May 30: R. Wayne Nickerson Features at Stone Soup


Stone Soup Poetry meets from 8-10 p.m. every Monday at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery at 106 Prospect Street with an open mike sign-up at 7:30 p.m. On May 30th, we finish Stone Soup's 40th anniversary celebration with the debut feature of long time friend to the venue, R. Wayne Nickerson.

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

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

May 23: Ryk McIntyre Features



Stone Soup Poetry meets from 8-10 p.m. every Monday at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery at 106 Prospect Street with an open mike sign-up at 7:30 p.m. On May 23rd, we welcome the return of local legend Ryk McIntyre.

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

May 16 Gordon Marshall Features at Stone Soup



Stone Soup Poetry meets from 8-10 p.m. every Monday at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery at 106 Prospect Street with an open mike sign-up at 7:30 p.m. On May 16th, we'll have the return of Gordon Marshall, author and founder of the Jack Powers Stone Soup Savor Poetry Prize.

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

May 2: Lynne Sticklor The Prize Lady and Walter Howard

Stone Soup Poetry meets from 8-10 p.m. every Monday at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery at 106 Prospect Street with an open mike sign-up at 7:30 p.m. On May 2nd, we start our Monday celebrations of Stone Soup's 40th anniversary with a focus on The open mike with Lynne Sticklor helping to facilitate the open mike and featuring the open miker's open miker, "Sir" Walter Howard.


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


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

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

Tonight

Jen Campbell Features.

April 25th: April Penn Features at Stone Soup


Stone Soup Poetry meets from 8-10 p.m. every Monday at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery at 106 Prospect Street with an open mike sign-up at 7:30 p.m. On April 25th, Stone Soup brings National Poetry Month to a satisfying conclusion as April Penn has her first feature at Stone Soup.

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

April 18th: The Fifth and Sixth Horsemen Return



Stone Soup Poetry meets from 8-10 p.m. every Monday at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery at 106 Prospect Street with an open mike sign-up at 7:30 p.m. On April 18th, the Fifth and Sixth Horsemen, Lee Litif and Chris Robbins, return for annual their Stone Soup. It is the most contraversal night of the year at Stone Soup, and you are invited to contribute your own outrageous material to the open mike to compliment the outrageousness on display.

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

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

April 11th: Valerie Loveland Returns


Stone Soup Poetry meets from 8-10 p.m. every Monday at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery at 106 Prospect Street with an open mike sign-up at 7:30 p.m. On April 11th, Stone Soup celebrates the return of Valerie Loveland.

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

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

April 4th: Jennifer Jean Features at Stone Soup



Stone Soup Poetry meets from 8-10 p.m. every Monday at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery at 106 Prospect Street with an open mike sign-up at 7:30 p.m. On April 4th, Stone Soup kicks off National Poetry Month with acclaimed local poet Jennifer Jean.

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

Tonight

Martin Willitts Jr. and Linda Griggs.

March 28th: Jen Campbell Features at Stone Soup



Stone Soup Poetry meets from 8-10 p.m. every Monday at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery at 106 Prospect Street with an open mike sign-up at 7:30 p.m. On March 28th, we welcome another friend back to Stone Soup.

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

March 21: Martin Willitts Jr and Linda Griggs Feature


Stone Soup Poetry meets from 8-10 p.m. every Monday at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery at 106 Prospect Street with an open mike sign-up at 7:30 p.m. On March 22nd, we welcome the return of Martin Willitts Jr. and Linda Griggs.

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

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

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

March 14: Dick Lourie Features

Stone Soup Poetry meets from 8-10 p.m. every Monday at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery at 106 Prospect Street with an open mike sign-up at 7:30 p.m. On March 14th, we welcome esteemed author and musician Dick Lourie.

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

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

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

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

March 12th: Bill Perrault and Friends at Stone Soup

Stone Soup Poetry meets from 8-10 p.m. every Monday at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery at 106 Prospect Street with an open mike sign-up at 7:30 p.m. On March 12th, Stone Soup welcomes back friend Bill Perrault, who will be celebrating his birthday featuring alongside friends Walter Howard, Joanna Nealon, and Carol Weston.



Photo by Chad Parenteau

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


Photo by Bill Perrault

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


Photo by Bill Perrault

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



Photo by Bill Perrault

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

February 28th: Mignon Ariel King Features


Stone Soup Poetry meets from 8-10 p.m. every Monday at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery at 106 Prospect Street with an open mike sign-up at 7:30 p.m. On February 28th, Mignon Ariel King returns to Stone Soup.

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

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

February 21st: John Hodgen Features


Stone Soup Poetry meets from 8-10 p.m. every Monday at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery at 106 Prospect Street with an open mike sign-up at 7:30 p.m. On February 21st, we welcome John Hodgen, who will be reading from his newest poetry collection from the University of Pittsburg Press.

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

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

February 7th: Michael and Lucie Monroe


Stone Soup Poetry meets from 8-10 p.m. every Monday at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery at 106 Prospect Street with an open mike sign-up at 7:30 p.m. On February 7th, we welcome two of the forces behind the popular poem a day 365 blog, Michael and Lucie Monroe.

Michael and Lucie Monroe are serial writers.

