November 9th: James McCoy 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 9th, Stone Soup welcomes its frequent listener and YouTube mini-sensation, 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."

November 2: Chris Robbins 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 2nd, Stone Soup begins November with the return of past feature and open mike reguar, Chris Robbins.

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.

Tonight!

Welcome Jade Sylvan to Stone Soup.

Reminder

Welcome Back, Bill Perrault!

October 26th: Jade Sylvan 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 26th, the venue celebrates the return of Jade Sylvan, who will be promoting the release of her first full-length book of poetry.

Jade Sylvan is a geek. Born of a family of scientists, she spent her adult education studying world religion, esoteric mysticism, the occult, sustainable design, and rock & roll history. After college, she traveled for a long time, seeing such wonders as the Spanish Mediterranean, the Swiss Alps, and William Faulkner’s grave in Oxford, Mississippi. She therefore knows most of the best bars in the Western world and how to pour a proper glass of absinthe in both the French and Bohemian styles. When she settled in Boston in 2007, she began seriously writing poetry. This tour celebrates the release of The Spark Singer, her first full-length collection of poetry. Jade believes this is just the beginning.

Visit Jade's web site.

October 19th: Bill Perrault Returns


Photo by Chad Parenteau

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 19th, Stone Soup welcomes back friend Bill Perrault, who has been out due to illness and would like to start reading again while on the road to recovery.

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 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.

See the Spoonful website for samples of Bill's writing and photography.

October 12th: Adam Goldberg 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 12th, Stone Soup welcomes the debut feature of local open mike poet Adam Goldberg.

Adam Goldberg (@AdamUltraberg on Twitter), "The Original Guytalker", is a Framingham original. At home with a microphone, or one of those yellow legal pads, he's totally available for your corporate or anti-corpoate functions (probably). No open bar can withstand him. He is utterly mighty. He recently released his CD, "Adam and Blake: Sibling Brothers", copies for sale with the dude.

Contact him at Adam_Goldberg2@emerson.edu.

This is his first feature and you're very likely to enjoy it.

October 5th: Fire of Prometheus Returns to Stone Soup





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 5th, Stone Soup reunites with the long-running poetry troupe Fire of Prometheus.

Comprised of poet/cartoonist/filmmaker Mick Cusimano, absurdist poet RU Outavit, activist performer Kasara, and local legend Bill Barnum, the Fire of Prometheus group entertained poetry venues and local media for close to two decades at venues like Stone Soup, The Naked City Coffee House, and most recently at the Squawk Coffeehouse, where they recently celebrated their first reunion show.

Click here for a video history of Fire of Prometheus by Mick Cusimano (rare Bill Barnum footage).

Click here for Mick's written history.

Reminder

John Landry and Maggie Cleveland Visit Stone Soup tonight.

September 28: 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 September 28th, we finish the month with Gordon Marshall, who will celebrate the release of his new book and announce the winner of the first Jack Powers Stone Soup Savor Poetry Prize.

Jazz artist Joshua Jefferson called Gordon Marshall “the poet laureate of the Boston improvised music scene.” Marshall has published two books, Waterwheel and Black President and other poems, and has one forthcoming, Chord. He has worked at bookstores, financial institutions, and at a hospital. He received his M.A. in English Literature from the University of Massachusetts Boston in 2005, and continues to study literary criticism and theory independently. He lives in Boston.

Visit Gordon's website.

September 21: John Landry and Maggie Cleveland 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 September 14th, the venue welcomes two excellent poets from the South Shore, John Landry and Maggie Cleveland.




John Landry is poet laureate of New Bedford. He has been a member of the Stone Soup community since the mid-1970's. He was recently celebrated in San Francisco, reading with Jack Hirschman, Sarah Menefee, and Neeli Cherkovski, all of whom have read at Stone Soup. Landry has served as a contributing editor for New College Review and the 50th anniversary anthology of Beatitude in San Francisco. He taught for several years at UMass Dartmouth and Bristol Community College. He is published internationally and has read across the US, including at the Library of Congress in 1986 at the request of Gwendolyn Brooks. His books ROAD DOES NOT END and WHALEOPOLIS: Orpheus in Whaletown will be published in 2010.




Maggie Cleveland looks for omens and wears her heartbreak like jewels in Fairhaven, Massachusetts, where she works as a grant writer and lives as a proud mama of two fierce little girls. She is the director of the New Bedford-based Whaling City Review LIVE poetry series, and will be coordinating the southeast regional kickoff event for the 2009 Massachusetts Poetry Festival. Maggie was the co-founder of the Baker Books Poetry Series, which she hosted from 1995-2000. She is the author of The Kids Ate My Homework: A New Bedford Area Resource Guide for Adult Students with Children (2008), and was recently published in the Newport Review (http://www.newportreview.org) and the journal …like this. Maggie is currently pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing at Goddard College.

September 14: CD Collins 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 14th, we welcome CD Collins to our venue.

Kentucky native CD Collins follows the storytelling traditions of the South, both as a solo artist and when accompanied by musicians. As one of originators of the early ‘90s resurgence of spoken-word with live music, her work has been archived in the compact discs Kentucky Stories, Subtracting Down and Carousel Lounge. She has produced a short lyric documentary based entitled "Clean Coal Big Lie," which chronicles the catastrophic steps of mountaintop removal to retrieve Appalachian coal.

