cold Mountain Revue and Red Ink. In 2005 Luke released his latest collection of poems titled On Indian Time along with his animated short film titled Iktomi And The Food Stamp Incident.

Luke is an activist for Indigenous people’s rights, especially in the cause to help free the unjust incarceration of American Indian activist Leonard Peltier. A sample poem follows below.


Art of Huffing Paint

When the green lizard is gone
while you're on the wrong planet
whom silver and gold are your best friends
where train tracks run behind Safeway
Mills Drug Store and Don Margo's Liquor store
near the viaduct from which that sign
proudly proclaimed
'North Rapid, A Great Place'
circa 1970's Rapid City, SD
Pass out drainage tunnels or
in thickets on abandoned lots
empty Wonder Bread bags
of modern day warrior dreams unfulfilled
Riding my orange Schwinn banana seat bicycle
with the cool black racing stripe fenders
innocence of summer break days
grades take new meaning when
up hill peddling with only one gear
coasting down all too familiar
cracked pavement streets
gravel alleys soaked with black oil
dirt walking paths
keeping my distance
from those unfortunate misplaced
spirited warrior ghosts
my fear stronger than compassion
Maneuvering my bike between
broken wine bottles
pot holes
big rocks
avoiding wipeouts
like a slalom downhill skier
going
for the bronze medal
In turn peddling takes on new meaning
when there are no more food stamps to sell
items stolen or fished out of dumpsters
for Safeway and Mills Drug Store
and a parking lot re-sale
not enough change for a jug
from Don Margo's Liquor store
so go find that hidden in the weeds
spray paint can again
I had witnessed
too many brown faces with
silver and gold stained lips
not yet comprehending at that young age
this could have been my future


--Luke Warm Water

October 30th: Ryk McIntyre Features

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 October 30th, Stone Soup celebrates the return of Ryk McIntyre.

Ryk McIntyre is a three-time National Poetry Slam Team member, as well as Co-host at The Cantab Poetry Reading. He has toured nationally and in Canada, opening for acts as varied as Leon Redbone and Jim Carroll, as well as appearing as part of Lollapalooza 1994. He performed in "The Legends Of Slam" Showcase at NPS2006. He has been published in Short-Fuse- An Anthology Of New Fusion Poets, 100 Poets Against The New World Order, Nth Position Magazine and The Worcester Review. He is a known biped, and he has pretty blue eyes.

Click here for a sample poem published in Nth Position Magazine.

Tonight, October 2nd

Mike Amado Features.

Return to this blog later this week for more updates for October and November.

Reminder

Stewart Florsheim Features This Monday, September 25th.

In memory of Simon Schattner (1957-2006)



What Follows are two eulogies that were written for Simon Schattner in August. A collection of poetry to mark Simon's passing is in the works.

In Honor of Simon

When I remember Simon, what I visualize is a happy spirit who finally felt that his life was coming together. The last time I saw Simon, we were sitting together in Carberry's coffee shop having a chai and coffee, while he talked about how fulfilled he felt because he had joined a new temple where he would be taking classes and the people were so friendly and accepting. He talked about visiting his parents and nieces and that he felt like things in his life were better than ever except for the fact that he hadn't met the woman of his dreams yet. I remember hearing him say, "Well, maybe I'll meet her soon enough. That's the only thing needs to happen for me, but other than that, things are great!"

He then spoke about how through most of his life, he had to deal with depression, but that through friends and therapy, and a wonder outlet of poetry of music, he had learned to appreciate his life. He smiled more times that night than I ever remembered, and I felt like I had met the "real" Simon for the first time. He mentioned that he felt like his website was a major accomplishment and that coming to the Out of The Blue Art Gallery was a Godsend for him.

Our conversation faltered a bit, and he asked me if I was okay in a very genuine way. He had heard that I suffered from manic depression and epilepsy and knew that I had problems in the past year, which led me to the hospital. He said in an encouraging way that I looked great and that he only hoped the best for me. He reminded me that I played an integral role in the community and in his life. It was the best cup of coffee I had ever had. There was much sincerity deep in the soul of this man.