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

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

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

Tonight

Lynne Sticklor has her first full feature at Stone Soup.

Gaults Cancelled, Open Mike Goes On

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

December 27th: Ed and Karen Gault Return




Stone Soup Poetry meets from 8-10 p.m. every Monday at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery at 106 Prospect Street with an open mike sign-up at 7:30 p.m. On December 27th, we wrap up 2010 with an appearance from old friends, poets and artists Edward and Karen Gault.

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

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

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


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

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

Reminder

Christopher Kain features at Stone Soup tonight.

January 31st: Samantha Milowsky Features


Stone Soup Poetry meets from 8-10 p.m. every Monday at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery at 106 Prospect Street with an open mike sign-up at 7:30 p.m. On January 31st, Stone Soup continues its tradition of presenting new poets with Samantha Milowsky's first full-length feature.

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

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

Stone Soup Poetry meets from 8-10 p.m. every Monday at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery at 106 Prospect Street with an open mike sign-up at 7:30 p.m. On January 24th, we welcome poets from the Fox Chase reading series, a long time friend of Stone Soup and Boston poets.



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


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

January 17th: Ryan "Rat" Travis Features


Stone Soup Poetry meets from 8-10 p.m. every Monday at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery at 106 Prospect Street with an open mike sign-up at 7:30 p.m. On January 17th, we welcome back local longtime raconteur Ryan "Rat" Travis once again.

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

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

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

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

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

January 10: Brian S. Ellis Returns


Stone Soup Poetry meets from 8-10 p.m. every Monday at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery at 106 Prospect Street with an open mike sign-up at 7:30 p.m. On January 10th, we continue our celebration of the new with the just released second full length collection by reknowned local performance poet Brian S. Ellis.

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

January 3rd: Lynne Sticklor Features


Stone Soup Poetry meets from 8-10 p.m. every Monday at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery at 106 Prospect Street with an open mike sign-up at 7:30 p.m. On January 3rd, we welcome Lynne Sticklor with her first solo feature.

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

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

A book is a brewing~~~

December 13th: Christopher Kain Returns




Stone Soup Poetry meets from 8-10 p.m. every Monday at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery at 106 Prospect Street with an open mike sign-up at 7:30 p.m. On December 13th, we welcome back Christopher, who will read from his newest collection as we countdown to the end of 2010.

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

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

Reminder

David R. Surette Features.

Reminder

Rusty Barns Features at Stone Soup.

The Spare Change Tribute to Jack Powers

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

Links to Jack Powers Tributes by...

D.A. Boucher.

Tim Gager.

Erik Tate.

Yuri Hospodar.

Harris Gardner.

Doug Holder.

Gordon Marshall.

Pam Rosenblatt.

Ryan "Rat" Travis.

Dylan Ford.

Sidewalk Sam.

A Tribute to Jack


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

--Sidewalk Sam

Memories of Jack


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

--Dylan Ford

December 6th: David R. Surette Returns

Stone Soup Poetry meets from 8-10 p.m. every Monday at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery at 106 Prospect Street with an open mike sign-up at 7:30 p.m. On December 6th, we welcome the return of David R. Surette, who will be reading from his latest book.

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

November 29: Rusty Barnes Features



Stone Soup Poetry meets from 8-10 p.m. every Monday at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery at 106 Prospect Street with an open mike sign-up at 7:30 p.m. On November 29th, poet, fiction writer and editor Rusty Barnes has his first Stone Soup feature.

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

Tonight's Feature!

The long awaited Bert Stern!

November 22nd: Patrick Shaughnessy Returns



Stone Soup Poetry meets from 8-10 p.m. every Monday at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery at 106 Prospect Street with an open mike sign-up at 7:30 p.m. On November 22nd, we welcome back Patrick Shaughnessy, who will be releasing a new anticipated chapbook collection of "nerd poems."

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

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

Reminder:

Jane Ormerod Features Tonight.

Service for Jack Powers

The service for Jack Powers will take place this Sunday morning, from 10 till noon, at the International Community Church, located in Allston at Cambridge and Gordon Street (30 Gordon Street is the mailing address). Those taking public transportation should take the B Green Line. For more details, click the link below.


http://icc-boston.com/Directions.html

October 25th: Jack Powers Remembered



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 25th ,Following the weekend services for jack at the Community Church in Allston on Sunday the 24th (10-noon), join Stone Soup as it holds what will likely be the longest open mike in its history as people gather from all over Boston and beyond to read and speak in praise of Jack Powers, the founder of Stone Soup who passed away on October 14th. The list of attendess includes so far:

Bill Barnum
Ed and Karen Gault
Steve Glines
Marc D. Goldfinger
Carolyn Gregory
Doug Holder
Coleen Houlihan
Walter Howard
Lee Litif
Gordon Marshall
Ryk McIntyre
Gloria Mindock
Felipe Victor Martinez
Ryk McIntyre
Margaret Nairn
Joanna Nealon
Chad Parenteau
Bill Perrault
Deborah Priestly
Erin Reardon
Chris Robbins
Dianne Robitaille
Lynne Sticklor
Ryan "Rat" Travis
James Van Looy
Carol Weston

And others to be announced. Contact us and let us know that you will be there.