Out Of The Blue Benefit Link
Click here for updates on the December 10th raffle to benefit the Out Of The Blue Art Gallery. More information on the pieces being raffled will be available by the end of the week.
You can also purchase raffle tickets via a PayPal link on the site.
11/30/05
Out of The Blue Holiday Raffle
When: Saturday, December 10th, 12-5 p.m.
When: Saturday, December 10th, 12-5 p.m.
Where: Out of The
Scheduled performers include:
Carolyn Gregory (poet)
Chad Parenteau (poet, co-host of Stone Soup Poetry)
Bill Perrault (poet, producer of Stone Soup TV series)
Deb Priestly (poet, Out of The Blue Sales Manager)
Meg Smith (poet, dancer)
Lynne Sticklor (The Prize Lady)
And an Open Mike as well.
Many ways to participate, whether or not you can attend the show:
$10 Two raffle tickets, and admission on December 10th.
$7 One raffle ticket, plus admission.
$5 One raffle ticket.
$4 Suggested Donation Admission only.
$? Donation to Out of the Blue.
$!! Participates in the open mike will be eligible for an exclusive raffle!
All money for purchased raffle tickets and donations will solely benefit the Out of The Blue art gallery. All art, time and food have been donated (thanks to the Middle East Café and other local venders and peoples).
We will continue to accept donations of artwork until the day of the event.
Raffle tickets sales will be going on all day- up to the drawing.
You will be notified if you win and are not in attendance.
Poem of The Week
Due to a late entry, we were not able to have a featured poem last week. We apologize and hope this doesn't happen again.
This week, we have Dan Shanahan, a veteran poet and an associate of Janaka Stucky who came to Stucky's November 21st reading and impressed in the open mike. Hopefully, he will have his own feature sometime in 2006.
A Silk Moth In Holyoke, Massachusetts
There was a moth
from Koboke, Japan
Who it is said made thread
With lineage from China,
Three thousand years old.
When its eggs hatched
Stars were stitched upon thier backs.
As caterpillars they mused and grazed
At zero speed on green fields
Of Mulberry leaves.
In such idle ways
They dreamed themseves
Into cocoons,
Dangled in their solitudes,
Pupas pulsing with the moon.
when they woke
Their work began
Spinning silk for my mother,
Who sewed by hand
Buttonholes and linings
I recall, for a sweater
She made for me one fall.
Boxi moth, furry,
Plain khaki tan,
My city was spun
From your imaginings.
You threaded the river
Through the needles of canals
Dug out with immigrant hands.
In your sleep you turned the mills
The cogs and wheels
Spooling bobbins by the millions
To bind this world in silk
And pay for the shop-floor girl's
Bottle of milk.
--Dan Shanahan
Due to a late entry, we were not able to have a featured poem last week. We apologize and hope this doesn't happen again.
This week, we have Dan Shanahan, a veteran poet and an associate of Janaka Stucky who came to Stucky's November 21st reading and impressed in the open mike. Hopefully, he will have his own feature sometime in 2006.
A Silk Moth In Holyoke, Massachusetts
There was a moth
from Koboke, Japan
Who it is said made thread
With lineage from China,
Three thousand years old.
When its eggs hatched
Stars were stitched upon thier backs.
As caterpillars they mused and grazed
At zero speed on green fields
Of Mulberry leaves.
In such idle ways
They dreamed themseves
Into cocoons,
Dangled in their solitudes,
Pupas pulsing with the moon.
when they woke
Their work began
Spinning silk for my mother,
Who sewed by hand
Buttonholes and linings
I recall, for a sweater
She made for me one fall.
Boxi moth, furry,
Plain khaki tan,
My city was spun
From your imaginings.
You threaded the river
Through the needles of canals
Dug out with immigrant hands.
In your sleep you turned the mills
The cogs and wheels
Spooling bobbins by the millions
To bind this world in silk
And pay for the shop-floor girl's
Bottle of milk.
--Dan Shanahan
11/28/05
Janaka Stucky's November 21st Reading
Photo by Bill Perrault
Thanks to Janaka Stucky for reading at Stone Soup Poetry and introducing new people to the venue.
December 5th: Victoria Bosch Murray Features
Victoria Bosch Murray, 2004 Cambridge Poetry Award recipient, has published poetry most recently in Poetic Voices Without Borders, Dos Pasos Review, Green Hills Literary Lantern, and Wolf Moon Press Journal. Murray has also published two chapbooks: Running A Red, and her most recent, Not to Scale. She is host of Poetribe in East Bridgewater, Massachusetts.