Collins’ fiction has appeared in numerous literary magazines including StoryQuarterly, Salamander, Phoebe and The Pennsylvania Review. Her poetry collection, Self Portrait with Severed Head, was released by Ibbetson Press in March 2009. Her collection of short stories Blue Land was released by Polyho Press in June 2009. One of the stories in this collection was nominated for a 2009 Pushcart prize.

Visit CD Collins' website.

Elizabeth Szewczyk Rescheduled

Due to illness, Elizabeth Szewczyk's reading was delayed to this Monday, the 24th. Come and hear.

Reminder

Welcome Margaret Young from Beverly tonight.

September 7: Tom Daley 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 7th, we celebrate Labor Day with another visit from poet and teacher Tom Daley.

Tom Daley teaches poetry writing at the Boston Center for Adult Education, the Online School of Poetry, Lexington Community Education, and privately. He has published poems in Harvard Review, Prairie Schooner, and elsewhere. He is the author of the play, “Every Broom and Bridget—Emily Dickinson and Her Servants,” which he will be presenting as a one-man show on Saturday, November 7, 2009 at the Chelmsford (MA) Public Library. For information on his writing workshops contact Tom at tom.daley2@verizon.net.

Visit Tom's page at the Online School of Poetry.

Reminder

Elizabeth Szewczyk Features Tonight, August 10th.

The Jack Powers Prize--A Press Release by Gordon Marshall

The Jack Powers prize is to be awarded annually, beginning in August 2009, to a poet who has made a distinguished contribution to stone soup Poets, through their commitment to the art of poetry, and the power, subtlety and quality of their work.

No publication is necessary; nor is submission of any written text required. Simple presence at Stone Soup, together with dedicated recitation, are the criteria.

The prize is named in honor of Stone Soup’s great founder, who has served the Boston and Cambridge communities as a mentor and champion of new, aspiring, and developing poets since 1971, which service, rendered unflaggingly and humbly, has defined Boston’s identity as a poetry town for four decades.

The prize is to be administered henceforth by Powers’ successor as Stone Soup leader Chad Parenteau, whose faithfulness to the former’s mission has assured that the city will remain a template and an exemplar to the national United States poetry scene.

A monetary sum in the amount of $100usd will accompany the distinction, to be funded by the proceeds of Gordon Marshall’s third published volume of poetry, Chord. This is in recognition of Powers’ and Parenteau’s support and advocacy of Marshall’s career as a poet.

August 31st: Al Gundy Returns

Photo by Walter Gundy

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 August 31st, open miker Al Gundy will return to Stone Soup to debut his latest poetic tale, "First King."

Al Gundy was born in Cambridge, MA, the trick-or-treating capital of the world. He co-wrote his first novel, "The Mystery of the Golden Watch", in 2nd grade, and has since written adventure stories starring frogs, pirates, and everyone in between.. At the age of ten, he created the legendary comic duo, Elo and Anson, whose adventures can be read on www.eloandanson.com. Most recently, he has taken upon himself an important task: informing the public of the greatest pirate who no one's ever heard of, Luc Le Reutte. Al would like to thank everyone who has enjoyed and supported his poetry, and would also like to give a special shout-out to his beloved place of work, The Gelato Cafe.

August 24th: Elizabeth Szewczyk 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 August 24th, our summer of visiting poets continues with Elizabeth Szewczyk, who was rescheduled from the 10th due to illness.

Elizabeth Szewczyk is the award-winning author of the book, This Becoming, (Big Table Publishing Co., 2009). She has published poems in Sanskrit, Crazylit, Chantarelle's Notebook, Shapes, and other poetry journals. She is an English teacher at Asnuntuck Community College in Enfield, CT, and the co-editor of the poetry journal, Freshwater. Elizabeth is a recipient of the Connecticut Celebration of Excellence award in writing and also the author of a memoir book, My Bags Were Always Packed. A sample poem follows below.


Migrant

Their parents picked all day---
tobacco, corn, wheat, apples,
until the sun set and their fingers
stained yellow, holes deep in layers of skin.

But the children…
Can you teach me how to write my name?
Show me how to tie my sneaker?
Give me money---you’re rich, you have a home.

And I, at sixteen, ran from them, never
looked back, afraid this disease
would sicken my father, my mother, me.
Afraid I would have to ask

white girls with clean red sneakers
to give me money for bread.

--Elizabeth Szewczyk


Click here for reviews of This Becoming.

August 17th: Margaret Young 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 August 17th, Beverly author and teacher Margaret Young has her first Stone Soup feature.

Margaret Young has worked as an actor, artist in residence, and art educator, and currently teaches at Endicott College. Her first collection of poems Willow from the Willow was published in 2002. She is seeking publishers for her second and third collections (Night Blue, Almond Town) and a book of essays about clothes and costumes. She has published widely in journals, most recently Stand, and The Endicott Review, and lives in Beverly with her husband and son.

Purchase her book, Willow from the Willow, from Amazon.

August 3rd: The Highway Poets Return

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 August 3rd, The Highway poets make their annual visit to Stone Soup, celebrating Biker Poetry Month and the first anniversary of the publication of Rubber Side Down, the biker poet anthology. Below is only partial list of participants, as there are always announced and unannounced readers when the Highway Poets visit.



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.

Purchase the Rubber Side Down anthology.

