July 11: Dexter Garcia Feature/Book Release Party at Stone Soup

 

Stone Soup Poetry meets every Monday from 7-9 p.m. every Monday at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery at 541 Massachusetts Avenue in Central Square Cambridge, Massachusetts. On July 11, we welcome back Dexter Garcia, who will be debuting her first collection of poetry. 

Dexter Garcia is a spoken word artist deeply involved in her home community of Lynn as a former member of and a Co-coach for the RAW elements Slam team. She is the author of For Blackmail: A Compilation of LOVE Poems. She has performed at some amazing events such as 2014 World Aids Day Boston and The American Voice 2015. Although a bit cynical Dexter considers herself a love poet. Her main goal is to give a little bit of her love to each audience member and hope they cultivate and grow it so they can spread it themselves. She believes cupid has no wings, just a few good poems.

July 4: No Stone Soup

Stone Soup is taking a week off and will not be meeting this 4th of July Monday.

Meet us back on Monday July 11 when we will be returning to celebrate the release of Dexter Garcia's new book.

June 27: STONE SOUP OPEN MIC! ALL NIGHT

Stone Soup Poetry meets every Monday from 7-9 p.m. every Monday at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery, now at its new location at 541 Massachusetts Avenue in Central Square Cambridge, Massachusetts. Today on June 27, as the title above says, it's all open mic all night!

Stone Soup presents "Stand on your soap box" and speak your truth. This will be an open mic all night and each poet will have 7 minutes on the mic. Come early to sign up! Come one Come all!
 

June 20: Toni Bee Features at Stone Soup

APOLOGIES FOR PREVIOUSLY LISTED TIME OF 7-9 PM.

Stone Soup Poetry meets from 7-9 p.m. every Monday at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery, now at its new location at 541 Massachusetts Avenue in Central Square Cambridge, Massachusetts with an open mike sign-up at 7:30 p.m. On June 20, we have the return of Cambridge figurehead Toni Bee.

Toni Bee is a poet, photographer, and one of the founders of Black Lives Matter in Cambridge. The community advocate and mother was the first elected female Poet Populist for the City of Cambridge (2011-2013) She received the 2011 YWCA Cambridge Outstanding Woman Award.

Bee led the Black Lives Matter in Cambridge march along with co-founders and teen leaders in January 2015. She served on the board of directors from 2013-2015 at Cambridge Community Television - after years of being a Neighbor Media journalist at the television station.

Her work has been featured in Oddball Magazine, Stone's Throw and was selected to be part of Best Indie Lit New England, Volume 2.

Toni has been a story teller and poetry facilitator involved with (CPAC) Citi Performing Arts Center; for one year as the Community Artist Fellow and every summer since as a City Spotlights Spoken Word Teaching Artist.

June 13: Reece Cotton Features at Stone Soup

Stone Soup Poetry meets every Monday from 7-9 p.m. every Monday at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery, now at its new location at 541 Massachusetts Avenue in Central Square Cambridge, Massachusetts. On June 13, we take a different spin on tonight's performance and introduce comic Reece Cotton.

Boston native and Tufts University alumna Reece Cotton is a comedian that connects very well with her audience and jokes about her most controversial experiences. Reece brings humor to her struggles with managing bipolar disorder, growing up as the gay daughter of a Baptist pastor, and avoiding confrontations while attending classes in Chinatown (aka "The Combat Zone"). Reece also reflects on the awkward social interactions that often stem from having the last name "Cotton" and being of African American descent. Reece enjoys joking about current events, dog ownership, and the ironies that shadow our everyday lives.

June 6: Rachael Eisenberg Features at Stone Soup

 

Stone Soup Poetry meets every Monday from 7-9 p.m. every Monday at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery, now at its new location at 541 Massachusetts Avenue in Central Square Cambridge, Massachusetts. On June 6, we welcome Rachael Eisenberg for her first poetry feature.  

Having her first poem published at the age of eight, Rachael Eisenberg is an avid boat enthusiast. She grew up in Nova Scotia, going to a school called Landmark East, because of her learning disability. Rachael has an Associate’s Degree in Television Broadcasting and a Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology (from The New England Institute of Art and Eastern Nazarene College, respectively). After getting her Bachelor’s Degree, Rachael went on to publish he first full-length book of poetry, Poetic License. She continued to attend academic lectures at Harvard Extension School and Harvard Summer School. Rachael received an A in graduate studies, from Harvard Summer School, when she took a class on psychopathy. She studied psychopaths (a part of forensic psychology). Now, she has published her second full-length book of poetry, called, Nothing to Write Home About. And she is also looking forward to completing a master’s degree (if possible) from Harvard Extension School, in the field of psychology.

