April 10th: Lee Litif and Chris Robbins Feature




Photos by Bill Perrault

Stone Soup Poetry meets from 8-10 p.m. every Monday at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery at 106 Prospect Street with an open mike sign-up at 7:30 p.m. On April 10th, Lee Letif and Chris Robbins bring their own blend of poetry, performance art, and comedy to Stone Soup.

Lee Letif 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 his newest, Ultrasonic Amplifiers and Marshall Amps/Genital Wart Puking Rednecks.

Chris Robbins has volunteered for such causes as the Jane Doe Safety Fnd, the Cambridge International Women's Day celebration of 2005, and Brockton's Black History Month celebration. He has read his poetry in venues around Massachusetts and California. He is putting together a chapbook due out by the end of this year.

Sample poems are below.

The Vendemiating Obventional Metaloph

Jarvey and Slite in a nonferuled express sensory. ON that WEM dominator tube amplifying blisting. Impulsor ejectoring. Electric mistress deluxe flanger rebounding. Embolus evactoring. Jackplug socket linked. Truss rod chanel welded. Guitar patterned rewet. Energizing that oxycontincoalited bmw wagon. To rib thu the psychedelic freeways. The hard rock rampires. And the 3 chord punk turnpikes. In airy fairy hyphoid.

An appal in the ciricoid cartilage. Rickled in the tuberal part. Stooked in the capillary network dismayed in the vagus nerve. Doesn't palp a dorsal root. Doesn't sense a grey matter. Ultrasonc trangressing yeanling gamin. With blanch elytrons. Plus his codon wide open. Is streeling up and away in the prune labrador loft. Without valancing his medial epicondyles.

After a ganja interpeduncolar substance induced dullard. Sparks up 10 Micky Dolenz joints every 18 minutes. He takes out of his thermal brasero. A platter of what he imagines multiple seashoring oysters. Knicking flecking clicking zipping knacking and smacking. Like Spain Mexico Puerto Rico Argentina Columbia and Chile are annexing in fusion. Like a fiesta volk.

A coventina of her lyrics. Danu of her clavier. Avantia of her diathesis. Astiya of her corsaint. A phylum beyant the template. A decury forthby instead of ensuing the dharmamythicizing Mary Ellen Amos. Retains up preteritly. Her maxim renky trabal much gaucia manrent well tailored pants. While she surviews down brantly at your oosmical clad.

During a birth of pirene pernathian feast. A rotta of shandy untitled Randall Rendoun dottling wetty bacchic boon jovy gaudful gladful holidaying Jajuka tibe of Marrakech. Jopping about and faining the lifeway. Plus fivering each other on the solco del cingolo with glazy light bulbs. Which trenes on for many folded tittupy eras.

--Lee Litif

Egalitarian Angel
(dedicated to Sweet Honey in the Rock, Alice Walker and Helen Reddy)

The world
should be honored
to be adorned
by the elegant grace
of an egalitarian woman.
Regardless of whether she stands
three feet tall
or carries the banner
with statuesque poise,
she's a guiding light to follow
out of the dismal, mist-shrouded
dark ages.
With a gentle wave of her hands
in a rhythmic dance ritual,
she churns the air
like brew in a cauldron
to expel the stale scent of old-boy mildew
and bring in a long-awaited refreshing breeze.
She's an inspiration
to people who struggle
through hardship and pain
and never get a grain
of respect or recognition.
She adds a touch of red to our blues
to form the fragrant color of unity.
She searches through countless songs
and when she finds none that speak of her spirit,
she writes her own voice
and sends an angelic song
to the world on eagle's wings.
She holds the world
in a healing tender embrace,
an elixir to soothe over the pain
of pierced hearts and split skin,
and she inspires us to tear down
the barrier of restriction and ignorant ideals
known as the Gender Wall;
so called because it segregates men and women
as if they were separate governments
in the same war-torn European country.
With her inspiration,
perhaps one day
we will learn to love and respect one another
and to love and respect our guiding light,
our Egalitarian Angel.

--Chris Robbins

April 3rd: Afaa Michael Weaver Features


Photo by Bill Perrault

Stone Soup Poetry meets from 8-10 p.m. every Monday at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery at 106 Prospect Street with an open mike sign-up at 7:30 p.m. On April 3rd, featuring at the venue for the first time and beginning Stone Soup Poetry's celebration of National Poetry Month will be poet, playwright and Pulitzer nominee Afaa Michael Weaver.

