December 3rd: Pre-Stone Soup Poetry Writing Workshop

I will be leading a workshop today on November 26th, to take place before Stone Soup Poetry from 6:00 PM to just before 8:00 PM.  NEW LOCATION: Au Bon Pain in Central Square, 684 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge.

Please bring a poem of any form and style no more than 1-2 pages. Bring up to 10 copies of your poem to share with the group, and be prepared to share your thoughts on each others work. If you have trouble printing your work, you can email it to me before 5:00 today at chadpoetforhire@yahoo.com

After today's date, the workshop will continue to place the final Monday of every month. Those who are unable to attend next week but interested in future dates please email me at chadpoetforhire@yahoo.com

November 26th: Pre-Stone Soup Poetry Writing Workshop

I will be leading a workshop today on November 26th, to take place before Stone Soup Poetry from 6:00 PM to just before 8:00 PM.  NEW LOCATION: Au Bon Pain in Central Square, 684 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge.

Please bring a poem of any form and style no more than 1-2 pages. Bring up to 10 copies of your poem to share with the group, and be prepared to share your thoughts on each others work. If you have trouble printing your work, you can email it to me before 5:00 today at chadpoetforhire@yahoo.com

After today's date, the workshop will continue to place the final Monday of every month. Those who are unable to attend next week but interested in future dates please email me at chadpoetforhire@yahoo.com

December 17th: Boni Joi Features at Stone Soup

Stone Soup Poetry meets from 8-10 p.m. every Monday at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery at 106 Prospect Street with an open mike sign-up at 7:30 p.m. On  December 17th, we welcome poet and Off The Park Press co-founder Boni Joi.

Boni Joi was born in North Miami Beach, Florida, raised in New Jersey, and recently discovered her lost lineage in Salem, Massachusetts. She has a MFA from Columbia University and has read her poetry at numerous venues in New Jersey, New York and elsewhere. Her first collection Before During or After Rainstorms just hit the pavement. Boston Review says: "Armed with an eye for the particular and a knack for gentle satire, Joi writes from the front lines of a doomed fight for America's spirit, but does so with a bright infectious gusto." She lives with her husband, musical chef Tobi Joi, in Brooklyn.

December 10th: Sean Patrick Mulroy Features at Stone Soup

Stone Soup Poetry meets from 8-10 p.m. every Monday at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery at 106 Prospect Street with an open mike sign-up at 7:30 p.m. On  December 10th, Sean Patrick Mulroy features at Stone Soup for the first time.

 A gifted writer and an accomplished performer, Sean Patrick Mulroy (aka Sean Patrick Conlon) is a dedicated student of literature and a firm believer in the power of the oral tradition. Born and raised in Southern Virginia, the house where Sean Patrick Mulroy grew up was built in 1801 and was commandeered by the union army during the civil war to serve as a makeshift hospital. As a boy, Sean loved to peel back the carpets to show where the blood from hasty surgeries on wounded soldiers had stained the wooden floorboards. Now he writes poems.

Sean is the author of “The Pornography Diaries,” a poetic study of love and sex as seen through the lens of media study and film analysis. He also stars in a one-man show of the same name, combining original rock music and the poems from the book in a critically acclaimed multimedia tour-de-force.

Sean has performed in 10 countries on 3 continents, participated in 12 national spoken-word competitions, written and recorded 3 albums of music, and sold over a thousand books of his poetry. He has been published in both online and print journals, and has featured at literary festivals for universities and arts organizations all over the World. He is currently living in Seattle, working on the production of a new webseries.

December 3rd: Kevin Carey Features at Stone Soup

Stone Soup Poetry meets from 8-10 p.m. every Monday at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery at 106 Prospect Street with an open mike sign-up at 7:30 p.m. On  December 3rd, we welcome north shore author and teacher Kevin Carey, who is celebrating his new collection.

Kevin Carey teaches Writing at Salem State University. His work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, recognized with an Allen Ginsburg Poetry Award, and won Best of the Net 2011. His debut poetry collection, The One Fifteen From Penn Station, was released by CavanKerry Press this year.

His co-written movie script, Peter's Song, won Best Screenplay at the New Hampshire Film festival in 2009. Other screenwriting awards include The Massachusetts Film Office Screenwriting Competition and The Woods Hole Film Festival. His one-act plays have been staged at The New Hampshire Theater Project and at The New Works Festival in Newburyport, Massachusetts. Carey is also a seventh grade basketball coach. He lives with his family in Beverly, Massachusetts.

November 26th: The Fourth Annual "Chad F***ed Up" Open Mic Extravaganza--The WINTER EDITION

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 26th...

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

Tonight: Ryan "Rat" Travis

Spoonful Double Feature!

We are pleased to release issues # 5 and 6 of Spoonful, an online journal that serves as an ongoing tribute to the Stone Soup Poetry scene.

