Out for August

 

 

Due to a series of events, Stone Soup will be on hiatus until September. 

 

July 29: Diana Saenz Features at Stone Soup Poetry

Stone Soup Poetry meets every Wednesday online from 7:00-9:00 PM via Zoom. Stay tuned for updates on any future live gatherings. On July 29, we conclude the month of July with former Boston poet Diana Saenz.

Diana Saenz has been writing since 1964, at the age of 16, when she attained her first typewriter by saving Green Stamps. This instinct for the advantage of technology has never waned. Neither has her commitment to the written word. Her life in the arts, surrounded by actors, playwrights, poets, dancers, artists, and writers, is the gift that writing gave her, and for this she is ever humble and grateful.

Diana is a native of Los Angeles, where she encountered her first writers at East L.A. College, and was part of the community in the early 70s, mixing with activists of every sort, from the Chicano Renaissance of graphic artists and writers, in magazines like Con Safos, to the Brown Berets to the Revolutionary Communist Party. After she was evicted from the RCP, she made her way to San Francisco, joining the vibrant poetry scene, which included forces of nature like Jack Hershman, Joie Cook, and Bob Kaufman, and where she morphed into performance poetry. From there, she traveled overseas and lived in London, mixing with the thriving community of poets. Upon her return to San Francisco, performance poetry led to playwriting and a decade in the Theatre community, particularly the Latino Theatre Artists Association, which included Cherie Moraga, Josefina López, and Octavio Solis. She and others established Sangre, a multicultural theatre company, and produced a number of plays.

Feeling burnout, Diana moved to France before returning to this hemisphere, where she settled in Montreal, Canada for six months before her visa expired, then moved to the East Coast after a year in Alabama, where she wrote The Book of Eve. In Cambridge, Massachusetts, she found that there was no calendar for poets like Poetry Flash in San Francisco, and established the Boston Poet Calendar and Magazine, which was later run by Debbie Burn. Later, she established BostonPoet.com and created an interactive calendar that anyone could populate with their poetry announcements. She met her husband, Marshall Harvey, at TT The Bears, a popular Stone Soup Thursday night Poetry Venue in the 1990s run by Jack Powers. Together, she and Marshall published the works of other poets, including Bad Ass and Virgin Voyage, which featured C.C. Colins, Meg Smith, Afaa Weaver, Walter Howard, and Raffy Woof. 

After twenty years on the East Coast, one Spring—not up for another nor’easter—Diana returned to her native California in 2013, where she wrote her first novel. She eventually settled in Murrieta, CA, 60 miles south of Los Angeles. There she tried comedy for a year, but could not get past the misogynistic and politically reactionary side of it, or the late, late, very late nights. But she did learn to overcome her fear of performing off-book.

Today, Diana continues to write political articles on Substack, books, and the occasional poem. She is active in the Temecula Valley Atheists Meetup group, teaches yoga (having received her certification earlier this year), and is currently working on a yoga manual for seniors to be published in September.

Join us on Wednesday, July 29, from 7:00 to 9:00 PM ET by clicking this link.

The meeting ID is 870 1187 2142

Password: stonesoup

July 22: Marc D. Goldfinger Features at Stone Soup Poetry

Stone Soup Poetry meets every Wednesday online from 7:00-9:00 PM via Zoom. Stay tuned for updates on any future live gatherings. On July 22, Stone Soup alum and local poetry legend Marc Goldfinger features for July.

Marc Goldfinger has been published by Ibbetson Street, the Aurorean, Pegasus, The Boston Poet, the Crooked River Press, Earth First! Journal, The New Renaissance, User’s News, Poiesis, The Porter Gulch Review, Rubber-Side-Down and many others. Goldfinger is also a member of the Liberation Poetry Collective and is included in the Liberation Anthology put out by the Trilingual Press. He is currently the poetry editor and a regular columnist for the Spare Change News, a paper put out for the benefit of homeless people. He is a member of The Road Scribes of America, a motorcycle club whose members have been published throughout the world. He also has his own website at http://marcdgoldfinger.outlawpoetry.com/ where he also has books and a down-load of Getting Fixed In South Carolina, a true story of an event in his life, arranged and performed by The Jeff Robinson Trio, for sale. Goldfinger is formerly homeless and has been a Vendor for Spare Change News since 1993.

