June 14: Stone Soup Open Mic at It's New Home

In 1971, Stone Soup started in the Beacon Hill area of Boston. For much of its forty-seven years of existence, Stone Soup has existed outside of Boston. In May, we returned to Boston to celebrate our anniversary. Join us tonight, June 14, from  6:30-8:30 for our regular open mic. Located outside from the Park Street T stop, we will be meeting in the cathedral's Lawrence room, which is next to the receptionist area after entering the cathedral on the right-sided entrance.

Special thanks to James Van Looy and Jan Rowe, who helped make this possible.

 

June 7: Stone Soup Open Mic at It's New Home

In 1971, Stone Soup started in the Beacon Hill area of Boston. For much of its forty-seven years of existence, Stone Soup has existed outside of Boston. In May, we returned to Boston to celebrate our anniversary. Join us tonight, June 7, from  6:30-8:30 for our regular open mic. Located outside from the Park Street T stop, we will be meeting in the cathedral's Lawrence room, which is next to the receptionist area after entering the cathedral on the right-sided entrance.

Special thanks to James Van Looy and Jan Rowe, who helped make this possible.

 

May 31: Julia Carlson and Lee Varon Feature

In 1971, Stone Soup started in the Beacon Hill area of Boston. For much of its forty-seven years of existence, Stone Soup has existed outside of Boston. This month we returned to Boston to celebrate our anniversary. From this week forward, we will be meeting every Thursday from 6:30 to 8:30 at St. Paul's Cathedral on 138 Tremont Street (just steps away from the Park Street T stop). To conclude our anniversary month, on May 31 we welcome Stone Soup regulars Julia Carlson and Lee Varon, who will be celebrating the release of their recently published collections.

Julia Carlson is a graduate of Boston University & the University of Toulouse-le-Mirail, France, where she studied Philosophy & Linguistics.She also earned her MSW at Boston University and worked as a clinical social worker until retirement a few years ago. She served as the first Fiction Editor of the Wilderness House LIterary Review as well as the editor of Bagel Bards Anthology V. Her poetry has appeared in many small presses, e.g., Ibbetson House, Wilderness House Literary Review, Lyrical Somerville, Fresh! Magazine, & Muddy River Poetry Review.  She was the winner of Davis Kidd Poetry Award, in 2001 and the PoetryKit Spring Competition in 2017. Her chapbooks include Turn of the Century, (Cloudkeeper Press, 2008) & Drift (March Hare Press,2012), Her most recent collection is Prayer for the Misbegotten. (Oddball Press, 2017).  A Cantabrigian, she enjoys reading, art, rock n roll, & a wee dram on a cold night. 

Lee Varon is a social worker and writer. Her chapbook Affairs Run In The Family was published by Finishing Line Press. She won the 2017 Sunshot  prize for poetry, and her upcoming book Shot In The Head will be published by New Millennium Writings this spring. She is currently working on another book of poetry, The Addict’s Mother.
 

May 25: Ryan Travis and Ethan Mackler Return!

In 1971, Stone Soup started in the Beacon Hill area of Boston. For much of its forty-seven years of existence, Stone Soup has existed outside of Boston. This month we will be returning to Boston to celebrate our anniversary. Come Friday May 25th, Ryan Travis presents another "Haiku of Horror," and he's bringing back Ethan "The Pulse" Mackler on bass to accompany him.

Ryan "Rat" Travis is a Stone Soup veteran with about 20 years in the open mic scene. A modern American haiku master, Rat completed the daunting task of writing 1000 haiku in 100 days. His latest chapbook, Creature Double Feature, is the third in his haiku of horror series snd is a homage to giant monster movies. He is accompanied by long-time friend and collaborator Ethan Mackler on the bass to create a sensory experience and send a chill down your spine. By day, Rat is an English teacher and during the month of October he can be found scaring the crap out of people with his wife Fright Kingdom. He lives in Salem MA with his wife Holly and black cat, Midnight. 

May 18: Stone Soup Open Mic at It's New Home

In 1971, Stone Soup started in the Beacon Hill area of Boston. For much of its forty-seven years of existence, Stone Soup has existed outside of Boston. This month we will be returning to Boston to celebrate our anniversary. Come this Friday, May 18, from  6:30-8:30 at Cathedral of St Paul, 138 Tremont St., as close to Stone Soup's original home as it can muster.