In 1951, Afaa Michael Weaver was born Michael S. Weaver to working class parents in Baltimore, Maryland. He graduated from the Baltimore public schools in 1968 at sixteen as a National Merit Scholar and began studying at the University of Maryland. In 1970 he began a fifteen year career as a factory worker and also served as an army reservist.

In 1997 Tess Onwueme of the University of Wisconsin gave him the Ibo name "Afaa," and in 2002 Dr. Perng Chingsi of National Taiwan University gave him the name Wei Yafeng.

While a factory worker he wrote and published poetry, short fiction, and free lance journalism and founded 7th Son Press. Under 7th Son he published the journal Blind Alleys, which featured Andrei Codrescu, Frank Marshall Davis, Lucille Clifton, Nikky Finney, and other poets and writers. As a free lancer he has written for the Baltimore Sunpapers, the Boston Globe, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Chicago Tribune, and the Baltimore Afro-American.

In 1983 Weaver enrolled in Excelsior College, and in 1985 he received a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship. Immediately upon receiving the NEA fellowship he retired from factory life to enter Brown University's graduate creative writing program on a full university fellowship. In that same year his first book, Water Song, was published by Callaloo Press at the University of Virginia. He received his B.A. from Excelsior in 1986 and in 1987 he received his M.A. (M.F.A.) from Brown. At Brown he studied poetry with Keith Waldrop, C.D. Wright, and Michael S. Harper. His focus was in playwriting and theater, and for those concentrations he studied with the late George H. Bass and Paula Vogel.

In 1985 Weaver was commissioned to write a poem in honor of Roy DeCarava. The poem entitled "The Dancing Veil" was presented to DeCarava at the annual conference of the Society for Photographic Education on March 20-23, 1986 in Baltimore, Maryland. The poem was subsequently published in Hanging Loose.

He began his teaching career as an adjunct in 1987, teaching at New York University, the City University of New York, Seton Hall Law School, and Essex County College. In 1990, he began at Rutgers Camden and received tenure with distinction there as an early candidate. In 1998, he took a full time position at Simmons College as the Alumnae Professor of English

In that same year he was named a Pew fellow in poetry.

Weaver was a member of the faculty of Cave Canem in 1997, and he was later given the honor of being the organization's Elder.

In the spring semester of 1997,he was named the sixteenth poet-in-residence at the Stadler Poetry Center of Bucknell University. He was the first poet of African descent to hold that position.

Between 1985 to 2005, he published nine collections of poetry, had two professional theater productions, published short fiction in journals and anthologies, and served as editor of Obsidian III, based at North Carolina State University. His short fiction appears in Gloria Naylor's Children of the Night, the sequel to Langston Hughes' anthology, Best Short Stories by Negro Writers. He has given several hundred readings in the U.S., Great Britain, France, China, and Taiwan.

The following bio was obtained from the author's web site. More information and links can be found by clicking here.

Click here for a sample of the author's work.

March 27th: 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 on March 27th will be Ibbetson Street publisher Doug Holder, following a cancellation and a poor feature turn out unfortunately set after a post holiday date he volunteered to take at the last minute. Hopefully, the turnout will be better with more notice and less outside obligations for those those who appreciate both Holder's work and his publishing efforts.

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 praise from poets such as Harris Gardner and Hugh Fox.

Most recently, Ibbetson Street Press published Sanctus! Sanctus! Sanctus! by past Stone Soup feature Ann Carhart. Also The Somerville News Writers Festival, created by Holder and Heat City Literary Review Editor Tim Gager, took 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.

Boston Zine Fair

The Boston Zine Fair takes place at the Massachusetts College of Art the weekend of March 18 and 19. A table has been reserved, and hopefully several Stone Soup poets will be represented.

Any poet involved with Stone Soup who wants to have their work included at the table or is willing to sit behind the table for one day or both days of the fair, email Chad Parenteau at freakmachinepress@yahoo.com

For more information on the fair, click here.

March 20th: Len Germinara Features


Photo by Sarah Oktay

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 20th, Len Germinara ventures from his Nantucket home to feature at Stone Soup for the first time in years.

Len Germinara has been a fixture on the poetry scene for the past 6 years. First as co-host of the Daily Grind, then Poetribe. He is also the founding member of the Brockton Library series. For the past 3 years Len has been hosting the Nantucket Poetry Slam. Len was recipient of the Cambridge Poetry Award for "Best Narrative Poem" in 2003. Author of three chapbooks, len lives on Nantucket with his wife Dr. Sarah Oktay.