Simon to me was always a poet. I believe he had the spirit of a poet - pure, honest and highly creative. He also had a great sense of humor and never missed a beat in letting others feel welcomed and warm inside. I do miss him and as a tribute to him, I will be attending Temple Beth Shalom because he convinced me that there was something good that it had to offer. He said that it changed his life and that he couldn't wait to learn more about his religion again. I do believe that he is accomplishing that feat on a higher plane!

Goodbye Simon!

--Deborah Priestly


Simon's Song: In Memoriam

I knew Simon the length of the shine of a firefly. If I had known that he would soon be gone forever, I would have tried to know him better. Yet still to me and to countless others, he was not a complete stranger. Because you see, Simon chose to share his story through poetry. Daring to expose his trembling heart by placing it in our hands like jiggling Jell-O. And through the night through the rustling whispers of trees that tell tall tails, I had heard that Simon had survived some somber strife in his life, but much to my chagrin, he could not survive the dark claws of death. They say that when you die you suddenly become enlightened.

I wonder if Simon has all the answers now. Yeah, I wonder. My memory of Simon was vague since our acquaintanceship was equally vague. However I do remember a couple of not so vague interactions with him. The first being when he bought my first poetry book Sparks in the Dark. After he bought my book, he looked me with transfixed eyes and said, "Thanks Jacques, I think I need this book."

I never quite understood what he meant by that. I found his statement to be profoundly simple, but the potential meanings behind it profoundly complex. Since Simon's impression on me was complex. The next time he saw me at the Out of the Blue Gallery, he uttered, "Jacques, your book is kicking my ass." Yet again, I never truly knew what that meant, so I decided to take it as a compliment. Since Simon seemed to me benevolent, I did not question his comment. The other encounter with Simon was Out of the Blue once again. We were having an outside reading to mourn the dying amber of summer. Simon got up and read one of his works from memory.

After he was done, I remember thinking, "Simon, you deserve a standing ovation." But I wasn't brave enough then to give him one. I am brave enough now. In that moment, I realized that I was amongst friends, amongst family, amongst artistry consumed in the sunny swallow of creativity, where artists stand on the shoulders of each other nursing yearnings of building a brighter future. And Simon was an artist of the highest caliber, but was as humble as a dying fire. Now Simon is living yes living under a different sort of weather as a winged white horse transfer parts of his soul into the hearts of those of whom he made an indelible impression like crystallized imprints to mitigate our tensions. And as I speak these words today in the grandeur of the heart of this Cambridge community, the legendary Out of the Blue Gallery, I shiver as I feel Simon's essence hanging on the walls, immortalized and forever free in the world of art and beauty. And that's the way it should be. I'm just sorry he had to die in my poetry.

--Jacques "The Hatian FireFly" Fleury

October 23rd: Joe Santos Features



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. October 23rd marks the first feature of popular open mike poet and actor Joe Santos, aka Santossussio.

Whether dodging bullets in the movie Heat or precision driving on Bone Collector, Santosussio has done a number of things in an industry full of things to do, including going to San Diego to perform historical reenactments in Old Town as well as historic role playing as a Mexican bandito raiding Mormon camps in El Centro, CA.

From there, Santo went into stand-up in local clubs in and around San Diego and LA, where he met a writer for the Drew Carey show, allowing him to spend the next three T.V. seasons in a steady gig, as one of the local bar patrons drinking near beer all day, as well as doing feature parts as a stand-in and one line small parts in other productions around an industry town.

In NYC he performed in a few feature films, mostly driving as a precision driver and doing a bit part on Sopranos. With the New York City Opera in Lincoln Center, Santo performed an understudy role as a bumbling waiter in La Boheme as well as being part of the stuntmen team in Macbeth. He also claims the right to being the only actor to be hit on stage by a car in any production of New York City Opera. While working for New York State Theater he was a supernumerary for universal ballet’s production of La Bayadere.