A sample poem of Murray's from Wolf Moon Press Journal.
Victoria Bosch Murray, 2004 Cambridge Poetry Award recipient, has published poetry most recently in Poetic Voices Without Borders, Dos Pasos Review, Green Hills Literary Lantern, and Wolf Moon Press Journal. Murray has also published two chapbooks: Running A Red, and her most recent, Not to Scale. She is host of Poetribe in East Bridgewater, Massachusetts.
A sample poem of Murray's from Wolf Moon Press Journal.
11/23/05
November 28th: 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. Returning to Stone Soup on November 28th will be performance poet Ryk McIntyre.
Ryk McIntyre is a three-time National Poetry Slam Team member, as well as Co-host at The Cantab Poetry Reading. He has toured nationally and in Canada, opening for acts as varied as Leon Redbone and Jim Carroll, as well as appearing as part of Lollapalooza 1994. He has been published in Short-Fuse: an Anthology of New Fusion Poets, 100 Poets Against The New World Order, Nth Position Magazine and The Worcester Review. He is also the author of four chapbooks, including his most recent, Love Is A Flashlight. He is a known biped.
A sample poem from Nth Position.
The latest PDF version of 100 Poets Against The War.
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. Returning to Stone Soup on November 28th will be performance poet Ryk McIntyre.
Ryk McIntyre is a three-time National Poetry Slam Team member, as well as Co-host at The Cantab Poetry Reading. He has toured nationally and in Canada, opening for acts as varied as Leon Redbone and Jim Carroll, as well as appearing as part of Lollapalooza 1994. He has been published in Short-Fuse: an Anthology of New Fusion Poets, 100 Poets Against The New World Order, Nth Position Magazine and The Worcester Review. He is also the author of four chapbooks, including his most recent, Love Is A Flashlight. He is a known biped.
A sample poem from Nth Position.
The latest PDF version of 100 Poets Against The War.
11/16/05
11/14/05
Poem Of The Week
We continue our new weekly feature with a new poem by Melissa Bates, a newcomer to the open mike at Stone Soup Poetry.
Waste
Tonight, I knew
this is where
the dead and the dying go.
So I took a step back,
crouched down
into the black
crescent of your shadow,
steadied my arms,
waited for your fall.
I knew in the way
I used to love
the slowing
of my own pulse,
How even the blue
of my vein
became both beautiful
and dangerous
under moonlight,
How silver flat blades
tasted like candy
underneath my tongue,
How blood was the only
proof of potency,
Knew.
Knew in the way
I used to catch sight
of myself in strange bathroom stalls,
arms curled around porcelain,
slick forehead lightening smack
against toilet seats
with each involuntary seize
of my body,
Knew.
Maybe this is why
I wanted to slip
my fingers underneath
your ribs,
lift you right off the ground,
scream something
about cracks
and time
and life
needing to be more
than just a habit,
do something other than
listen to your breath leak
like air from a tire,
a slow hiss
before the final pop.
See, tonight,
I saw you
in the mirror,
parchment paper thin skin
merely draping over bones,
head hanging down,
hair the color of
Scotch whiskey spilling
over egg breasts,
and I knew.
--Melissa Bates
We continue our new weekly feature with a new poem by Melissa Bates, a newcomer to the open mike at Stone Soup Poetry.
Waste
Tonight, I knew
this is where
the dead and the dying go.
So I took a step back,
crouched down
into the black
crescent of your shadow,
steadied my arms,
waited for your fall.
I knew in the way
I used to love
the slowing
of my own pulse,
How even the blue
of my vein
became both beautiful
and dangerous
under moonlight,
How silver flat blades
tasted like candy
underneath my tongue,
How blood was the only
proof of potency,
Knew.
Knew in the way
I used to catch sight
of myself in strange bathroom stalls,
arms curled around porcelain,
slick forehead lightening smack
against toilet seats
with each involuntary seize
of my body,
Knew.
Maybe this is why
I wanted to slip
my fingers underneath
your ribs,
lift you right off the ground,
scream something
about cracks
and time
and life
needing to be more
than just a habit,
do something other than
listen to your breath leak
like air from a tire,
a slow hiss
before the final pop.