Sample poems from Germinara's website, including the 2003 Cambridge Poetry Award winning "Brautigan."

The Nantucket Poetry Slam.

Future Readers

February 27th: Jacques "The Haitian Firefly" Fleury.

March 6th: Bill Perrault and Red.

March 13th: Ken Kohl.

March 20th: Len Germinara.

March 27th: Doug Holder .

Don't Forget

Tonight, Anna Birch and Chris Volpe feature.

March 13th: Jen Kohl Features


Photo by Ray Gasser

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 13th, Jen Kohl will feature at Stone Soup for the first time.

Jen Kohl's poems have appeared in Aegis, The Armenian Weekly, The Bitter Oleander, BlackWater Review, and Poetry East.

She works in Boston as an editor, and lives in Brighton with her husband. She has an MFA from Emerson College and a BA in English and French from the University of New Hampshire.

She enjoys her husband, friends, family, singing at church and making music, reading and writing, generating ideas, cooking, different sports, spending time with children, and inspiring and being inspired by people.

A sample poem, first published in The Bitter Oleander, is below.


Between Passion and Consequence

is a stage
where I emerge,
a soprano in a red dress,
biting air
with glass breath.

Then I am not her.
I am a bulb,
the underground moon.

The stalk
splitting
the avocado seed,
spotted scarlet
in a beige
living room.

I am shallow breath
unfurling on the rug

as I wake
from where I fell
into the Atlantic
with whales.

I swam through dreams,
knew the fin whale
intimately, his shadow,
when he cut
too close. I knew
when to leave
the water.

--Jen Kohl

Don't Forget

Tonight, Kevin Mahoney reads.

Mahoney's book, Serendipity is a Son of a Bitch, was thought to be sold out. However, we found a limited number of copies, and they will be made available for his reading.

March 6th: Bill Perrault and Red to Feature at Stone Soup


Photo by Chad Parenteau


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. Featuring on March 6th, friends and Stone Soup regulars Bill Perrault and Red return to do a feature coinciding with Perrault's birthday.

Bill Perrault was born and lived in Biddeford ME until he finished college for which he had paid by working as a weaver in the textilemills. From 1958 to 1960, the U S Army sent him to Germany as a medic andEducational Counselor. He took the opportunity to tour Europe at that time. When his tour of duty was over, he came home and six weeks later,he married his wife, Lorraine. In 1964, the first of their four children was born and, to date, they are now the proud grandparents of seven. After he and Lorraine married, he began his career teaching high school French and Latin in Maine and upper New York State. He did graduate studies at University of Maine and wrote his masters thesis on Guillaume Apollinaire. In 1973, he moved to Massachusetts to work for Polaroid. Bill now lives in Lowell. Throughout his life, he has enjoyed poetry andphotography. Bill was always the one with a notebook with him to write and a camera to take a picture. He never knew when he might be inspired or find a picture that just needed to be taken. In his retirement, the free time allows him to take these passions to a new level. If it’s joining the Poets in Boston for the Stone Soup Poets or producing local TV programs in Cambridge and Lowell, he is enjoying his creative life. Bill Has been published in the Stone Soup Anthology 2003, Out of the BlueWriters Unite Anthology, and his poetry can be seen on theweb@www.mothwing.com/galleries/billperrault 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.

Red is a twenty something Virgoian poetess, short story writer and jewelry maker living in Somerville, Mass. "May December" is her first and certainly not last book of poetry, which is available to purchase. She also
has out a short romance story titled "Room With A View", which is available in limited edition copies. Red grew up in northern New Jersey and didn’t start writing until after high school. She graduated fromVermont
College, Montpelier with a B.A. in poetry and creative writing. The focus of her thesis was Sylvia Plath’s poetry and how it was influenced by her turbulent relationship with Ted Hughes. The same emotional
intensity is visible in Red’s poems. She considers Sylvia a soul who guides her on her journeys, both creative and emotional. Upon moving to the Boston area, she began reading at the open mics at the Out of the Blue art gallery in Cambridge. She still frequents that venue as well as others in the New England area. Red’s handmade beaded jewelry is often available at Out of the Blue as well.