July 27th: Christopher Kain 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 July 27th, the reading series welcomes back popular open miker Christopher Kain.

Christopher Kain: "i found poetry at the Haymarket Cafe in Northampton while i was a junior at UMass in Amherst. after college, i moved to Cincinnati & read at Borders Books & Music as well as in the open folk mic at the Cincinnati Y. i moved to DC where i read at the Live Poets Society, took classes at the Writer's Center in Bethesda, MD, & was anthologized in the Federal Poet. due to dwindling funds, i returned home to the parents in CT & read at various open folk mics there. while working for Borders, i founded a six-month poetry workshop in Manchester, CT. i moved to Boston in 2002 & the first place i read was at the Out of the Blue Gallery. i became a regular at the Cantab for the next seven years & featured in various places in the Boston area. i finished a book of my poetry organized by the times of day called homefront. i contribute to a blog of writers determined to write 365 poems in 365 days. i am almost at poem #180 & am at least a month behind. i'm currently working on a book of poems titled Twentieth Century Limited, which will have 100 poems for the 100 years of the twentieth century. i can still be found giving my three minutes of work at the Cantab Lounge on Wednesday nights."

Click here for a poem by Christopher Kain from the latest Spoonful.

July 20th: LisaAnn LoBasso 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 July 20th, Stone Soup will be visited by well-traveled poetLisaAnn LoBasso.

Refusing to characterize her poetic style as either academic or performance, LisaAnn LoBasso considers herself most at home among artists. With over 20 years experience, she has produced countless readings and collaborative arts events, such as the Up Close, Let Loose Traveling Poets’ Reading Series, and Operation Soapbox, while still racking up her own credentials, including Poet Ambassador of Kern County in California, as well as appearances at venues and universities from West Coast to East. LisaAnn’s work has been lauded as both dynamic and boundary-breaking; dubbed a poetry minstrel by Las Vegas City Life Weekly, she has featured with diverse and noteworthy poets, such as Nicholas Roerich Prize winner Lee McCarthy, California Poet Laureate Al Young, and Paterson Award Winner Indran Amirthanayagam.

Twice nominated for California Poet Laureate 2008, she has two poetry books in print: In the Swollen a poetry collection (2003), and Oleander Milkshake, (2008). In her spare time, LisaAnn develops creative writing programs, theatre scripts, arts-education programs, and public arts installations with artists as far as England. She travels worldwide and recently just returned from living in India for three months. LisaAnn has worked closely with Gluck Award winner Frances Mconnel, National Book Award finalist and critically acclaimed author Susan Straight, and Pulitzer Prize nominee Maurya Simon.

Click here for a sample of her work.

July 13th: Dan Provost and Erin Reardon 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 July 13th, we welcome a double feature of poets and friends Dan Provost and Erin Reardon.



Dan Provost's poetry has been published throughout the small press for years. He has two chapbooks coming out this summer; The Southside of Agony published by New Polish Beat and a flipbook with the talented Aleathia Drehmer published by Tainted Coffee Press. He lives in Worcester where he is a college administrator at Assumption and an Assistant Football Coach at Millbury High School.



Erin Reardon is a poet. She has been published at Silenced Press, Hecale, the Neo-Lampshadian Outpost, Spoonful Quarterly, Parasitic, Zygote in My Coffee, Words Dance, Beat the Dust, Heroin Love Songs, Epic Rites and Gutter Eloquence Magazine. She has featured twice at Stone Soup, Boston’s Longest Running Poetry Series and has performed several open mics there and at The Cantab and The Lizard Lounge. She currently resides in Somerville, MA where she is often spotted bringing the funk.

July 6th: James O'Brien 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 July 6, local artist James O'Brien brings his performance piece, "Lizard Link," among other works, to our venue.

n three short decades, James O'Brien has lived lives as a traveling political folk singer, performance poet, journalist, film critic, and fictionist. From festival stages alongside Tanya Donelly, Juliana Hatfield, and Josh Ritter, to the pages of The Boston Globe - where he is currently a regular correspondent on municipal politics, health, wildlife, and the environment - O'Brien's writing spans medium and purpose. His poetry is generally focused on national identity, guilt, responsibility, and the psychology of the American artist and the American mind in the natural and supernatural landscape. He lives in Boston, Massachusetts.

Visit James' blog.

June 22: Karen Szklany Gault 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 22nd, we welcome Karen Gault with her first Stone Soup feature.

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. From 1986-1988 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.

June 15: Paul Bamberger 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 15th, Stone Soup will be starting earlier as we introduce New Hampshire poet Paul Bamberger, who will be reading his longer poem "In This Land" and a selection of others.

Paul Bamberger holds an MFA degree in English from UMass/Amherst and teaches at Northern Essex Community College. He has contributed to Agenda and the North Essex Review. His first book, Eating is to Till the Earth, was published by Shore Publishing in 1972. His most recent book is Down by the River from Islington-bryer Press, which has received praise from Straus & Giroux Publishing founder Jonathan Galassi.

Click here for samples of Paul Bamberger's work.

June 8th: 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 June 8th, we feature Mignon Ariel King, who will be featuring her first poetry collection courtesy of Ibbetson Street Press.