Located outside from the Park Street T stop, we will be meeting in the cathedral's Lawrence room, which is next to the receptionist area after entering the cathedral on the right-sided entrance. We invite everyone who has ever been part of Stone Soup's history to share your poems, songs and other work with us.

Special thanks to James Van Looy and Jan Rowe, who helped make this possible.

May 11: Stone Soup Open Mic at It's New Home

In 1971, Stone Soup started in the Beacon Hill area of Boston. For much of its forty-seven years of existence, Stone Soup has existed outside of Boston. This month we will be returning to Boston to celebrate our anniversary. Come this Friday, May 11, from  6:30-8:30 at Cathedral of St Paul, 138 Tremont St., as close to Stone Soup's original home as it can muster.

Located outside from the Park Street T stop, we will be meeting in the cathedral's Lawrence room, which is next to the receptionist area after entering the cathedral on the right-sided entrance. We invite everyone who has ever been part of Stone Soup's history to share your poems, songs and other work with us.

Special thanks to James Van Looy and Jan Rowe, who helped make this possible.

 

May 11: Stone Soup BACK IN BOSTON! Celebrating 47 Years!

In 1971, Stone Soup started in the Beacon Hill area of Boston. For much of its forty-seven years of existence, Stone Soup has existed outside of Boston. This Friday on May 4, we will be returning to Boston to celebrate our anniversary from  6:30-8:30 at Cathedral of St Paul, 138 Tremont St., as close to Stone Soup's original home as it can muster.

Located outside from the Park Street T stop, we will be meeting in the cathedral's Lawrence room, which is next to the receptionist area after entering the cathedral on the right-sided entrance. We invite everyone who has ever been part of Stone Soup's history to share your poems, songs and other work with us.

Special thanks to James Van Looy and Jan Rowe, who helped make this possible.

 

April 19: Stone Soup Hosts a Spoken Word Tribute to Walter Howard

  

On April 19, Stone Soup assembles once again at the Jamaica Plain branch of the Boston Public Library on 30 South Street from 6:30 to 8:00 PM. We pay tribute to the late Walter Howard, a poet whose presence was felt for decades across Boston, Cambridge and anywhere there was an open mic in New England. We gather not just to read his work in tribute but to invite others to share poems and stories as well as purchase the recently released Walter Howard: Reflections in Moonlight.

 

Joan Alice Wood Kimball is a member of the Wayland Poetry Workshop, where she met Walter Howard and followed him to many open mike readings in the area. She is the editor of Walter Howard: Reflections in Moonlight, along with editor Debra Martin, who first suggested to Walter that we publish his poems. When Walter went into a nursing home in 2015 and his papers were lost, Kimball and other members of the workshop scrambled to find copies of his work. They ended up with 142 poems. Fifty-three are in the present collection, which is being published posthumously. Walter died this past January 2018. Kimball herself has poems in two chapbooks and many journals. Her limerick, "Cold October," is inscribed on granite in Edmands Park, Newton.

Debra K. Martin is a poet, photographer, mixed-media artist, and retired technical writer. She currently lives in Groton, MA, but is originally from the hills of West Virginia where she graduated with a bachelor degree in psychology. During her years as a member of the Wayland Poetry Workshop, Debra enjoyed listening to Walter Howard read his evocative poems and was surprised to find he kept most of them handwritten in stacks of dusty boxes. Thus began her effort to convince him to let her and another member, Kay Harrington, type them on the computer. He resisted, not wanting to briefly part with them. Much later, Walter was admitted to a nursing facility and wished to have his poems published. Debra became the co-editor of the poetry book Walter Howard: Reflections in Moonlight, along with fellow workshop member, Joan Kimball.

Steve Glines is the Editor-in-Chief and Publisher of Wilderness House Press and Wilderness House Literary Review, an online quarterly. In his past lives, he has been a general assignment reporter, a political commentator, a technical writer with two monthly technical columns and half a dozen computer science books to his credit. Today he writes poetry and fiction. In 2016 he was awarded the Ibbetson Street Press Lifetime Achievement Award and a lifetime achievement award from the Massachusetts State Democratic Party. He is a member of the Robert Creeley Foundation and is a past Assistant District Governor for Rotary International.