See, tonight,
I saw you
in the mirror,
parchment paper thin skin
merely draping over bones,
head hanging down,
hair the color of
Scotch whiskey spilling
over egg breasts,
and I knew.
--Melissa Bates
11/7/05
Poem of The Week
The Stone Soup Poetry Site will now start publishing poetry from those who frequent the venue, in addition to the highlighted features, with a emphasis on finding new voices. That being said, we already break away from tradition by selecting for our first poem, "Untitled" by Walter Howard, who featured earlier in October but was unable to provide us a sample poem for the web site.
Untitled
I measure the beat of the
tired world's heart
choked with sadness
count the broken dream's silent tears
catch the lost child's lamentations
torment of the wind cast in chains
Paof the bird that has broken its wing
Wimpers of the faithful old hound, mercilessly kicked
the murdered heart's strains.
Go! Place roses on the cold
On the saring eyes of the dead.
--Walter Howard
The Stone Soup Poetry Site will now start publishing poetry from those who frequent the venue, in addition to the highlighted features, with a emphasis on finding new voices. That being said, we already break away from tradition by selecting for our first poem, "Untitled" by Walter Howard, who featured earlier in October but was unable to provide us a sample poem for the web site.
Untitled
I measure the beat of the
tired world's heart
choked with sadness
count the broken dream's silent tears
catch the lost child's lamentations
torment of the wind cast in chains
Paof the bird that has broken its wing
Wimpers of the faithful old hound, mercilessly kicked
the murdered heart's strains.
Go! Place roses on the cold
On the saring eyes of the dead.
--Walter Howard
10/29/05
October 31st Update
Due to unforseen circumstances, Doug Holder will not be able to read for his planned October 31st feature at Stone Soup Poetry. The reading will be scheduled for a later date.
Instead, Stone Soup Poetry on October 31st will hold a open mike dedicated to Doug Holder's own Ibbetson Street Press. All authors published under Doug Holder's imprint are invited to read and give tribute to his efforts as a publisher.
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.
Due to unforseen circumstances, Doug Holder will not be able to read for his planned October 31st feature at Stone Soup Poetry. The reading will be scheduled for a later date.
Instead, Stone Soup Poetry on October 31st will hold a open mike dedicated to Doug Holder's own Ibbetson Street Press. All authors published under Doug Holder's imprint are invited to read and give tribute to his efforts as a publisher.
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.
10/27/05
November 21st: Janaka Stucky Features
Photo by Q. Nuruzzaman.
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. Making his debut feature on November 21st will be poet and publisher Janaka Stucky.
Janaka Stucky is the founder and managing editor of Black Ocean, an non-profit publishing and production company based out of Boston, New York, and Chicago. After receiving hs BFA in writing and literature from Emerson College, he went on to get an MFA in poetry from Vermont College.
Prior to founding Black Ocean, he was the co-founder of the Boston-based nationally touring group, the Guerilla Poets, a street-poetry collective of over 700 members internationally who devoted themselves to injecting poetry into public and commercial spaces on a weekly basis.
Stucky has been a guest lecturer at Vermont College's MFA in writing program. A wnner of several national Haiku competitions, his poems have also been published in a variety of journals, including North American Review, Blue Fifth Review, Frogpond, Elixir, and Volt.
Rooted in Boston, Stucky spends his life traveling, writing, and caring for the dead. He likes his whisky neat and his music dirty. He is developing the perfection of effort and is ever reading to serve you by word.
A sample poem is included below.
Eavesdropping My Funeral
I threw a funeral for myself
and invited all my friends
to see who would show and
who would not.
At the service, I remember
all my in-laws clearing their
throats.
I played a guessing game with
my eyes closed—who’s lips were
who’s upon my propped up
head.
And when someone asked,
“Did he suffer much?”
someone else said,
“Like the wings of a butterfly.”
I thought of jumping
up and laughing. I let them bury me
instead.
A recent Boston Phoenix article about Janaka Stucky.
The Black Ocean website.
Photo by Q. Nuruzzaman.
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. Making his debut feature on November 21st will be poet and publisher Janaka Stucky.
Janaka Stucky is the founder and managing editor of Black Ocean, an non-profit publishing and production company based out of Boston, New York, and Chicago. After receiving hs BFA in writing and literature from Emerson College, he went on to get an MFA in poetry from Vermont College.