Locally, he has performed with the Salem Theatre Company production in a principal role as Greg in A.R. Gurney’s Sylvia and a principal in a Delvena dinner theatre company production.
Currently, he’s writing a one-man show of Copley Square in Boston observations from a street corner and performing spoken word/poetry on a regular basis at the Cantab and Lizard lounge in Cambridge, Mass. He held his first poetry slam showcase for the “Copley School of Language” drama department in the Boston school system this past school year. Santo was featured on a panel of poets this past summer at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy.

He just finished taping a part as one of the slam poets for an episode of a children’s series on WGBH called “Fetch with ruff ruffman” on location at Club Passim in Cambridge. It will be airing early next year on PBS. Santo will be performing at the Niagra Bar in the East Village on October 26th. A sample poem follows.


Observation from a street corner named

Hey Reggie/ check this out hey young lady/ you dropped something/ yea your smile. Hey here comes Cagney/ and lacey/ or is that Kate and Allie/, nope it’s Laverne and Shirley/. Joey/ what can brown do for you? Overnight guaranteed delivery for two/.

How bout this one/ hey you have something/ on your back pocket/ yea right there/ oh yea/ it’s my eyeballs. say What/?!! I said is that an ipod/ you bipod/?

How bout this one/ did you hear about Mel Gibson/? his publicist/ is putting out a press release/ Mel say’s he’s sorry/ what he meant to say was, I’m not anti-Semitic publickly/, just privately/….. On a lighter brown Arab note of currency, the press release said he should play well in Arab countries/. Arab lawyers are already talking about suing him for intellectual properties/. Saying they hated the Jews first.

Hey Gary/, Tommy/.,… the broom just asked me/ when was the last time I had sex/….oh honey/ that’s like asking a lady/ her age or what comes next/, they won’t lie and you shouldn’t ask/.

Did you here about the Hezbollah splinter groups/ and off shoots/….yea there’s fezbollah/ for the guys with the turbines/, lezbollah a new women’s movement/, and there’s a new candy for the kids after the suicides/ pezbollah/

Hey Gary this is so gay/. Joey I’m gay/. Why does everyone have to interpret everything I say/?
Hey Gary/, Tommy/ thought I was gay/,.. What did you say/ no but I root for your team. Ya know what they say/ every guy is only a six pack away/ from being…. bisexual.

Remember that movie/ with mitt Romney/ as Pontius Pilate/ and woody/ Allen as Jesus fogediboutit/ “everything you wanted to know about Mormons but was afraid to ask/”. Are the nights of templar Jewish/, or are they a secret sect of Mason, Muslim, Druze, Agnostic, Mormons, I’ll bet they’re Danish/ try explaining the history of communism to mental patients/ The Guantanamo years of Jesus/

ya know all men are created equal, let me show you the poll figures Catholics and Jews are almost as low as Mormons when it comes to winning the presidency/ so it’s gonna be a tough hall for Romney/

Don’t forget When you go to the Dubai steamship port authority for that job application/

Make sure you check that you’re an islamaphob infidel in the land of the great Satan/. Praying to Dearborn, Michigan/.

Hey did you hear about Israel attacking the lesbinese/, hey I know Israel/ he’s working in San Diego/ please/.

Where you from brother?

I’m Sikh/ don’t freak/

You’re Sikh/ I’m sorry I hope you get better

No I don’t mean sick I’m Sikh.......

Yea I know you already told me that.... no Sikh Indian/ Ohh now you gotta bring race in the picture/ didn’t they give you guys gamblin’/…. No from Indonesia/ ohh now you gonna blame us for amnesia/. Hey what do you think about those new guinea’s in East Asia/.

October 16th: Radiant Jasmin Features



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 October 16th, Radiant Jasmin has her first Stone Soup feature.

Radiant Jasmin is a multi-media visual and performance artist. Her mediums are: dance, jewelry making, painting, singing/songwriting, poetry, and theater. She recently began to weave together her art forms and by doing so has become a stronger creative force. Her art focuses on helping people to love themselves, each other and respect the earth. It is autobiographical at times, deeply reflecting her study of yoga, midwifery and interpersonal relationships. She lives in the metro Boston area where she grew up with her husband and two children. A sample poem follows below.

