July 6th: James O'Brien 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 July 6, local artist James O'Brien brings his performance piece, "Lizard Link," among other works, to our venue.

n three short decades, James O'Brien has lived lives as a traveling political folk singer, performance poet, journalist, film critic, and fictionist. From festival stages alongside Tanya Donelly, Juliana Hatfield, and Josh Ritter, to the pages of The Boston Globe - where he is currently a regular correspondent on municipal politics, health, wildlife, and the environment - O'Brien's writing spans medium and purpose. His poetry is generally focused on national identity, guilt, responsibility, and the psychology of the American artist and the American mind in the natural and supernatural landscape. He lives in Boston, Massachusetts.

Visit James' blog.

June 22: Karen Szklany Gault 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 June 22nd, we welcome Karen Gault with her first Stone Soup feature.

Karen Szklany Gault has been writing poetry since she attended Marist College (BA 1986). Her hometown is Hawthorne, New York, with family ties to the historic town of Sleepy Hollow. Her final year at Marist was spent studying at the University College, Galway in Ireland, with a three-week whirlwind tour of the European continent snuck in. From 1986-1988 she called Orange, California home, where she took classes in both the Music and Psychology departments at Chapman University. While studying there, she spent a week of cultural exchange with Mexican Students from the Universidad de la Ciudad de Mexico, partying and speaking with them in their native tongue. In 1996 she graduated from UMass Boston with a M.Ed. in Elementary Education. She co-taught Kindergarten and taught second grade, as well as serving as an historical interpreter at the Paul Revere House (where she met her husband, Edward Gault) and The Boston Tea Party Ship and Museum. She has a passion for the sea and maritime history and looks forward to publishing poetry and prose for the entertainment of young readers. Since 2004, when she delivered her daughter Cosette, she has been inspired to write more poetry and has been reading at Stone Soup, Open Bark, and Tapestry of Voices.

June 15: Paul Bamberger 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 June 15th, Stone Soup will be starting earlier as we introduce New Hampshire poet Paul Bamberger, who will be reading his longer poem "In This Land" and a selection of others.

Paul Bamberger holds an MFA degree in English from UMass/Amherst and teaches at Northern Essex Community College. He has contributed to Agenda and the North Essex Review. His first book, Eating is to Till the Earth, was published by Shore Publishing in 1972. His most recent book is Down by the River from Islington-bryer Press, which has received praise from Straus & Giroux Publishing founder Jonathan Galassi.

Click here for samples of Paul Bamberger's work.