Prior to founding Black Ocean, he was the co-founder of the Boston-based nationally touring group, the Guerilla Poets, a street-poetry collective of over 700 members internationally who devoted themselves to injecting poetry into public and commercial spaces on a weekly basis.
Stucky has been a guest lecturer at Vermont College's MFA in writing program. A wnner of several national Haiku competitions, his poems have also been published in a variety of journals, including North American Review, Blue Fifth Review, Frogpond, Elixir, and Volt.
Rooted in Boston, Stucky spends his life traveling, writing, and caring for the dead. He likes his whisky neat and his music dirty. He is developing the perfection of effort and is ever reading to serve you by word.
A sample poem is included below.
Eavesdropping My Funeral
I threw a funeral for myself
and invited all my friends
to see who would show and
who would not.
At the service, I remember
all my in-laws clearing their
throats.
I played a guessing game with
my eyes closed—who’s lips were
who’s upon my propped up
head.
And when someone asked,
“Did he suffer much?”
someone else said,
“Like the wings of a butterfly.”
I thought of jumping
up and laughing. I let them bury me
instead.
A recent Boston Phoenix article about Janaka Stucky.
The Black Ocean website.
November 14th: Meg Smith Features
Photo by Julia Cheng.
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. Lowell Poet Meg Smith Returns to Feature on November 14th.
Meg Smith has published more than 200 poems, short stories and other works in a variety of literary journals, including many in the Gothic and horror genres. Recent publication credits include Renovation Journal, Poetry Bay, Pulse, The Cafe Review, Erosha, The Lowell Pearl, The Gothic Revue, Dreams of Decadence, and others.
She has published a book of poetry, The First Fire, and is working on a second book. She is a member of the board of directors of the Lowell Celebrates Kerouac! Festival dedicated to Beat writer Jack Kerouac, and editor and publisher of Red Eft, an online literary journal. A sample poem is included below, originally published in The Gothic Revue.
Moons of Saturn: Cassini Probe
Now we approach
in the gray descent,
a landscape blurs like shapeless trowsers,
a body not inhabited or summarized.
but bodies we have found, and they
speak a distant code to our own cold white
single garnet.
One breathes its own swirl of gas,
presumptuous as to be almost planetary.
One speaks to canals of comic books
and radio shows.
They have much to give.
But our needs are few.
We wouldn't ask for granite or delusions of seas
that glow green
or trinkets in the atmosphere to form rings.
All we want is the truth of time.
All we want is the first dawn.
Meg Smith's web site.
Red Eft.
Photo by Julia Cheng.
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. Lowell Poet Meg Smith Returns to Feature on November 14th.
Meg Smith has published more than 200 poems, short stories and other works in a variety of literary journals, including many in the Gothic and horror genres. Recent publication credits include Renovation Journal, Poetry Bay, Pulse, The Cafe Review, Erosha, The Lowell Pearl, The Gothic Revue, Dreams of Decadence, and others.
She has published a book of poetry, The First Fire, and is working on a second book. She is a member of the board of directors of the Lowell Celebrates Kerouac! Festival dedicated to Beat writer Jack Kerouac, and editor and publisher of Red Eft, an online literary journal. A sample poem is included below, originally published in The Gothic Revue.
Moons of Saturn: Cassini Probe
Now we approach
in the gray descent,
a landscape blurs like shapeless trowsers,
a body not inhabited or summarized.
but bodies we have found, and they
speak a distant code to our own cold white
single garnet.
One breathes its own swirl of gas,
presumptuous as to be almost planetary.
One speaks to canals of comic books
and radio shows.
They have much to give.
But our needs are few.
We wouldn't ask for granite or delusions of seas
that glow green
or trinkets in the atmosphere to form rings.
All we want is the truth of time.
All we want is the first dawn.
Meg Smith's web site.
Red Eft.
November 7th: Coleen Houlihan Features
Photo by Bill Perrault.
Stone Soup Poetry meets from 8-10 p.m. every Monday at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery at 106 Prospect Street with an open mike sign-up at 7:30 p.m. Coleen T. Houlihan returns to us November 7th to feature.
Coleen T. Houlihan studied writing at
She has always been attracted to the written form as a way of giving rise to emotions and disentangling them, both in herself and in others. Like any exercise, which involves two components, the writer and created piece work together to become the key that can unlock the door to the reader’s mind. Through slim picture books read to her as a child, Coleen first became that reader. She presently resides in
The Elephants
Please understand me,
for I am mine tonight-
The ringmaster says the elephants
are all right
but as I passed their cage,
all metal and no sun,
I caught a glimpse of their eyes
and the way they were mashing
bars and tufts and chains,
the way they were biting their own skin
said to me
the elephants are wild tonight.