May 30: C.C. Arshagra Features at Stone Soup

 

Stone Soup Poetry meets every Monday from 7-9 p.m. every Monday at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery, now at its new location at 541 Massachusetts Avenue in Central Square Cambridge, Massachusetts. On May 30, C.C. Arshagra will be performing with his new music group Funk Physics.

C.C. Arshagra is a Connecticut-based poet and songwriter. For years he was active in Stone Soup as the videographer for the Stone Soup Poetry TV show. He also toured with the Barnum and Buddah Poetry Circus. He is the author of The Open Mike Poems, a series of chapbooks. His most recent gigs include serving as a member of Funk Physics and as producer and host of  both “The I Do Not Know Show” and “The Divide and Conquer News Report”on WESU, 88.1 FM in Wesleyan University. He has been called "The hardest working man in poetry" by Jeff Robinson.

May 23: STONE SOUP OPEN MIC! ALL NIGHT

Stone Soup Poetry meets every Monday from 7-9 p.m. every Monday at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery, now at its new location at 541 Massachusetts Avenue in Central Square Cambridge, Massachusetts. On May 23, as the title above says, it's all open mic all night!

Stone Soup presents "Stand on your soap box" and speak your truth. This will be an open mic all night and each poet will have 7 minutes on the mic. Come early to sign up! Come one Come all!

May 16: Lee Litif and Mark Hänser Features at Stone Soup

Stone Soup Poetry meets every Monday from 7-9 p.m. every Monday at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery, now at its new location at 541 Massachusetts Avenue in Central Square Cambridge, Massachusetts. On May 16, Stone Soup continues its forty-fifth anniversary with the return of Lee Litif and Mark Hänser.

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.

Mark Hänser may have come from Neptune. Or more likely, he was a changeling left by celluloid fairies in a basket filled with orange blooms beneath a starry Southern California sky, later to be reared beneath barren maple trees underneath a Berkshire sky of Maxfield Parrish blue. The bastard love child of Judy Garland and Dr. Seuss, Mark Hänser — as a painter and a poet and a performer — draws his inspiration from pop culture, the tragically romantic, the romantically tragic, and the absurd. In his performing guise as the Whore of Babylon, Mark was a well-known presence in the millennial Boston poetry scene. But the Babylonian had to be slain as the millennium came, and Mark fled to Neptune. But now he's back, with more rhymes and tales from the ether!

May 9: Spit that Fire Poetry Slam with Anthony McPherson

 

 Here we go again Stone Soup Poetry Where slam poets get together and show us what they got! You be the judge to see if one eight poets got what it takes to win the $80 cash prize!! "So you think you can SLAM!"

Anthony McPherson (aka Tony Fearnone) resides in New York City. His biracial poetry intertwines various artforms such as breakdance, beatboxing, as well as a myriad of character impressions. He ranks 13th on earth (IWPS 2015), and garnered the attention of Button Poetry, Huffington Post and Upworthy. You can see him perform in an upcoming Lions Gate film, title to be announced. He is a Nuyorican Grand Slam poet (3rd at NPS 2012), and an Urban Word alum (2nd at BNV ‘08). Mr. Fearnone represents those who left home far behind to make it, and those who will go far enough to find themselves - their best selves.

 

May 2: Happy 45th Anniversary Stone Soup Poetry with Martha Boss and Carol Weston, Dan Shanahan EARLIER START TIME

Stone Soup Poetry meets every Monday from 7-9 p.m. every Monday at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery, now at its new location at 541 Massachusetts Avenue in Central Square Cambridge, Massachusetts. On May 2, at a special 6:30 start time, Stone Soup celebrates its forty-fifth anniversary with local staples Martha Boss and Carol Weston. Join us for this momentous occasion as we gear up to celebrate all month long with a gathering of old and new Stone Soup friends.

Bio: Martha Boss

martha boss says
that the only thing
better than writing
a poem is writing
the next one.

sometimes someone
will be glad i did
& publish one or two.

like ODDBALL MAG
or BAGEL BARDS
or SPARE CHANGE
or FRESH BROTH
i had a very informal
ecucation.
all poets, bards,
&slammers influence me.

&i'm still going to
the university of words.

'i credit myself
for brevity,
nativity,
& hopefully,
longevity.'

Carol Weston's history as a poet is linked to such figures as Jack Powers, John Wieners, Robert Lowell, Allen Ginsburg, and Carl Solomon (to whom Allen Ginsburg's "Howl" was dedicated). Her credentials include being poetry editor of the Impressions Workshop. She was published in the Farleigh Dickinson Journal, alongside Donald Justice, Phillip Levine, and Anne Sexton. She is also the author of “What the Poet Expects of Himself,” an essay published in the Tufts Review. Married to John Galloway, science teacher at Endicott College, she taught for ten years at the Chestnut Hill School.

