1/30/10

March 8th: Bill Perrault and Lynne Sticklor 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. On March 8th, Stone Soup welcomes back friend Bill Perrault, who will be celebrating his birthday featuring alongside friend and Stone Soup co-host Lynne Sticklor.




Lynne Sticklor has been a contributer in the local (and not so local) poetry scene since Stone Soup was at TT's, Middle East downstairs & the Zeitgeist, Out of the Blue was way down on Brookline ave and Joe Cook was thrilling upstairs at the Cantab with the electrifying third rail downstairs...

In 2003, with Doug Holder's guidance and encouragement, she went from the stage as The Prize Lady to the page editing & designing many local poets' chapbooks and is listed in the Harvard Archives for her efforts. Editing, designing & creating, helping host Stone Soup, reading her favorite poets' pieces while encouraging other creative voices to be heard during open mikes and as a feature has been a wonderful and prolific journey.

And yet~ it is a fantastic and exciting treat to have a first time feature as herself reading her own poetry.

Thank You & Happy Birthday Bill.


Photos by Chad Parenteau

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 Blue Writers Unite Anthology, and various web pages, 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.

See the Spoonful website for samples of Bill's writing and photography.



March 1: Simone Beaubien Returns


Photo by Marshall Goff

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 1st, we welcome back the long-awaited return of renowned local poet and venue host Simone Beaubien.

Simone Beaubien, decade-plus-veteran of the New England poetry scene, makes her home in suburban Massachusetts, working as an EMT and hosting the Boston Poetry Slam at the Cantab Lounge. She has competed at a national level in pinball (1999), Ultimate Frisbee (2001, 2004 - 2005) and poetry slam (2001, 2004 - 2008).

Simone has performed her work in colleges, bookstores, theaters, and bars on both coasts and all over New England. A lifetime nerd and part-time athlete, Simone is a natural product of the sound of Boston performance poetry, bringing the arts of slam and storytelling simultaneously to the poetry stage.

As a promoter and producer, Simone produced the Boston Poetry Slam's World Qualifier at the Middle East Rock Club in 2006, and, with the Poetry Jam Collective, brought Marc Smith to the Cambridge Family YMCA in 2007. She founded and produced the NorthBEAST Regional Poetry Slam in 2007, then expanded it to a two-day festival and competition in 2008, showcasing competing slam teams from all over the northeastern U.S. In addition, she's been a return performer and booking agent for demo slams at high schools, colleges, and literary festivals statewide; she's performed in Boston's First Night since 1999 and coordinated the poetry event since 2004, produced the annual Attleboro Arts Museum Poetry Slam since 2006, and operated as MC for the annual Newburyport Literary Festival Youth Poetry Slam since 2006.

Visit Simone Beaubien's web site.

1/28/10

February 22: The MoJo! Poets Celebrate Black History Month

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 22, Mignon Ariel King returns to celebrate Black History Month, bringing with her a selection of poets that have been published in her online journal MoJo!



Black Women Writers with MoJo! are five writers from greater Boston (Bridgit Brown, Coleen T. Houlihan, Joyce Jellison, Mignon Ariel King, and Lolita Paiewonsky) who have published in the online journal MoJo! These five women work with individual styles and different messages in a variety of writing genres, but their work reflects a collective sisterhood
that the journal celebrates.

Mignon Ariel King was born in Boston City Hospital in1964, a third-generation New Englander. She has had a public library card since age 5 and has been writing poetry since the age of 11. Ms. King holds a Master of Arts in English degree from Simmons College and was adjunct professor of English in various Boston-area colleges for more than a decade. An active writer who has been reading poetry at open-mic venues since 1998, King is also a book reviewer and memoirist. Her first book of poems The Woods Have Words (2009) is available from Ibbetson Street Press.

Bridgit Brown has been writing since the age of 12. She became a serious poet at 17 when she entered college to study writing, literature, and publishing. Since then, Bridgit has acquired a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing, and has participated in the Ploughshares Fiction Writers Conference in Well, Holland, received the Nadya Aisenberg Poetry Fellowship from the Writers Room of Boston, and has had her poetry published in Ibbetson Street journal. She is currently a contributing writer for the Bay State Banner, Color Magazine, Exhale Magazine, and WGBH’s Basic Black Perspectives.

Coleen T. Houlihan studied writing at Wellesley College. She has featured at several poetry venues in Massachusetts such as: Stone Soup, Best Sellers, Borders, the Sherman Cafe and Walden Poetry Series. Her poetry has been published in Poesy, The Alewife, The Wilderness House Literary Review, Ibbetson Street, Spoonful: A Gathering of Stone Soup Poets, and Spare Change, as well as abroad.