February 27th: Jacques "The Haitian Firefly" Fleury 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 27th, Jacques "The Haitian Firefly" Fleury will feature at Stone Soup to celebrate the release of his first chapbook, Sparks In The Dark.

Born in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti, Fleury is a poet, writer, and aesthete. He cruuently hosts the Live TV show "Dream Weavers w. Jacques" on Cambridge Community Television. His poetry and writings have been published in Spare Change News, Somerville News, The Bridge, Whats Up Magazine, and The Alewife. He has featured at Squawk Coffee House, The Harvard Epworth, TOAST, and elsewhere. He is presently working on a poetic memoir based on his journey from Haiti to America. A sample poem of Fleury's is included below.


Free!

Dock
we'll dock stones
roll andwe'll unroll
In my america
the big flying eagle
birds well done abroad.
Two groups of people
the rich and the poor
the young and the old
the white and the black
and three tons of fat
all in procession
silent tales are blooming
flowers growing shells
olive branches
climbing white house walls
two candles burning
shades of gray
itrustingod
holy bloody sunday comes
sunday morning
god bless those whose veins
bear none
twilight swallows the moon
darkness
descends
soldiers gone awol
run like panthers
here and gone
they've staged a snare
running rivers very dry mouths
Dutiful soldiers beat their drums
paragons of strengh and honor
mascarade balls
dinky shoots smack and
the dumb blond flunks
fall down stand up
walk the line
walk backwards
juggling well
will set you free.

--Jacques "The Haitian Firefly" Fleury

February 20th: Anna Birch and Chris Volpe 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. Featuring on the 20th of February, Anna Birch and Chris Volpe not only feature at Stone Soup for the first time, but they also have the pleasure of premiering the first book from their collaborative effort, Penhallow Press.

Anna Birch has successfully operated her own local one-woman art company, Queen Oscar Designs, for nearly a decade. Her poetry explores the absurdities and complexities of everyday life and relationships. Anna has been an active part of the seacoast poetry community for many years, participating in various school programs and workshops, as well as being a featured reader at both the Kittery Art Association Literary Series and Larry Simon’s Beat Night. She has been a member of Portsmouth’s City Hall Poets for ten years, and is currently compiling her first book manuscript.

Chris Volpe, a graduate of SUNY Stony Brook, received his M.A. in writing poetry at the University of New Hampshire, where he was awarded the Ann Pazo Mayberry Award and the Elizabeth Jones Scholarship for his poetry. His poems have appeared in The New Republic, New American Writing, The Antioch Review, The Prose Poem, Mudfish, Third Coast and The Bitter Oleander. His work has been featured on Poetry Daily and his book manuscript, “Night Traffic,” was a finalist for publication by Carnegie Mellon University Press in 2004. He works as a communications professional and teaches poetry workshops, literature, and the history of art at the University of New Hampshire and Franklin Pierce College.

Chris and Anna were introduced by a UNH poetry professor in 1999. They were married this past summer and live in Portsmouth, N.H. Together they operate Penhallow Press, an independent literary small press and letterpress printing company. The press’s first title, “Fistfuls of the Invisible,” poems by Exeter native James Rioux, has just been published, Sample poems from Birch and Volpe are included below.

Ventriloquist

I imagine the mothers held tight their children’s shoulders
the day you came to the fair,
traveling from Limerick to Galway to Ennis
you and the bearded lady, the palm-reading soothsayers
the velvet clad gypsies.

Voice thrower,
spell binder,
whiskey breathed man
with the empty wooden child on your lap.
You find your place on a makeshift crate turned upright,
the crowd forms a loose distant circle around you
as you wheeze life into the deadwood.

In Latin, your profession means
to speak from the belly
and so you must talk from inside and outside the center,
live inside two different heads,
hold the short future inside your throat.
You carry the conversation like a scared cat on a platter
that you tease and then comfort,
prod and snare.

You watch the children wrap their arms around their mothers knees,
curious enough to be yours for a moment,
spell bound enough to throw you money for food.

Still, the children do not trust your son of wood and wire,
of cloth and shadow,
its squeaky voice of hysteric invention
rings inside their ears, full of strain and delivery.

Nor do they trust you,
the lurch of your coupled sway,
your cheeks stiff and puckered,
smile oddly stuck.

Wooden child of transfer and trick
tottering bundle of backtalk and spook.

Who is that hungerless child you carry in a sack
who demands nothing,
and does not laugh or bleed or talk off cue?