Mignon Ariel King is a lifelong resident of greater Boston, Massachusetts. She is author of the autobiographical poetry collection THE WOODS HAVE WORDS (Ibbetson Street Press, 2009). Ms. King has been reading at open-mics since 1998. An alumna of Simmons College and a former English instructor, she edits the online journals MoJo! and U.M.Ph.!

Visit King's MoJo.

June 1st: Derek JG Williams 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 1st, we begin the month featuring young local poet Derek JG Williams, who will be debuting his latest CD.

Derek JG Williams grew up in Connecticut and graduated with a Bachelor's Degree in English from the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts in the spring of 2004. He has featured at numerous venues around New England and New York. He recently released a full length CD of poetry and music titled A Chorus of Cities, his work bridges the gap between academia and performance. He is 26.

Visit Derek JG Williams' Myspace page.

Stone Soup Tonight

Tonight, May 25th, we conclude our month-long 38th anniversary celebration and feature Walter Howard.

Click the YouTube links below for samples of Walter's work.

May 25th: Walter Howard Features


Photos 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 May 25th, Stone Soup caps the month long celebration of its 38th anniversary as a poetry venue with a feature of Walter Howard, a longtime fixture in the poetry scene and the open miker's open miker.

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.

Stone Soup Reminder

Come see Coleen T. Houlihan tonight.

Click below for a sample of her work from a past open mike.

Spoonful Issue #3 Is Up

After a long delay, we are pleased to release issue # 3 of Spoonful, an online journal that serves as an ongoing tribute to the Stone Soup Poetry scene.

Issue # 3 can now be read here.

Featuring:

OUR FIRST VIDEO/TEXT POETRY SEGMENT WITH WILLIAM J. BARNUM.

POEMS BY:

Mike Amado, William J. Barnum, Yonit Bousany, Anne Brudevold, Susan Deer Cloud, Marc D. Goldfinger, Paul Hapenny, Gary Hicks, Coleen T. Houlihan, Christopher Kain, Lawrence Kessenich, Linda Lerner, Lyn Lifshin, Gordon Marshall, Gloria Monaghan, Shannon O'Connor, Chad Parenteau, Jack Powers, and Annie Wyndham.


ARTWORK BY:
James Conant, Edward S. Gault, Bill Perrault, Su Red, Melissa Shook, Luis L. Tijerina, and Cindy Williams.

Thank you,

Chad Parenteau
Lynne Sticklor

May 18th: Coleen T. Houlihan 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 Monday, May 18th, we continue our 38th anniversary celebration month with Coleen Houlihan, who will be performing again with Paul Kusinitz on Middle Eastern drum.

Coleen T. Houlihan is a novelist and poet who studiedwriting at Wellesley College. She has featured at Stone Soup, Best Sellers, the Sherman Cafe and Walden Poetry Series and published poetry in The Alewife, The Wilderness House Literary Review, Ibbetson Street Press, Spare Change and abroad. Her poetry could bedescribed as sensual, magical, light and dark, with images 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.

Click here to visit Coleen's web site.

May 11th: Doug Holder and Marc Goldfinger 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 Monday, May 11th, Stone Soup continues to celebrate its 38th anniversary with poet/editors Doug Holder and Marc Goldfinger.





Doug Holder was born in Manhattan, N.Y. on July 5, 1955. A small press activist, he founded the Ibbetson Street Press in the winter of 1998 in Somerville, Mass. He has published over 50 books of poetry of local and national poets and 25 issues of the literary journal Ibbetson Street. Holder's own articles and poetry have appeared in several anthologies including Inside the Outside: An Anthology of Avant-Garde American Poets (Presa Press) Greatest Hits. His collection, The Man In The Booth In The Midtown Tunnel was released in the summer of 2008 by the Cervena Barva Press.





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.

May 4th: Carol Weston and Dan Shanahan Celebrate Stone Soup's 38th Anniversary

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 Monday, May 4th, Stone Soup will have the first of a month of features intended to celebrate it's 38th year as a weekly poetry venue. The first features will be Carol Weston and Dan Shanahan, in addition to several musical guests.



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.



Dan Shanahan was reading and selling his poems to passers-bye on Beacon Hill in 1969 when he met Jack Powers. Jack was holding readings at the Old West Church then and soon after Jack initiated the weekly Stone Soup readings in his gallery on Cambridge Street. Dan left Boston for Alaska in 1972 where he lived for six years.

Stone Soup published The Alaska Poems, his first book of poems, in 1995, with assistance of a Massachusetts Cultural Council grant. In 1997 his second collection, Crystal Lake, was published. Crystal Lake reflects on the immanent present and historical past of a mill pond owned by Giles and Martha Corey, two victims of the Salem witch trials of the seventeenth century.

In 2003, Dan produced an audio book on CD entitled The Lotus Seed Poems, a suite of poems recollecting his experience of living with a meditation master whom he lived with in India. He is currently working on two new collections. The Shipyard Cantos recounts his work as a welder in the Quincy Shipyards in the late 1960s. The Ground We Stand On contemplates his early life in Holyoke, MA once known as the “paper city of world.” His work is a contemplation on where the spiritual and material converge on the landscape of character, and the character of landscape.

He is grateful for the tireless generosity of Jack Powers, whose lifetime has been dedicated to nurturing the poets and artists of Boston and beyond.

Upcoming Stone Soup Features

May 4th: Carol Weston and Dan Shanahan with musical guests.