ISSUE #5
AT LONG LAST!

Featuring:

A TRIBUTE SECTION TO BROTHER BLUE.

COLLABORATIONS BY

Valerie Loveland, Samantha Milowsky, Michael F. Gill and Chad Parenteau,

OTHER POEMS BY:

Beatriz Alba del Rio, Mike Amado, Maggie Cleveland, Nate Connors, Ry Frazier, Timothy Gager, Michael F. Gill, Marc D. Goldfinger, Paul Haypenny, Coleen T. Houlihan, Laurel Lambert, Valerie Loveland, Samantha Milowsky, Bridget Murphy, Joanna Nealon, Chad Parenteau, April Penn, Jack Powers, Dan Provost, Zvi A. Sesling, Patrick S., Luis Lazaro Tijerina, and Rafael Woolf.

ARTWORK BY:
 James Conant, (The) Marshall, David Marshall Janice Raynor, and Su Red.

And of course there's...

ISSUE #6

THE JACK POWERS TRIBUTE ISSUE

POEMS BY:

C.C. Arshagra, Christine Casner, Susie Davidson, Raffael De Gruttola, Edward S. Gault, Marc D. Goldfinger, Carolyn Gregory,  Yuri (Riq) Hospodar, Doug Holder, Walter Howard, Lawrence Kessenich, Gordan Marshall, Felipe Victor Martinez, Ryk McIntyre, Bridget Murphy, Joanna Nealon, Chad Parenteau, Bill Perrault, Su Red, Ryan "Rat" Travis, Jame Van Looy, Carol Weston and Jack Powers.

Click here to start reading.

Thank you.

Chad Parenteau, Editor
Dale Meyer-Curley, Contributing Editor

November 19th: The Return of Ryan "Rat" Travis to 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 November 19th, we welcome back Ryan "Ratt" Travis, who celebrates his 15th year as a poet, open micer and performer.

Ryan “Rat” Travis is an accomplished poet; for 15 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.

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 someday.

Rat currently resides in Salem, MA with his beautiful wife Holly and their wonderful black cat Midnight.

Tonight!

Michael F. Gill hosts Douglas Bishop!

November 7th: Pre-Stone Soup Poetry Writing Workshop

I will be leading a workshop today on November 5th, to take place before Stone Soup Poetry from 6:00 PM to just before 8:00 PM.  NEW LOCATION.

Please bring a poem of any form and style no more than 1-2 pages. Bring up to 10 copies of your poem to share with the group, an
d be prepared to share your thoughts on each others work. If you have trouble printing your work, you can email it to me before noontime on November 7th at chadpoetforhire@yahoo.com

After today's date, the workshop will continue to place the final Monday of every month. Those who are unable to attend next week but interested in future dates please email me at chadpoetforhire@yahoo.com

October 29th: Stone Soup Cancelled Tonight

There will be no feature or open mic tonight due to weather conditions.  We apologize for the inconvenience.

Tonight

Rusty Barnes Features Tonight!

November 12th: Douglas Bishop 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 November 12th, we welcome the return of Douglas Bishop.

Douglas Bishop, as a teacher, has worked with students from one to ninety, but now teaches English as a Second Language at a middle school in Lowell, Massachusetts. As a poet, he has performed in places as distant as Glasgow and Guatemala, but now appears primarily around Boston. He is known for bringing a literate eye to multi-voiced performances often incorporating musicians and singers as well as other poets. His two books, Songs in Love and The Eightfold Path (the latter includes a live recording involving nine poets and five musicians), are available through his website, bishopsky.com.

November 5th: CD Collins 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 November 5th, we welcome back poet and storyteller, CD Collins.

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 resurgence of spoken-word with live music, her work has been archived in three award-winning compact discs: Kentucky Stories, Subtracting Down and Carousel Lounge. 

Collins’ fiction has appeared in numerous literary magazines including StoryQuarterly, Salamander, Phoebe and The Pennsylvania Review. Her short fiction collection, Blue Land, was published by Polyho Press.  Her poetry collection, Self Portrait with Severed Head, was published by Ibbetson Street Press.  Her work is available at Joseph Beth’s Bookstore and through her website www.cdcollins.com.

Collins has received grants from the Massachusetts College of Art, The St. Botolph Club, The Cambridge Arts Council, The Somerville Arts Council, and the Kentucky Foundation for Women. 

 Her recent projects include a novel about the psychological effect of WWII on the daughters of an American and a German soldier, a short biographical film about a devastating event that illustrates the necessity of government regulations. Forthcoming are a compact disc titled Clean Coal/Big Lie and a book of essays designed for a multimedia tablet display with  visual artist and designer Melody Farris Jackson Dutch artist and designer Markus Haala. 