Joyce Angela Jellison is the author of two books, Where Everything Fits Beautifully and Black Apple. She describes her poetic style as “[sometimes] a bit provocative. I often use anatomy as metaphor in the tradition of Hattie Gossett.” She is also the director of "Write Out Loud: Transforming Our Lives Through Writing Our Truths."

Lolita Paiewonsky writes librettos, drama, fiction and, especially, poetry (since the second grade). She has presented her poetry with classical and jazz music and original choreography and exhibited it as “poetage” (visual poetry); she has been featured poet at many venues. Her poetry has appeared in a number of publications, including The Harvard Dudley Review, Harvard ALANA journals, Wilderness House Literary Review, Bagelbard anthologies, and Bradley University Journal.

Visit the MoJo! web site.

1/27/10

February 15: Sam Cha and Dawn Gabriel 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. On February 15, we welcome Sam Cha and Dawn Gabriel.

Sam Cha likes poems that fail spectacularly or interestingly. He may or may not fail at the writing of poems that fail spectacularly or interestingly, and may or may not fail spectacularly or interestingly at the writing or failing. This may or may not add an element of suspense to his poems, which may or may not be an added inducement for you to come.



Dawn Gabriel is a veteran slammer who has competed nationally for Boston, Providence, and Worcester, and is an occasional co-host for the Boston Poetry Slam. Dawn and Sam live together in Cambridge with 8 year-old Henry, and baby twins Alice and Ada.


1/25/10

Reminder

The year has been off to a great start. We close off January with Sam Teitel.

1/23/10

February 8: Eric Howes 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 8, Stone Soup continues its tradition of

Eric Howes has a longstanding love affair with the written word. He has done poetry readings up and down the Mississippi river and more recently in greater Boston. His work focuses on not only the well-spring of inspiration associated with the artisitc life, but also what flanks it, influences it, struggles through it, and construes either clarity or confusion from it. His style has been described as simultaneously deft and weighty but never daft and light; a penchant for superceding metaphor and overt predictability in the secretive. Straddling the borderline of what slam is constructed for and what the literati pursue in the everyday, he can be seen regularly at the Cantab lounge and Out of the Blue gallery in Cambridge and Brew'd Awakening coffeehaus in Lowell.


1/22/10

February 1: Deborah Priestly 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 February 1, Out of The Blue co-founder Deborah Priestly returns to feature.

Deborah M. Priestly is co-founder of the Out of the Blue Art Gallery located in Cambridge, Mass at 106 Prospect Street with Tom Tipton, (founder, owner). She runs the Open Bark Poetry reading every Saturday night at the gallery. Her publication credits include Ibbetson Street, Spare Change, Poesy, Fresh!, Boston Poet, The Boston Herald, The Boston Girl Guide and Out of the Blue Writers Unite (which she also co-edited). She is the author of The Woman Has A Voice from Ibbetson Street Press, an eclectic combination of healing poetry and images of women in transition.

Visit the Spoonful web site for samples of Priesly and other Stone Soup Poets' work.


1/7/10

January 25: Sam Teitel 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 January 25, we close out the first month of the new decade by welcoming back performance poet Sam Teitel.

Sam Teitel is a poet and spoken word artist out of New England. He’s been a member of two National Poetry Slam teams: Manchester, New Hampshire in 2008 and Portland, Maine in 2009. He was one half of the “Two Sensitive Guys” cross-country poetry tour along with Steve Subrizi. Most recently, he graduated from Hampshire College with a thesis entitled “Poetry. Performance. Punk Rock.” He likes coffee, New Orleans, cartoons, and old paperbacks.


January 18: Michael Monroe 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 January 18, we welcome local poet and open miker Michael Monroe to his first Stone Soup feature.

Profoundly silly, endearingly offbeat, unexpectedly moving (only occasionally broken) and ultimately entertaining, Michael Monroe is a fresh new voice in the spoken word performance/slam poetry scene. An ex preacher, nouveau heretic and regular open-mic performer at the Cantab Lounge in Central Square (Cambridge, MA) he has the ability to engage an audience and make people feel something serious, something funny, and just plain something human that you can take with you and think to yourself, "Oh Shit -- did I leave something in the oven?"

1/3/10

January 11th: Valerie Loveland 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 January 11th, Stone Soup welcomes Valerie Loveland, a recent new arrival to Massachusetts who will be reading from her recently published book, Reanimated, Somehow.

Valerie Loveland was born in Southern New Jersey. She spent some time in California and Texas before settling in Massachusetts. She has a BA in professional writing from Rowan University and currently works as an optician apprentice. Her work is included in the Best of the Web Anthology, 2008, is a Pushcart Prize nominee, and was a featured reader at this year’s Massachusetts Poetry Festival. She enjoys running, kiln glass arts, and listening to audio poetry.

Visit Valerie Loveland's web site.