May 11th: Author/Editors Doug Holder and Marc Goldfinger.

May 18th: The return of Coleen Houlihan.

May 25th: The poet's poet Walter Howard.

Be at Stone Soup Tonight

For the contraversial Lee Litif and Chris Robbins.

Reminder

Tonight, Tony Brown and Steve Cafaro feature.

Reminder: National Poetry Month Begins Tonight

Sue Savoy Features.

Reminder, March 30, 2009

G Emil Reutter and Vincent Quatroche Feature.

Reminder: Ian Thal Tonight

Click here for more info.

Features for National Poetry Month, 2009

April 6th: Sue Savoy returns to our venue.

April 13th: Poetry and music with Tony Brown and Steve Cafaro.

April 20th: The Fifth and Sixth Horsemen of The Apocalypse: Lee Letif and Chris Robbins return.

April 27th: Patrick Shaughnessy has his first feature outside of Lowell.

April 27th: Patrick Shaughnessy 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 April 27th,we close National Poetry month with Patrick Shaughnessy, a poet who will have his first feature outside his hometown of Lowell.

A native of Lowell Mass., Patrick S. began performing poetry in spring of 2007 at the Lowell Poetry Slam. Local poets Zean Dunbar and Anthony Febo invited him on a carpool to the Cantab Lounge in August of that year; since then, the Cantab Lounge has been his main inspiration as a writer and performer of poetry. His poetry fluctuates between clever wordplay and emotional open wounds, sometimes veering too much into the former when he intends the latter. He cites as influences rock band They Might Be Giants, comic book writer Steve Gerber, multi-media writer Douglas Adams, and essayist Jorge Luis Borges (the last mostly via Penguin Press translations).

Patrick has no traditional poetic accolades to list. He won a campus-wide talent show at UMass Lowell in spring of 2008, beating orchestras, singer-songwriters, and dance crews. Ryk McIntyre occasionally covers his poems. At the first Massachusetts Poetry Festival, Regie Gibson told him to shave his back hair (Patrick's back hair, not Regie's). He has not yet been arrested for performing, but did once perform his way into a police standoff with dozens of college students watching. Patrick's next challenge as a performer is not strictly poetic, but will have poetry among its media. When he has moved out of Lowell and into the immediate Boston area, he plans to explore a series of personas in a bizarre and difficult-to-explain project mysteriously code-named 12GIM.

Patrick will be debuting a new chapbook, I Use Defense Mechanism as a Humor. He will also have his previous chapbook, Don't Laugh at My Hilarious Pain, on hand. It is likely he will be crossdressed; it is very okay to notice this.

April 19th: Lee Litif and Chris Robbins 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 20th, Stone Soup will feature the return of Lee Litif and Chris Robbins, the Fifth and Sixth Horsemen of The Apocalypse. Due to the extreme subject matter of both poets, this show will not be aired on Cambridge or Lowell public access, and large portions of the show will not be able to be uploaded on YouTube. Therefore, the show is best viewed live.



Photo by Bill Perrault


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 Chad Parenteau and "the orgasm that never quite made it," by Walter Howard.



Photo by Bill Perrault

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.

April 13th: Tony Brown and Steve Cafaro 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 April 13th, we welcome the long-anticipated performance of poetry and music from Tony Brown and Steve Cafaro.

A veteran of both page and stage in the poetry world, Tony Brown has been publishing and reading his work in journals and on stages around the US for over thirty years. His work has appeared in anthologies including A Generation Defining Itself, from MPW Press; Look, Up In the Sky! and Appleseeds, both from Sacred Fools Press; From Page To Stage, The Wordsmith Press (all US); and 100 Poets Against the War, from Salt Publishing (UK). Brown¹s work has also appeared in many journals (among them: Riverwalk Journal, The Ballard Street Poetry Journal, nthposition, The Worcester Review, The Furnace Review, New Verse News, The November Third Club, Spindle, Breath And Shadow, Home Planet News, and World Literature Today). He was also named a "Legend of Slam" at the 2006 National Poetry Slam in Austin, TX.
A three-time Pushcart Prize nominee, he is also the author of twelve chapbooks and two CDs of his work, the latter with his music and poetry project, Duende. He is a regular columnist for gotpoetry.com and runs a reading series in Providence, RI. A chapbook of recent poems, FLOOD, will be coming shortly from Pudding House Publications (Columbus, OH).

At the tender age of 21, Steve Cafaro has already begun making his mark in a variety of musical settings. A skilled and talented musician, Faro has been the bassist for popular RI based bands 5 Flavor Discount and Retro Active, and has played guitar and bass for many special events over the years. His work with Tony in Duende has been featured on the indiefeed.com performance poetry Website many times, and Duende has performed up and down the East Coast over the last few years. With Duende, he's released two CDs (Jim's Fall and americanized) and is currently working on a third; he's also released two CDs of his own solo work. Steve currently lives in his hometown of Coventry, RI.

Visit Tony Brown's MySpace page for audio samples.

April 6th: Sue Savoy Returns

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 6th, Stone Soup begins National Poetry Month with the return of Sue Savoy. You are recommended to get there early and buy her recently printed chapbooks.

Sue Savoy always hated poetry and is not sure what she writes actually is poetry. She can't bring herself to refer to herself as a poet, but she's been a regular at the Cantab venue for years and has read and featured at numerous venues including the Cantab and Tapestry of Voices.