Join us on Wednesday, July 22, from 7:00 to 9:00 PM ET by clicking this link.

The meeting ID is 832 0056 5037

Password: stonesoup

July 15: Mary Ann Honaker Features at Stone Soup Poetry

Stone Soup Poetry meets every Wednesday online from 7:00-9:00 PM via Zoom. Stay tuned for updates on any future live gatherings. On July 15, Stone Soup returns with special feature Mary Ann Honaker as she reads from her new colection.

Mary Ann Honaker is the author of Becoming Persephone (Third Lung Press, 2019), Whichever Way the Moon (Main Street Rag, 2023), and Night is Another Realm Altogether, on pre-release sale now with Sheila-Na-Gig. Her poems have appeared in Bear Review, DIAGRAM, JMWW, Juked, Little Patuxent Review, Rattle.com, River Heron Review, Solstice, Sweet Tree Review, Tuskegee Review, and elsewhere. She currently lives in Beckley, West Virginia. 

Join us on Wednesday, July 15, from 7:00 to 9:00 PM ET by clicking this link.

The meeting ID is 859 5282 8229

Password: stonesoup

July 8: No Stone Soup This Week

 

 

Stone Soup is taking a week off and will return on July 15. 

 

Enjoy your time off. Keep on writing.  

July 1: Stone Soup Poetry Online All-Open Mic

Stone Soup Poetry meets every Wednesday online from 7:00-9:00 PM via Zoom. Stay tuned for updates on any future live gatherings. On July 1, we take the plunge into July with an all-open mic.

 

Join us on Wednesday, July 1, from 7:00 to 9:00 PM ET by clicking this link.

The meeting ID is 874 6930 3823

Password: stonesoup 

June 24: Marjorie Pezzoli Features at Stone Soup Poetry

Stone Soup Poetry meets every Wednesday online from 7:00-9:00 PM via Zoom. Stay tuned for updates on any future live gatherings. On June 24, we trudge to the end of June and the early days of summer with special feature Marjorie Pezzoli.

Marjorie Pezzoli is a poet, visual artist, and silk painter. 

Her writings cover all emotions, from grief to joy. Since 2019 her poetry has been curated in printed anthologies and online publications: A Year in Ink, Complete the Haiga, dadakuku, Heterodox Haiku, Mad Swirl, Palabra: Open Mic, San Diego Poetry Annual, Setu Journal, The Pan Haiku Review, and others. In 2025, Marjorie was given the Setu Award of Excellence for Art and Literature, and Program Coordinator for the Haiku of America Virtual Conference.

She works on promotional material for the Southern California Haiku Group.

You may receive her weekly Monday morning offerings via email, or follow The Cosmic Gumball Machine on Substack. You never know what will roll out, poetry, haiku, and various art forms. Her daily ink sketching practice started on January 1st, 2026. Josh Datko of BitPunk.FM said, “Marjorie has some of the best punk-poking artwork around these parts.”

Beau, the dog with Betty Davis eyes, and a visiting peacock are two of her muses. Marjorie looks for words worth a thousand images. www.PezzoliArt.com - IG@marjorie pezzoli

Join us on Wednesday, June 24, from 7:00 to 9:00 PM ET by clicking this link.

The meeting ID is 870 4260 4070

Password: stonesoup

June 17: Stone Soup Poetry Online All-Open Mic

Stone Soup Poetry meets every Wednesday online from 7:00-9:00 PM via Zoom. Stay tuned for updates on any future live gatherings. On June 17, we continue the month of June with an all-open mic.

 

Join us on Wednesday, June 17, from 7:00 to 9:00 PM ET by clicking this link.

The meeting ID is 825 1058 4516

Password: stonesoup