Cheryl Perreault is host/founder of Wake up and Smell the Poetry and Bittersweet Co. True Storytelling. With a background in psychology and education, she brings the art of poetry and life review story-sharing to different community settings and residences of people ranging from school-age to elders/hospice stage of life as she believes everyone has a an inner poet within. Her poetry is published upon invitation and she is especially fond of participating in Plein Air Poetry readings. She is co-editor of Hopkinton Through Poetry with Cynthia Franca, performs celebrant programs with Carolyn Waters and has two CDS of her spoken word poetry performed with guitarist Steve Rapson.

Literary performer & educator, Regie Gibson, has lectured & performed in the U.S., Europe & Cuba. Representing the U.S., Regie competed for & received the Absolute Poetry Award in Monfalcone, Italy. Himself & his work appear in love jones, a film based on events in his life. He is a National Poetry Slam champion, has featured on HBO, several TED X events & various NPR programs including On Point & Radio Boston. He’s received the Walker Scholarship for Poetry from the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center & a YMCA Writer’s Fellowship. He’s served as consultant for both the National Endowment for the Arts “How Art Works” initiative & “The Mere Distinction of Color”: an exhibit at James Madison’s Montpelier, examining the legacy of slavery. Regie has performed with & composed for The Boston City Singers, The Mystic Chorale & the Handel+Haydn Society. His volume of poems, “Storms Beneath the Skin” received the Golden Pen Award & his work appears in Poetry Magazine, Harvard’s Divinity Magazine & The Iowa Review, among others. He has received a Massachusetts Cultural Council Award, a Lexington Education Foundation Grant, and is a 2017 recipient of The Brother Thomas Fellowship from The Boston Foundation. When not teaching, he is co-creator of Shakespeare to Hiphop's "Shakespeare Time-Traveling Speakeasy," A multi-media performance focusing on the influence of William Shakespeare.

David P. Miller’s chapbook, The Afterimages, was published in 2014. His poems have recently appeared in Meat for Tea, Ibbetson Street, Constellations, riverbabble, What Rough Beast, The Ekphrastic Review, and Autumn Sky Poetry Daily. A Boston resident, he was a member of the multidisciplinary Mobius Artists Group for 25 years.

March 29: Stone Soup Takes the Stage Coach to Harvard!

Stone Soup Poetry has met weekly at both the Out of the Blue Art Gallery and Brew on the Grid in Cambridge. This Thursday on March 29,  thanks to the help of Melissa Castillo-Garsow, we we will be assembling at Harvard University in  Robinson Hall, located on the corner of Broadway and Quincy (35 Quincy Street) from 6:30 to 8:00 or later.

Bring you poems and stories and a friend. Stone Soup is coming back again!

March 9: Latinx Poetry Series @ Stone Soup Stagecoach

2018 Latinx Poetry Series at Harvard University

Organizer of Latinx Poetry Series @ Stone Soup Stagecoach

The Inagural Latinx Poetry Reading and workshop series in the Spring of 2018 was organized by Melissa Castillo-Garsow to promote a diversity of voices at Harvard, celebrate Latinx voices in poetry, and foster poetic connections with the greater Boston area.

DATE AND TIME
Fri, April 13, 2018
5:30 PM – 9:00 PM EDT

LOCATION
CGIS South
1730 Cambridge Street
Belfer Case Study Room
Cambridge, MA 02138

Acclaimed poet Carmen Bardeguez-Brown will host the poetry workshop "Poetry like bread is for everyone/ La Poesia como el pan es para todos" followed by an open mic, performance and reception.

Schedule of events:

5:30-7 p.m. Workshop
7-8 p.m. Open Mic
8-8:30 p.m. Performance
8:30-9 p.m. Reception
Free, sign up required!

Carmen Bardeguez-Brown work was showcased in the documentary: Latino Poets in the United States. She has been invited to read at The Nuyorican Poets Café, The Fez, Mad Alex Foundation, Smoke, The Soho Arts Festival, Long wood Gallery, The Kitchen, La Casa Azul, New Years Alternative Poetry Marathon at Dixon Place, The Boricua College Poetry Series, Caribbean Theater, Word Festival 2013 and many other venues in the tri-state area. Some of her work has been performed by Felipe Luciano’s Poets’s Choir and Butch Morris Conduction series #27 performed at The Whitney Museum. Her work has been published in Tribes, Long Shot, Fuse, School Voices, Anthology: Aloud Voices from the Nuyorican, ¡Manteca!: An Anthology of AfroLatin@ Poets and Pha'titude. She has two poetry books: Straight from the Drums: Al Ritmo del Tambor could be and Dreaming Rhythms Despertando Silencios published by Miguel Estepario. Her third book of poetry: Meditation on Love, Dance and Loss will be published late this year. She is one of 50 Puerto Ricans showcased in the exhibition Homenaje created and curated by Ricardo Muniz that is currently housed at the Centro for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College.