Reminder

Pam Rosenblatt features tonight, March 16th.

March 30th: G Emil Reutter and Vincent Quatroche 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 30th, Stone Soup ends the month with visiting poets G Emil Reutter and Vincent Quatroche.

G Emil Reutter is an author/poet from Philadelphia Pennsylvania. Several collections of his short fiction and poetry have been published in addition to three collections of poetry. Most recently his selected poetry collection titled Blue Collar Poet was released in February 2009.

Vincent Quatroche is from Fredonia New York and is a Professor at Fredonia State University. Quatroche has released two CD’S of his work at Sleeping Giant Records and has published several full length collections of his poetry and prose. Quatroche was recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

Visit Reutter's website.

Visit Quatroche's website.

March 23rd: Ian Thal Returns


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 March 23rd, Ian Thal returns to Stone Soup for his first solo feature in five years. Thal will be performing his short, one-man play, Arlecchino Am Ravenous, a blend of literary satire and physical comedy, in which he plays Arlecchino, a clown character whose origins trace at least as far back as the masked commedia dell’arte performances of the Italian renaissance. In Arlecchino Am Ravenous, the title character is so driven by hunger, as to eat flies, his fingers, and even his own stomach, and even ravages both heaven above and hell below in search of a meal. The piece developed out of a series of improvisations inspired by Thal’s reading of Italian Nobel-Laureate, Dario Fo.

Ian Thal has performed with Bread and Puppet Theatre, was a founding member of Cosmic Spelunker Theater and frequently performs with the commedia dell’arte troupe, i Sebastiani. He has taught mime and commedia at The Huntington Theatre, The Stoneham Theatre, and Open Air Circus. His poetry has appeared in such magazines as BOOM! For Real, Flash!Point, Poesy, Ibbetson Street Press, and Crooked River Press and the anthologies Becoming Fire: Spiritual Writings from Rising Generations (Andover, MA: Andover-Newton Publications), Tokens: Contemporary Poetry of the Subway (New York: P & Q Press.) and Out of the Blue Writers Unite, and the forthcoming Crude: Poetry After the Age of Oil (Columbus, OH: Pudding House Press) and has been exhibited at Boston City Hall and incorporated into a public installation at the 2003 Boston Cyberarts Festival. His blog about his experiences with Bread and Puppet Theatre was recently placed on the reading list for a course at Royal Holloway, University of London. Thal studied mime from James Van Looy, with whom he co-founded Cosmic Spelunker Theater.

Thal recently composed a five-act play, Total War, which he will be presenting as a staged reading at Outpost 186 in Cambridge on April 26th.

March 16th: Pam Rosenblatt 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 16th, we welcome local author Pam Rosenblatt, who will read from her new Ibbetson Street collection On How to Read The Manual.

Pam Rosenblatt is a poet, editor and reviewer in the Boston area. Her works have been published in Eden Water Press Home Anthology, The Somerville News, and Wilderness House Literary Review.

Click here for a poem from the Wilderness House Literary Review.

Purchase her book from Lulu.

March 9th: Bill Perrault and Ann Carhart 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 9th, friends and Stone Soup regulars Bill Perrault and Ann Carhart 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 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

Anne Carhart considers herself to be an old Cambridge poet but readily admits being born in Brooklyn and falling in love with poetry while living in the Village and attending NYU. She has an M.A. in Writing and one in Counseling/Psychology from Cambridge's Lesley University and an Ed.D. from UMass. Her poems have appeared in the anthology Cries of the Spirit, Heat City Review, Earth's Daughters, The Hartford Courant and Spare Change News. Ibbetson Street Press published her first book, Sanctus! Sanctus! Sanctus! She is working on her next book, A Kid From Brooklyn.

See the Spoonful website for samples of the poets' work.

Clarification--Tonight's Cancellation (3/2/09)

Though tonight's feature has cancelled, we will still be meetining tonight at the Out of The Blue with an extended open mike. We invite anyone who is able to come.

A Note From Tony Brown--Tonight's Cancellation (3/2/09)

Just a note and an apology to everyone: Due to the weather and trying to coordinate travel from Worcester to Coventry RI to Cambridge to Coventry and back to Worcester, Faro and I won't be featuring tonight at Stone Soup. I'm personally pretty upset by this and am going to try and make it in out of solidarity anyway, if the roads hold up; however, talking with Chad this afternoon we've rescheduled our feature for April 13. I really hate to do this, but it's pretty unavoidable due to the state of the truck we carry our gear in for gigs. We'll look forward to seeing you in April!

Reminder, February 23rd

David Sirois features tonight.

March 2nd: Tony Brown and Steve Cafaro 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 2nd, we begin the month with a welcome combination of poetry and music from Tony Brown and Steve Cafaro.

A veteran of both page and stage in the poetry world, Tony Brown has been publishing and reading his work in journals and on stages around the US for over thirty years. His work has appeared in anthologies including A Generation Defining Itself, from MPW Press; Look, Up In the Sky! and Appleseeds, both from Sacred Fools Press; From Page To Stage, The Wordsmith Press (all US); and 100 Poets Against the War, from Salt Publishing (UK). Brown¹s work has also appeared in many journals (among them: Riverwalk Journal, The Ballard Street Poetry Journal, nthposition, The Worcester Review, The Furnace Review, New Verse News, The November Third Club, Spindle, Breath And Shadow, Home Planet News, and World Literature Today). He was also named a "Legend of Slam" at the 2006 National Poetry Slam in Austin, TX.
A three-time Pushcart Prize nominee, he is also the author of twelve chapbooks and two CDs of his work, the latter with his music and poetry project, Duende. He is a regular columnist for gotpoetry.com and runs a reading series in Providence, RI. A chapbook of recent poems, FLOOD, will be coming shortly from Pudding House Publications (Columbus, OH).