And he was so confident
as he lead them into the ring
with balls, hoops of fire and whips of hide-
I took a seat knowing what it would bring
and the elephants came running
around the tent as if they were sheep
deep grey and as large as submarines.
Yes, something will go down tonight.
Not me, not me, not me.
And one by one he introduced them,
names of Dolly, Sally, Pete-
and I remembered thinking,
right before the screams,
that these elephants were once from Africa-
distant, wild and free
and who did he think he was addressing,
what was it that he was choosing to see?
Not me, not me, not me.
They were beautiful
and the people screamed.
The woman next to me waved her arms
falling like brittle leaves-
clearly she did not see,
and as her head hit the floor
I thought,
“Not me.”
Dressed in red, crimson channels
that flowed down their flanks
and their wounds were the shapes of
deserts, lakes and trees
more powerful than the mark
of any hand that had touched
those wild, wild beasts…
And their cries reminded me
of my own.
But the ringmaster was shouting
foreign, bitter words.
Then the ringmaster was a decoration,
his body a blur
of white ivory and red skin
and the people were all screaming
as the hoops blazed yellow sun
and the balls burst and collapsed
and the woman on the floor was yelling,
“My god, my god what is this!”
I smiled when I saw her
looked her in the eye,
“It’s the elephants,” I said.
“They are wild tonight.”
And then I sank my teeth
into her flesh
and as the elephants thrashed,
as the elephants pressed,
I knew
they understood.
10/26/05
October 31st: Doug Holder 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. Returning to the venue next Monday will be local small press figure Doug Holder.
After many years of publishing numerous small press poets through his own Ibbetson Street Press, including his own chapbooks (Dreams At The Au Bon Pan, On Either Side of The Charles, waking In A Cold Sweat), Doug Holder finally gets to sit back and enjoy simply being a published author, thanks to Yellow Pepper Press. On the 31st, Stone Soup Poetry will premiere Holder's new chapbook Wrestling With My Father, which has earned advance praise from poets such as Harris Gardner and Hugh Fox.
Last month, Ibbetson Street Press published Sanctus! Sanctus! Sanctus! by recent Stone Soup feature Ann Carhart. Also The Somerville News Writers Festival, created by Holder and Heat City Literary Review Editor Tim Gager, will be taking place on November 13 at the Somerville Theatre (see the link at the end of this post).
A sample poem of Holder's is included here.
Another...in a series of turning fifty poems.
My Life: In Contrast With Others.
There is no need for comparison.
Nor is there time.
What I wanted before
has been rendered to caricature.
The Phantom that pulls and pulls at me
I will never clearly see--
The only contrast
will be that short,
tenuous last breath
that will surely be,
the death
of me.
The Ibbetson Street Press website.
The Yellow Pepper Press Website.
The Somerville News Writers Festival.
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. Returning to the venue next Monday will be local small press figure Doug Holder.
After many years of publishing numerous small press poets through his own Ibbetson Street Press, including his own chapbooks (Dreams At The Au Bon Pan, On Either Side of The Charles, waking In A Cold Sweat), Doug Holder finally gets to sit back and enjoy simply being a published author, thanks to Yellow Pepper Press. On the 31st, Stone Soup Poetry will premiere Holder's new chapbook Wrestling With My Father, which has earned advance praise from poets such as Harris Gardner and Hugh Fox.
Last month, Ibbetson Street Press published Sanctus! Sanctus! Sanctus! by recent Stone Soup feature Ann Carhart. Also The Somerville News Writers Festival, created by Holder and Heat City Literary Review Editor Tim Gager, will be taking place on November 13 at the Somerville Theatre (see the link at the end of this post).
A sample poem of Holder's is included here.
Another...in a series of turning fifty poems.
My Life: In Contrast With Others.
There is no need for comparison.
Nor is there time.
What I wanted before
has been rendered to caricature.
The Phantom that pulls and pulls at me
I will never clearly see--
The only contrast
will be that short,
tenuous last breath
that will surely be,
the death
of me.
The Ibbetson Street Press website.
The Yellow Pepper Press Website.
The Somerville News Writers Festival.
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