The one on which you have
such a strange and secret reliance,
where your own voice
meets its smaller and more distant companion,
concealed half-child of your own making.

At night, he rests dangling on wooden pegs in the kitchen
and watches you off to bed,
his insistent, high-pitched questions, his vacant eyes
still hard at work in your dreams.

--Anna Birch


Testament

The shadow I should have worn proudly
Snuck off with bad company as soon as it could:

Waylaid by deep snow, half-light of long alleys,
Another distracted omen.

Crows rolled half asleep past my windows.
Bees carried the vernal wreath elsewhere.

Had to look twice for my sleeplessness.
So inept was my glamour.

Had to stand in front of the wind.
So divided was my resolve.

Had to lie down under the bridge of sky.
So uncertain of where I’d better be going.

All my life my mother had to wake me
Calling softly into the back seat, we’re home.


--Chris Volpe

Click here to visit the Penhallow Press site.

February 13th: Kevin Mahoney 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. February the 13th marks the first Stone Soup feature of open miker and author Kevin Mahoney.

Kevin Mahoney was born in the fall of 1965. Nothing special happened to him until the age of twelve. It was then he read the book A Coney Island of the Mind by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
freshman year in High School. After reading that book, he wrote his first poem. The poem was awful, but he was determined to get better.

After a brief yet unbelievable sensual affair with his High School English teacher he went on to pursue careers in food service, emergency care, broadcasting, sea air rescue, carpet installing, clown balloon delivery service, chimney sweeping and ultimately Radiology Information Technology. He was a principle writer and occasional performer with the theater troupe Catbox Cabaret in the 1990's.

He has been reading poetry, in public, since 1992. He is a three time Cantab featured poet, a cross dresser (please don't tell his mom) and an all around swell guy. In the spring of 2005 he published his first collection of poetry, Serendipity is a Son of a Bitch. A sample poem is included below.

My Best Christmas Ever

I awoke tired, cold, naked and dirty
handcuffed to a nativity scene.
It was not the first time,
and, God forgive me, I was certain
that it would not be the last.
The villagers walked past me
some in awe, most in horror on their
way to midnight mass.
"I’m not mad," I screamed,
"I know the difference between a hawk and
a handsaw."
A light snow began to fall
creating a charming scene
unless of course if you were not looking at me
wallowing in the mud.
I did not know how I had come to be
handcuffed to that nativity scene
nor did any of the passerby’s ask
or offer to help.
For all they knew or I for that matter,
I was as happy as anyone could be in that
moment in time.
The church bell rang.
Midnight,
12 am,
Christmas morning,
Peace on earth, good will toward men.
A dog pissed on me.

Tonight and Upcoming

G. Emil Reutter reads tonight, January 23rd.

In the coming weeks.

January 30th: Open mike regular turned feature Adam Thielker.

February 6th: FN Wombat and Sidewalk Sam return to Stone Soup.

February 13th: Local poet and infamous open miker of many names Kevin Mahoney.

February 21st: Anna Birch and Chris Volpe of Penhallow Press.

February 6th: F.N. Wombat and Sidewalk Sam Perform


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. Returning to the Out of The Blue to feature for the first time since 2001 will be Richard Jarrell and Robert Guillemin, otherwise known as F.N. Wombat and Sidewalk Sam.

The two performed their "Bob 'n' 'Bat Show" for Stone Soup on September 3rd, 2001, when the Out of The Blue Art Gallery had relocated to it's current location from Brookline Ave. Their performance for Stone Soup marked the first for the venue in that location. They have not been back until now, though their act--mostly comprising of Wombat reading from his collected quotations and Sidewalk Sam reacting to each quote--has been perfromed for Charlie's Tap and the State House over the past ten years.

Wombat has made 45 books of compiled quotations, 35 of which has been published. 25 of his "Remarkable Remarks" books are stored in the John Cage Archive.

Wombat's ebook, Sayings for Sidewalk Sam, will be available as an ebook for Art Street Inc., which was established as a non-profit organizaion by the well known street performer Sidewalk Sam in 1991.

Art Street Inc.'s goal, as explained on the web site, is "to develop collaborative, participatory art programs with communities, government agencies, businesses, schools and non-profit organizations."

Visit the Art Street Inc. web site.

January 30th: Adam Thielker 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. Making his debut feature at Stone Soup will be Adam Thielker.