At the tender age of 21, Steve Cafaro has already begun making his mark in a variety of musical settings. A skilled and talented musician, Faro has been the bassist for popular RI based bands 5 Flavor Discount and Retro Active, and has played guitar and bass for many special events over the years. His work with Tony in "Duende" has been featured on the indiefeed.com performance poetry Website many times, and Duende has performed up and down the East Coast over the last few years. With Duende, he's released two CDs ("Jim's Fall" and "americanized") and is currently working on a third; he's also released two CDs of his own solo work. Steve currently lives in his hometown of Coventry, RI.

Visit Tony Brown's MySpace page for audio samples.

February 23rd: David Sirois 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 23rd. we finish the month of February with poet David Sirois.

David Sirois was born in Edmundston, New Brunswick, and grew up across the border in Madawaska, Maine, the northernmost town on the East Coast. He attended Bennington College in Bennington, Vermont, majoring in Literature and Languages. He has served as a staff writer for The Better Drink: A Sparkling Wine and Living Magazine, contributing poetry, essays, fiction and film reviews. His poems have also appeared in journals including Silo, Poesy, Ibbetson Street, and Echoes, and his work was anthologized in Becoming Fire: Spiritual W riting from Rising Generations. David sees writing as a spiritual practice, and is now finishing his first book of poems, Silver Shiver.

Tonight's Reminder

Stephan Anstey Features tonight at Stone Soup.

February 16th: Stephan Anstey 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 16th, Stone Soup welcomes another Lowell poet, poet and editor Stephan Anstey.

Stephan Anstey is the founder of Shakespeare’s Monkeys, Shakespeare’s Monkey Revue and is a bit of a poet. Most of his work is of the wordish variety littered with odd thoughts, surreal images and scraps of wisdom in various forms. His dedication to writing excellence in all genres is actually all a clever ruse to build, through sheer force of will, a creative community and outlets that can become like extended family for writers of all brands, models, shapes, colors and sizes. He resides, sometimes even merrily, in Lowell, Massachusetts with the loves of his life – his wife Ellen and their teen-aged children, Emily and Cameron.

Visit Stephan's web page on Shakespear's Monkeys.

February 9th: 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 February 10, after a brief scheduling issue, Stone Soup is back with the return of Out of The Blue co-founder Deborah Priestly as a feature.

Deborah M. Priestly runs 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.

Visit the Spoonful web site for samples of Priesly and other Stone Soup Poets' work.

Tonight, February 2nd

Stone Soup Poetry kicks February off with a visit from 2 Senitive Guys, Steve Subrizi and Sam Teitel.

February 2nd: Two Sensitive Guys Visit 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 February 2nd, Stone Soup Poetry has the pleasure of being one of the last stops for Sam Teitel and Steve Subrizi as they finish up their Two Sensitive Guys tour.

Sam Teitel and Steve Subrizi are both poets form the Boston area. Steve is a member of Emerson College's award-winning CUPSI team, The Gringo Choir. Sam is a member of Manchester New Hampshire's slightly less award-winning but still perfectly respectable National Poetry Slam team, Slam Free Or Die. They have just returned from performing their work across the country, driving Sam's Scion XB to such venues as The Mercury Cafe in Denver and The Green Mill in Chicago. They are collectively responsible for one CD and three chapbooks, including a collaborative chapbook, Beet-itude: The Super Deluxe Collector's Edition, which is a collection of poetry about the beet, 'nature's candy.'

Visit the Two Sentsitive Guys Blog.

January 26th: Meg Smith 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 26th, we welcome the return of Lowell poet Meg Smith.

Meg Smith writes and publishes poetry, fiction, articles, essays, and arts and entertainment reviews. She is the editor of Red Eft, a publication of speculative literature and art and for four years was editor and publisher of The Banshee, a zine based in Lowell, Mass. honored by grants from the Massachusetts Cultural Council.

She frequently appears at poetry readings throughout the area and have hosted numerous open mics and have produced several literary events -- including events combining my passion for literature and Middle Eastern dance.

She served for 14 years on the planning committee and board of directors of the annual Lowell Celebrates Kerouac! festival honoring Lowell, Mass. author and native son Jack Kerouac.

Visit the Poet's web site.

Stone Soup In The Wintertime

Don't let the two days of of snow stop you from coming to see Tara Skurtu at Stone Soup tonight.

Reminder, January 12th

Tonight, Sam Cha Features.

Stone Soup Poetry Presents: A Tribute to Mike Amado

Filmed on January 5th, 2009. The near-entirety of Stone Soup Poetry's open mike was given over to tributes for Mike Amado, who passed away from end-stage kidney disease the Friday before, January 2, 2009. I spent most of that night recording videos and transferring them to a flash drive to avoid anything getting lost. Some tributes were missed, and I changed the order of the performances a bit. Jack Scully's spot on the open mike, early in the night, was moved to parts two and three, since I wanted to end with that.