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. On May 1, 2011, Carol performed her poem "Peace Fire" alongside musician Jon Voight for Stone Soup Poetry's 40th anniversary celebration and tribute to Jack Powers, Stone Soup's late founder. In 2013, she was one of the panelists for "Stone Soup Poetry: A Retrospective," presented at the Massachusetts Poetry Festival in Salem, Massachusetts.

Her poetry credits include The Farleigh Literary Review, Bomb, Stone Soup Anthology 2003, Spoonful, Stone Soup Presents: Fresh Broth and the anthology dedicated to John Wieners, The Blind See Only This World. Her chapbook, Spirals, Whorls Sutures, Septa, was published by Stone Soup Poetry in 1978.

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. 

April 25: Ron Goba Features at Stone Soup Poetry

Stone Soup Poetry meets every Monday from 7-9 p.m. every Monday at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery, now at its new location at 541 Massachusetts Avenue in Central Square Cambridge, Massachusetts. On May April 25, we are happy to have a special reading with Ron Goba to close out National Poetry Month.

Ron Goba is the author of such collections as The Music Box, The Custom of Quoting Someone, and Collage As Silkscreen. For several years, he was known as the doorman for the weekly Boston Poetry Slam at the Cantab. In 2011, he released Swan Song, a small collection of poems, to coincide with his reading at the Cantab on the eve of his birthday. In 2012, his work was included in Songs of Innocence and Sam Adams, a collection of poems co-authored by Prabakar T. Rajan. Since the passing of his beloved wife Susan, Ron has featured at Arts at The Armory, Stone Soup Poetry The Cantab Lounge and elsewhere performing poems specifically crafted for each feature commemorating her life and influence. The poems for April 25 will be made available to the audience.

April 18: Gale Batchelder and Judson Evans Feature at Stone Soup

Stone Soup Poetry meets every Monday from 7-9 p.m. every Monday at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery, now at its new location at 541 Massachusetts Avenue in Central Square Cambridge, Massachusetts. On April 18, we feature a work of collaboration between two local poets, Gale Batchelder and Judson Evans.

Gale Batchelder lives in Cambridge. Her work has appeared in the poetry anthologies New Smoke and Triumph of Poverty, and in White Whale Review and Amethyst Arsenic. She has been a featured reader at Stone Soup, The Poetry Salon of Boston, and at Brookline Poetry series. Gale is a co-founder of the poetry press, Off The Park, New York City.

Judson Evans is an enthusiast for bonsai and horror films, Guerilla Opera and the Japanese art of Chindogu,(or absurd inventions). He teaches a courses on utopian societies, keeps reef aquariums, and has been involved in a wide range of collaborative experiments with composers, choreographers, dancers, and most recently, video artists, as well as other poets at The Boston Conservatory where he teaches Poetry Workshops, a class on cave painting and origins of religion and philosophy, and acts as Director of Liberal Arts. He has published poetry most recently in Laurel Review, Cutbank, and Volt.

Gale and Judson will be reading from their manuscript Chalk Song (Susan Berger-Jones is the additional author). Chalk Song, an experiment in collaboration inspired by Werner Herzog's Cave of Forgotten Dreams, traces multiple approaches of coming to terms with the provocative otherness of stunning cave art dating back 32,000 years.

April 11: Valerie Loveland Features at Stone Soup

Stone Soup Poetry meets every Monday from 7-9 p.m. every Monday at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery, now at its new location at 541 Massachusetts Avenue in Central Square Cambridge, Massachusetts. On April 11, we welcome the return of Valerie Loveland, who has released two collections of poetry this year.

Valerie Loveland is the author of Female Animal, Mandible Maxilla and Reanimated Somehow. Her poems have been featured in Dzanc Book's Best of the Web and the Massachusetts Poetry Festival. She enjoys running, audio poetry, and silent movies. She is a Computer Science student and lives in Allston, Massachusetts.

April 4: Miles Hodges at Stone Soup Poetry - One Night Only

 Stone Soup Poetry meets every Monday from 7-9 p.m. every Monday at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery, now at its new location at 541 Massachusetts Avenue in Central Square Cambridge, Massachusetts. On April 4, we are hosting a special three hour session featuring the talents of Miles Hodges, coming to Boston to a single show. The show is hosted by: DiDi Delgado and The Society Of Urban Poetry. Brought to you By Dexter Garcia Castro & Stone Soup Poetry. We are asking for a $10 contribution due to the special nature of this event. Tickets can be paid in advance here.

Miles Hodges is a 25 year old artist from New York City by way of Teaneck, NJ. His performance history includes appearances at The Apollo Theater, Kennedy Center Washington DC, The Smithsonian Museum, Brooklyn Academy of Music and The Nuyorican Poets Cafe. A former Youth Slam Poet Champion, Miles was profiled in the 2008 Russell Simmons HBO Documentary “Brave New Voices”.