Raised in 1950's New York City by a mid-sized party of New York Artists, he has been living in New England ever since.

He has always written poetry, but usually threw it away because he didn't like it.

A few years back, he moved to the Boston area and began to read out at the Cantab, Out of The Blue, and in Newburyport with the Pow Wow River Poets.

He has published an artice in Orion magazine recently, but no poetry until now. Adam Thielker also makes his debut publication credit on the Stone Soup web site below with his sample poem.

The Freeze

Shake dead leaves and hush
Still in the deep earth cold roots
Under empty beds

Come down snow

Now dark comes too soon
And winter taps my window
But I will not turn

To your heart

Black trees sit black birds
Fly high dry white icy sky
Sing far off wind words

--Adam Thielker

More Posting Soon

We at Stone Soup hope everyone enjoyed the holidays. Stone Soup has already started the new year with two well-received features. We apologize for not having posted any photos from past readers for some time. This will be rectified soon.

Stone Soup is looking for features to fill out the new year. A more detailed call will be sent out next week as well.

Please be sure to try and make it out to Stone Soup on Martin Luther King Day. Elizabeth Doran will read.

January 23rd: G. Emil Reutter 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. Visiting Stone Soup from out of state for the first time will be poet, fiction writer, and essayist G. Emil Reutter.

G Emil Reutter is an author/poet from Lower Bucks County Pennsylvania. His home base is The Five Points Java Joint where he reads normally on the 3rd Friday of the month with the Madpoets Society. He currently has a chapbook of poetry entitled Asphalt Road (2004) and two collections of short stories/essays/poems entitled Life Views (2004), The Jonesville Collection (2004) available as ebooks at Stonegarden Publishing. A number of manuscripts are in submission status. His poetry/prose/essays have been published widely in the small and electronic press.

A sample poem of Reutter's is included below.

saturday night sinners

troubadours sing songs whose lyrics

have long lost their meaning

tina circles dave on the dance floor

as she eyes up johnny at the bar

who chugs another beer wondering

where his wife is

the band sings “born to run”

tina laughs at the crowd dancing

changing the lyric to “born to jog”

or “walk really fast”

dave scores a blond and leaves

tina saddles up next to johnny

listening to the cheat on me blues

waiting for him to take her

where she wants to go

sunday morning comes

as dave picks the tinted blue hair

from his pillow

johnny and his wife enter the church

tina walks by and winks

as johnny notices

the pastor eyeing up his wife

dave runs in sitting down

not noticing the blue haired lady

until she places her hand on his knee

cringing knowing he can’t get away

and here they all sit

saturday night sinners

in sunday morning forgiveness

--G. Emil Reutter

Click here to visit G. Emil Reutter's website.

January 16th: Elizabeth K. Doran 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. Returning to feature at Stone Soup is local poet and regular open miker Elizabeth K. Doran.

Elizabeth K. Doran has been influenced as a poet by modern women writers such as Sharon Olds and Louis Gluck. Although she would never want to be called a "nature poet" nature is always present in her work. "Nature is part of the environment we all share and informs my sensibility," she says. Elizabeth is drawn to syllabics and loves long syllabic lines. A major influence is Eugino Montale who in 1975 was awarded the Nobel prize for literature.

She is published in Poises and Spare Change news and has read at many Venues in Boston and beyond. She is the former host of poetry at Gallery Diablo.

A sample poem of Doran's is included below.

The Sinners

A woman stands in the middle of the square
she is covered in layers of blue cloth her eyes are hidden.
Men begin to gather, collect stones.
Somewhere under the cloth a heart beats.
It is said those without sin should cast the first stone.
But a sinner picks up a rock and throws it
then there is a frenzy of sinners casting
stones until their rage subsides.
Her god surely heard her heart beat
until it stopped.

--Elizabeth K. Doran

January 9th: Tom Daley 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. Featuring for the first time at Stone Soup on January 9th will be poet, performer teacher, producer and recent chapbook author Tom Daley.

Tom Daley leads poetry writing workshops at the Boston Center for Adult Education and starting January 15, 2006 at Jeff Robinson's Online School of Poetry. His poetry has been published in a number of journals, including Prairie Schooner, can we have our ball back?, 32 Poems and Poetry Ireland Review. His chapbook, Canticles & Inventories was published in the fall of 2005.

Click here to read two poems by Tom Daley.

Click here for the home of Jeff Robinson's Online School of Poetry.