Collins has read and performed in a range of venues including Club Passim, Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art,  Berklee College of Music and the New York Public Library. She has consulted on a variety of projects including the screenplay for Debra Granik’s Academy-Award-nominated Winter’s Bone, the breakout film for Kentucky native Jennifer Lawrence.

Praise for Blue Land:

 “CD Collins has the voice of a natural-born storyteller.  The stories in this collection have the compressed beauty of poetry and the richness of novels.  Original and unforgettable.”

— Stephen McCauley

author, The Object of My Affection and Alternatives to Sex

October 29th: C.C. Arshagra Features at Stone Soup

Cancelled Due to Weather! 

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 29th, we welcome the return of Stone Soup friend, C.C. Arshagra.

Poet and songwriter C.C. Arshagra is a past producer of the Stone Soup Poets CCTV Show. He is the author of the Poems (1999), Emotional Geography (1996) and a three part chap book series called The Open Mike Poems. In the year 2000, he was a recipient of The Marcel Kopp Award. He has returned to Stone Soup. First in 2009 to mark the 39th anniversary of Stone Soup, then again in 2010 to participate in the 40th anniversary celebration and Jack Powers memorial.

October 22nd: Rusty Barnes at Stone Soup

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

Rusty Barnes lives in Revere with his family, where he writes about rural Pennsylvania. He's published two chapbooks of poetry, 'Redneck Poems' and 'Broke.' A full-length poetry manuscript entitled 'Kissing Tolstoy' is making the rounds.

October 15th: Jason Wright Features at Stone Soup

Stone Soup Poetry meets from 8-10 p.m. every Monday at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery at 106 Prospect Street with an open mike sign-up at 7:30 p.m. On October 15th, we welcome online poetry editor Jason Wright.

Jason Wright, creator and Editor of Oddball Magazine and oddballmagazine.com,  is a  Graduate of UMass Boston, recent guest on Wheel of Fortune, and self proclaimed champion of mental illness. He has been published in Oddball Magazine 1-5 and oddball magazine online. Jason was given the English Award of Achievement at Bunker Hill Community College.  He is the host of the Decompression Sessions a Podcast online, and a recently retired series at Johnny D's in Somerville.  He has been featured on Talk Up with Charlie Peters, and a frequent performer at The Middle East, Cantab Lounge, Cafe Luna, and other local venues. He currently resides in Somerville, MA.

Stone Soup Ends Columbus Day Weekend

Welcome back Susan Deer Cloud.

Bill Barnum Starts off New Cantab Anthology, Introductions by Richard Cambridge, Robyn Su Millerz

In addition to performing again, Bill Barnum (currently recovering at home) also has future publication to look forward to.  His poem, "Satan's Marbles," will be included in an anthology  that documents the history of the Boston Poetry Slam at The Cantab Lounge, a series that has existed in Boston for over twenty years.  Bill Barnum is not only featured in the anthology, but he is also its first entry.  What follows is a preview of the book with introductions to Barnum's section by Boston poetry mainstays Richard Cambridge and Robyn Su Millerz. Thanks to anthology editor Adam Stone for permission.

"The first thing you need to know is Billie is still writing, memorizing, choreographing, and performing every week at Squawk Coffeehouse. Mostly new material! At Eighty-Six! And I don’t mean three-minute poems. We allow Billie whatever he brings us, and it’s mostly ten minutes of word-dance. Only once in the last four or five years did I see him miss a line and have to go to his notebook to find his place. He shows up around 10pm, and closes the place with his latest piece. Billie is a paradox — a spoken-word mime. Think about that. Most folks think he’s some kind of ethereal-surreal free verse wordman, but in fact, if you get a peek at his journal you’ll see they are formal, rhyming, mostly iambic pentameter structured poems. Billie is such a master you never hear that singsong end-rhyme ‘cause he’s got you mesmerized with his dervish dance.

Most folks don’t know this, but Billie was a regular slammer, week-after-week. He never did win one that I recall. His work was on some other plane. To give him a score would be like trying to write on the river running by. I once asked Billie why he slammed. “For the money,” he said to me, matter-of-factly.

My favorite memory of Billie is on Finals Night when the National Slam came to town in ‘92. Michael Brown gave Billie his props and introduced him to the audience. Billie did the opening feature dressed in his cap & bells, and pixieslippers, and wowed the crowd. No one had ever seen the likes of him before.

Billie is as rare and pure as a unicorn, and he hides in plain sight among us."

―Richard Cambridge

"Billy Barnum is an ageless portal to a nearly bygone era. His mind channels a time most poets have forgotten, when poems were danced. Rhymes are still used as a mnemonic device but the practice of placing a step to mark the “feet” in a line is all but forgotten. Although it will be a treat to see his work on page, those privileged to have seen him perform will remember the hush that fell over the room in order for us to marvel at each step that found its mark and catch each word that floated up out of his pipes, and his presence, rhythm and sound will echo within as we read."

―Robyn Su Millerz