See the Eventbrite page. 

The State of Stone Soup, 3-6-18

Less than four days after one of our most energetic nights since our new era began, I was informed that the Brew on the Grid in Cambridge closed down their Windsor Street location for good.

Long story short, management tells me they will be researching spaces for a potential new home on the red line. The manager I've been dealing with has told me he would still love to have Stone Soup return to wherever the Brew's new home is.

For now, however, Stone Soup is in limbo again.

Therefore, I am cancelling this Thursday's reading with Lee Varon and Julia Carlson. I am spending the rest of the week searching for a potential venue for the other poets I have scheduled for this month along with April and May.

I have at least one potential new home as it is. If they accept us, Stone Soup will likely have to move to an earlier time and possibly a different day.

I am linking this announcement on Facebook and tagging all the poets I've scheduled so they will learn the latest news. If any potential time, date or location is a deal breaker, they can let me know.

I will be troubleshooting this while working this week. If any of you have suggestions, please let me know.

If I'm lucky, I will have more to announce this week. If not, I'll have to consider more tough decisions. 

--Chad Parenteau

May 24: Meg Smith Features at Stone Soup

After a short hiatus, Stone Soup Poetry returns as a weekly poetry open mic venue at a new day, time and location. Stone Soup is now meeting every Thursday night from 8-10 PM at Brew on the Grid located on 93 Windsor Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts. On May 24, Meg Smith helps to celebrate Stone Soup Poetry's forty-seventh year of existance and the release of her new poetry collection, Dear Deepest Ghost.

 It will now be free to attend the open mic and/or feature, but we encourage you to bring cash so we can "pass the hat" for our feature. We also recommend you support Brew on the Grid by at least buying one drink out of gratitude for their hospitality.

 Meg Smith is a poet, journalist, dancer and events producer living in Lowell, Mass. In addition to Poetry Bay, her poems have appeared in The Cafe Review, The Offering, Astropoetica, Illumen, Dreams & Nightmares, the Dwarf Stars anthology of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association and many more. She is a past board member of Lowell Celebrates Kerouac! and produces the Edgar Allan Poe Show, honoring Poe's presence in Lowell, Mass. 

Dear Deepest Ghost is the second book of poetry by Meg Smith. It includes new works as well as poems previously published in Pudding, Poetry Bay, The Cafe Review, Dreams & Nightmares, the Dwarf Stars Anthology of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association, and many more.

Cancelled: March 8: Julia Carlson and Lee Varon Feature at Stone Soup

Cancelled.

After a short hiatus, Stone Soup Poetry returns as a weekly poetry open mic venue at a new day, time and location. Stone Soup is now meeting every Thursday night from 8-10 PM at Brew on the Grid located on 93 Windsor Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts. On March 8, Stone Soup regulars Julia Carlson and Lee Varon celebrate the release of their new poetry collections. 

 It will now be free to attend the open mic and/or feature, but we encourage you to bring cash so we can "pass the hat" for our feature. We also recommend you support Brew on the Grid by at least buying one drink out of gratitude for their hospitality.

Julia Carlson Graduate of Boston University & the University of Toulouse-le-Mirail, France, studied Philosophy & Linguistics. Also, MSW, Boston University, worked as a clinical social worker until retirement a few years ago. 1st Fiction Editor of the Wilderness House LIterary Review, & editor of Bagel Bards Anthology V. Poetry in many small presses, e.g., Ibbetson House, Wilderness House Literary Review, Lyrical Somerville, Fresh! Magazine, & Muddy River Poetry Review. Davis Kidd Poetry Award, 2001; Winner, PoetryKit Spring Competition, 2017. Chapbooks: Turn of the Century, (Cloudkeeper Press, 2008) & Drift (March Hare Press,2012), Most recently, Prayer for the Misbegotten. (Oddball Press, 2017). A Cantabrigian, I like reading, art, rock n roll, & a wee dram on a cold night.

