August 29: Jla 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, located at 541 Massachusetts Avenue in Central Square Cambridge, Massachusetts. On August  29, we welcome a long awaited feature from Jla.

Jla is a freelance photographer, videographer and poet. Born and raised North of Boston. Jla has been writing since she was a teenager. She has found that writing is a huge part of balancing her emotions, “writing and performing soothes my soul, my heart, and my mind” Jla founded the poetry club “Uncensored Soul” at Curry College in 2003 while studying psychology and therapeutic uses of writing. Since then she went on to find the musically group Jla & The Boyz exuding a jazzy, soul induced sound. Jla & The Boyz mutually separated for there artist to fulfill other dreams. Jla has been performing publicly for 10 years locally and in the surrounding east coast states. While her ever changing media career took over most of her life for years, Jla has embarked on a new project. Jla Vibes was fathomed during the Winter of 2016. She is proud to release and perform as Jla Vibes!

August 22: Mik Augustin 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 August  22, we welcome Mik Augustin, one of the many poets who has visited us from the north shore over the years.

Mik Augustin passed up a lucrative career in mopping floors to bring you these absurdly creative notions of food-love, lamp-post music, and domestic grandeur. He has accidentally published a few poems, and prefers not to type anything. Mik has a substandard memory, but he can read quite loudly. It's a start.

August 15: 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 August 15, 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!

August 8: Gemma Cooper-Novack 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 August 8, Gemma Cooper-Novack returns to us in time to say good bye as she features one last time before leaving Boston for greater fortunes. We wish her well and are pleased to help give her one last sendoff.


Gemma Cooper-Novack is a writer, arts educator, and writing coach. Her poetry and fiction have appeared in more than twenty journals, including Ballard Street Poetry Journal (Pushcart Prize nomination), Bellevue Literary Review (Pushcart Prize nomination), Cider Press Review, Hanging Loose, Santa Fe Writers Project, and Printer’s Devil Review. Gemma’s plays have been produced in Chicago, Boston, and New York, and she diablogs on sinnerscreek.com. She has been awarded multiple artist’s residencies from Catalonia to Virginia and a grant from the Barbara Deming Fund, and enjoys baking cookies and walking on stilts in her spare time. Her debut poetry collection We Might As Well Be Underwater will be published by Unsolicited Press in 2017.

August 1: Mark Lipman 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 August 1, we welcome visiting poet Mark Lipman.

Mark Lipman, recipient of the 2015 Joe Hill Labor Poetry Award; founder of VAGABOND; a writer, poet, multi-media artist and activist, is the author of six books, most recently, Poetry for the Masses; and Global Economic Amnesty. Co-founder of the Berkeley Stop the War Coalition (USA), Agir Contre la Guerre (France) and Occupy Los Angeles, he has been an outspoken critic of war and occupation since 2001. Mark uses poetry to connect communities to the greater social issues that affect all of our lives, while building consciousness through the spoken word. Currently, he is a member of POWER (People Organized for Westside Renewal), Occupy Venice, the Revolutionary Poets Brigade, 100 Thousand Poets for Change and the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). 

July 25: Widner Florestal 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 July 25, young local poet Widner Florestal will be celebrating his first feature.

Widner Florestal was born in Haiti and raised in Cambridge, Massachusetts. "People get into writing to find a voice," says Florestal,"or express themselves some do it as a way of liberation. Deliverance from their personal demons. Other do it as a way of worship I started writing as a way of coping with the loss of someone close to me."

He describes himself as Influenced "by almost everything and anything. Really. Life, story, music. My past experiences. From being out in the streets and having to sleep in hotel lobbies, in basements, on friends couches."

In his past seven years of writing, Florestal has performed his poetry by himeslef and with the Harvard based group Speak Out Loud. He has perfored his work in Harvard University, the Haley House and First Baptist Church in Jamaica Plain. He is currently attending Quincy College for psychology, and business while putting together his first chapbook.

July 18: 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 July 18, 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!

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.