Freeing My Fear of Death

When I can stare death in the eye and not cry

That is the day that I’ll truly live

To not be afraid of the night or the day

To not be afraid to say what I really want to say

To live each day as if it’s my last

To live neither in the future or past

To present myself with the present

A quantum leap in consciousness is for what I mostly stive

For what’s the use of living my life if I’m afraid to B alive?



--Radiant Jasmin

October 9th: Deborah Priestly Features



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 October 9th, Deborah Priestly takes time out from one of the busiest schedules in the art and poetry world to read new work and selections from her upcoming book.

Deborah Priestly is a poet and painter from Cambridge. She is co-owner of Out of The Blue Art Gallery, the current home of Stone Soup Poetry. OOTB also serves as the home fo the Open Bark Candlite Series, which she has hosted for over eight years. Her poetry has been published in various venues including Spare Change News, Posey, Ibbetson Street, Manifold, boston Girl Guide, Bay Windows, and the anthologies I Refused to Die and Out of The Blue Writers Unite. She has written four chapbooks and the book The Woman Has a Voice.

Click here for sample poems published on the website The Better Drink.

October 2nd: Make Amado Features

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 October 2nd, Mike Amado has his first Stone Soup feature.

Mike Amado, a performance poet, tries to open your mind to thoughts and images of your inner soul. He recites spirited poetry, this poet/musician is a lifelong resident of Plymouth, Ma. Poems Unearthed From Ashes, his first book, was published in 2006.

He was a contributor to The Bagelbards Anthology and has featured and performed throughout Emass and Rhode Island, as well as putting together a Poetry Showcase in conjunction with the recently held 39th Annual Plymouth Juried Art Show. He's influenced by Beaudelaire, Blake, Bly, his Native American ancestry, the occult and metal music. A sample poem follows.

FREE X-PESSION

Slam poet sorcerer, necromancer romantic-
Don’t wait to burn like Frida Kalho,
While posing on your funeral pyre and
Waiting to see your bones
Turn to iridescence...
That day is now
So dress yourself impaled
With an arm-rail
And bathed in blood
With golden glitter,
Make your life a spectacle
As an avant-garde portrait
Of spirit made flesh
Wanting to be a symbol
Three minutes ought to do it,
That day is now.
Standard-model human, benign barbarian
With non-Machiavellian tongue
Tied in knots...
Don’t wait to unblind your
Low-brow mind and start
Living the truth. Even if
The Philistines say:
"Do so" or, "Don’t so"
That day is now.
Don’t paint yourself a Picasso
If you really are a Mark Swan.
Be a recluse writer and
Milk your cows at midnight.
Free _expression for everyone! -
Even in sporadic intervals.
That day is now...
You have three minutes.
GO!

Mike Amado

September 25th: Stewart Florsheim Features

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 September 25th, Stewart Florsheim visits Stone Soup while he visits the east coast to promote his new chapbook.

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 has been widely published in magazines and anthologies. He was the editor of Ghosts of the Holocaust, an anthology of poetry by children of Holocaust survivors (Wayne State University Press, 1989).

Florsheim's chapbooks include The Girl Eating Oysters (2River, 2004). and The Short Fall From Grace, printed by Blue Light Press this year after winning the Blue Light Book Award in 2005.

a technical writer by day, Florsheim also sits on the board of directors of Compassion and Choices of Northern California, an organization that helps the terminally ill make end-of-life decisions. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife and two daughters. A sample poem follows.


The Unseen

As the plane begins its descent into San Francisco
in thick cloud cover, the pilot says
And on your left is Yosemite, El Capitan.

My mother always hoped that what she had
was Lyme disease so she could give it a name,
imagine that it might be treatable.

The subject in Vermeer's Woman Reading a Letter
opens her lover's note quickly, then reads each line over and over
hoping that she might detect a change of heart.

We are compelled by what we can't see
so that we might be surprised
by the things we already know--

The one thought we prey upon,
not unlike the way a bat stalks a grasshopper,
swoops down, then misses.

--Stewart Florsheim

Visit Stewart Florsheim's website.

Tonight

Jamie Kilstein Features.

Reminder: Stone Soup Monday

A great way to end the Labor Day weekend with Philip Hasouris and Frank Miller.