The video segment of Mike reading that I used for the intro was taken from the Poetry Showcase in Plymouth last September. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to record all of Mike's poem, as the power went out in my camera just as he was getting to the end. Still, I was able to put the footage to good use here.





Those of you who want to see the original, chronological, and therefore more erratic version can get the DVD of the event as recorded by Bill Perrault for airing on Cambridge and Lowell public access TV. Email stonesouppoetry@yahoo.com, and I'll forward your request to him (he usually requests $5.00 for each DVD).

--Chad Parenteau

January Features for Stone Soup

January 5th: Open miker Edward S. Gault gets his feature.

January 12th: Welcome back Sam Cha.

January 19th: New voices continue with Tara Skurtu.

January 26th: Lowell poet Meg Smith returns to Stone Soup.

Mike Amado (1975 - 2009)

Mike Amado was a fellow poet and a fixture in the Boston poetry scene, despite his home base being in Plymouth, where he hosted a monthly series. His ability to get around--and appear to be everywhere--in spite of the distance, his dependency on friends and public transportation, and his long battle with kidney disease, was something I admired in him. He even briefly served as (his words) the feature wrangler for Deb Priestly's Open Bark at Out of The Blue. We read together a few times (once as co-features for Jamaica Plain's Word On The Street), and I had the pleasure of being introduced by him for my own feature at Open Bark in 2007. Last September, he invited me to be part of a reading coinciding with Plymouth's 41st Annual Juried Art Show. The film I shot that day of just having fun with friends turned into my "Plymouth Quest" series. I haven't even finished it, and I'm still looking forward to, only now with an eye for adding as many clips of goofing around with Mike as possible.

The last thing we filmed was the commerical for the Out of The Blue Holiday Raffle, shot right outside the gallery just after the Ibbetson Street reading last November. It was the last time I would see him. What wasn't shared with the public (because I misplaced the video file) was a reading by him from his latest book, Rebuilding the Pyramids (Poems of Healing in a Sick World). I was impressed with his newest work and his bravery to tackle a topic that was clearly an ongoing struggle for him and one that didn't allow him that great an advantage of hindsight. I was looking forward to buying his book and featuring him at Stone Soup again in a few months.

I only got more and more friendly with Mike very recently. I never asked him about his struggle for a donated kidney (even when news of it was shared online). When we were about to shoot the raw footage for the raffle advertisement and I handed him the ticket roll, he laughed and said he thought he was going to be able to hit me this time. Having seen the idea online recently, I said later that we should have an online imaginary feud (with filmed footage and bonus sound effects). Of course I'd let him get even with me later. Of course he was up for that.

I really wish I'd let him take an imaginary swing at me that day.

I hope I can find the clip of him reading from his new book. I hope he signed his for a few of us. Talking with his friend Jack Scully, I found out there is enough of his poetry for maybe four or five more books. I owed him a lot, and I'm still selfish enough to want more from him. Luckily, with friends as gifted and determined as Mike, we sometimes get that.

Thank you, Mike.

--Chad Parenteau

January 19th: Tara Skurtu Features


Photo by Mick Murray

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 19th, Stone Soup continues its New Year's resolution to feature more new voices by introducing Tara Skurtu.

Tara Skurtu studies creative writing at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. Her poem "Visiting Amber at the Lowell Correctional Institution" was awarded runner-up for the 2008 Harold Taylor Poetry Prize sponsored by the Academy of American Poets (judged by Yale professor/poet Elizabeth Alexander). She is currently studying with Lloyd Schwartz. A sample poem follows below.


My Blood: My Blood

Some days it begins like this—
The fear of forgetting I am well
crawls into my mouth like a word
that regrets being spoken;
it presses sour phrases against
my teeth, tongue, and gums.
I want to tell it stop,
that I am well,
that my blood is my blood,
but as I ready to swallow,
it wedges another phrase
onto the back of my tongue—
something about the flawlessness
of the antibody’s memory,
how it never forgets
the image of the mother
that abandoned it here
in this body—
yes, some days begin like this.

--Tara Skurtu

January 12th: Sam Cha 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 12th, Stone Soup welcomes the return of Sam Cha.

Sam Cha is 30, lives in Somerville. Here are a few salient facts, in descending order of relevance and ascending order of importance. He writes stuff and translates stuff. He loves some people and likes many and hates few. Soon he will be a father.

Click here for a poem by Sam Cha in Spoonful.

January 5th: Edward S. Gault 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 5th, Stone Soup rings in the new year with poet and photographer Edward S. Gault celebrating his first poetry feature.

Edward S. Gault has been writing poetry since his teens, thankfully for American Letters, these early works have been lost or destroyed. He didn't give up however and has since published in Encore, Spare Change, and Spoonful. Through the years he has read his work at Stone Soup Poetry, Open Bark, Tapestry of Voices, Small Circle Of Friends, and The Boston Poetry Slam. Since January 24, 2008, He has managed to post one poem a day (usually, but not limited to, haiku) on his blog Forest River Journal. Gault is also a Fine Arts Photographer. His work has been displayed in the Out Of The Blue Art Gallery, Inman Square's 1369 Coffeehouse, and The Cambridge Center For Adult Education.

Click here to visit Ed Gault's website.