Most recently, he was featured on the second and third seasons of the television series “Verses and Flow” . He has grown to grace the stage with the likes of Amiri Baraka, Saul Williams, and Sonia Sanchez. His work has been added to writing curriculums throughout academia and accessed by more than a million viewers online. He has also been named one of The Root.com’s Young Futurists.

Miles continues to share his art at colleges and universities across the globe and has performed in Delhi, India as a poet in residence for the American Embassy School and assisted with the relief effort on the ground in Haiti.

He plans to keep creating best he can, and that for whatever his future might hold he just hopes it includes a good cup of coffee and some James Baldwin.

 

March 28: Gloria Monaghan Features at Stone Soup

Stone Soup Poetry meets every Monday from 7-9 p.m. every Monday at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery, now at its new location at 541 Massachusetts Avenue in Central Square Cambridge, Massachusetts. On March 28, we welcome the return of local poet and teacher Gloria Monaghan.

Gloria Monaghan is a poet, professor and yoga teacher located in the Boston Area. She has been writing poetry since the age of seventeen. She attended Loyola University in Chicago and attended graduated school at Boston College in Boston. She has taught extensively in Chicago at University of Illinois in Chicago, Saint Augustine, and Columbia College. She is currently an Associate Professor of Humanities at Wentworth Institute where she teaches poetry, Art and Technology and English.

Her first chapbook of poetry, Flawed, appeared in 2012 and was published by Finishing Line Press. Flutter Press published her second book, The Garden, in December in 2015. Her poems have appeared in Blue Max Review, Fox Chase Review, 2River, Aries, Slope, and Spoonful. Her fiction has been published in Tracks, Ezine, and The Biscuit. Her research interests include cyberspace and masculinity. She is currently working on a collection of poems, a series of short stories and a collection of essays about the spectrum of masculinity. She teaches and practices yoga Open Doors Yoga Studio. She has also performed, reading her work with New York and LA based musicians Geso vs. Tifo (2dollar Guitar and Supreme Beings of Leisure).

March 21: Surat Lozowick Features at Stone Soup

Stone Soup Poetry meets every Monday from 7-9 p.m. every Monday at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery, now at its new location at 541 Massachusetts Avenue in Central Square Cambridge, Massachusetts. On March 21, Surat Lozowick, an open micer at Stone Soup over the last year, will finally get his well-deserved feature spot.

Surat Lozowick is somebody, or nobody, or God, and definitely arrogant enough for all three of them. He was raised in Arizona by a pack of wild desert dogs led by a heretic prophet, and after a two-year party in San Francisco and some summer trysts with France, he moved to Boston to try to support his wandering poetry habit. After over a year here, he still hasn’t bought a pillow to sleep on, although he’s bought plenty of paper.

March 14: STONE SOUP OPEN MIC! ALL NIGHT

Stone Soup Poetry meets every Monday from 7-9 p.m. every Monday at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery, now at its new location at 541 Massachusetts Avenue in Central Square Cambridge, Massachusetts. On March 14, as the title above says, it's all open mic all night!

Stone Soup presents "Stand on your soap box" and speak your truth. This will be an open mic all night and each poet will have 7 minutes on the mic. Come early to sign up! Come one Come all!

March 7: Stone Soup Open Mic

Stone Soup Poetry meets every Monday from 7-9 p.m. every Monday at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery, now at its new location at 541 Massachusetts Avenue in Central Square Cambridge, Massachusetts. Tonight on March 7 is an earlier open mic, ending early due to tomorrow's Stone Soup Poetry Slam taking place at the Dudley Cafe.

Tuesday March 8: Stone Soup Poetry Slam! New Day! New Location!

Stone Soup Poetry NORMALLY meets every Monday from 7-9 p.m. every Monday at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery, now at its new location at 541 Massachusetts Avenue in Central Square Cambridge, Massachusetts. HOWEVER, on Tuesday, March 8, we have our slam return to a new day and new place for this week only. We will return to our regular Monday schedule the following week.

We've been doing this for a while and the only thing that's changed is the weather... and maybe the location! Join us as we try out our new location at the Dudley Cafe!

The Deal: 12 poets, 3 rounds, 5 judges, and amazing poetry.
The booty (I meant bounty): There will be three cash prizes:
1st place gets you $75, 2nd place gets you $35 and 3rd place gets you $15 smackaroos!

If you think you got what it takes, then step to the Stone Soup Mic and just, just: Just Slam!!!
We will also have an open mic sign up list with 10 spots - PLEASE come early to ensure your spot on the list.