Lee Varon is a social worker and writer. Her chapbook Affairs Run In The Family was published by Finishing Line Press. She won the 2017 Sunshot prize for poetry and her upcoming book Shot In The Head will be published by New Millennium Writings this spring. She is currently working on another book of poetry, The Addict’s Mother.

February 22: Jamilla Bailey Features at Stone Soup Poetry

After a short hiatus, Stone Soup Poetry returns as a weekly poetry open mic venue at a new day, time and location. Stone Soup is now meeting every Thursday night from 8-10 PM at Brew on the Grid located on 93 Windsor Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts. On February 22, Jamilla Bailey visits us to celebrate her new poetry collection Black Girls Burn Blue.

 It will now be free to attend the open mic and/or feature, but we encourage you to bring cash so we can "pass the hat" for our feature. We also recommend you support Brew on the Grid by at least buying one drink out of gratitude for their hospitality.

Jamilla “JB” Bailey is a pro-black feminist from Boston whose recent collection Black Girls Burn Blue deals with the weight of depression, blackness, and femaleness through raw accounts of her own experiences. As the former editor of, The Elephant Literary Magazine and a student at UMass Boston’s English Master’s program, Jamilla is dedicated to studying poetry as a professional art form, with hopes of owning her own printing press.

February 15: Stone Soup All Open Mic Night

Marty says: All are invited! Art by Whiskey Radish. 

After a short hiatus, Stone Soup Poetry returns as a weekly poetry open mic venue at a new day, time and location. Stone Soup is now meeting every Thursday night from 8-10 PM at Brew on the Grid located on 93 Windsor Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

We continue to gather at our new home on February 15 with an all-open mic. Bring your poetry, music, monologues, or whatever else you would like to share with an audience.

 For all-open mic nights, we ask that you support Brew on the Grid by at least buying one drink out of gratitude for their hospitality. We will also "pass the hat" for Brew on the Grid's closing staff. 

February 8: Skoot Features at Stone Soup Poetry

After a short hiatus, Stone Soup Poetry returns as a weekly poetry open mic venue at a new day, time and location. Stone Soup is now meeting every Thursday night from 8-10 PM at Brew on the Grid located on 93 Windsor Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts. On February 8, we are visited by Joseph 'Skoot" Mosby. 

 It will now be free to attend the open mic and/or feature, but we encourage you to bring cash so we can "pass the hat" for our feature. We also recommend you support Brew on the Grid by at least buying one drink out of gratitude for their hospitality.

Skoot is a heavy hitting poet. As the Poetry Club president and the face of Roxbury Community College he has created many successful events, such as No Filter, Man vs. Police, and What That Mouth Do. Skoot is taking the poetry world by storm with his freestyle abilities on the mic. Skoot has featured at Rapping With The Writers, Comic Con, Roxbury Rocks, Art is Life Itself, Hope Inc., Verbalization, Lizard Lounge and Stone Soup. In a major addition to his features, Skoot has been a three time Semi finalist and a Finalist for the Lizard Lounge National slam team.

February 1: Mark Lipman Features at Stone Soup

After a short hiatus, Stone Soup Poetry returns as a weekly poetry open mic venue at a new day, time and location. Stone Soup is now meeting every Thursday night from 8-10 PM at Brew on the Grid located on 93 Windsor Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts. On February 1, poet and activist Mark Lipman visits us again.

 It will now be free to attend the open mic and/or feature, but we encourage you to bring cash so we can "pass the hat" for our feature. We also recommend you support Brew on the Grid by at least buying one drink out of gratitude for their hospitality.

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).

January 25: Stone Soup All Open Mic Night

After a short hiatus, Stone Soup Poetry returns as a weekly poetry open mic venue at a new day, time and location. Stone Soup is now meeting every Thursday night from 8-10 PM at Brew on the Grid located on 93 Windsor Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

We continue to gather at our new home on January 25 with an all-open mic. Bring your poetry, music, monologues, or whatever else you would like to share with an audience.

 For all-open mic nights, we ask that you support Brew on the Grid by at least buying one drink out of gratitude for their hospitality. We will also "pass the hat" for Brew on the Grid's closing staff. 

 

Lee Varon to Receive the 2017 Jack Powers Stone Soup Savor Poetry Prize

The Jack Powers Stone Soup Savor Poetry Prize was created in 2009 by Gordon Marshall in conjunction with Jack Powers and Margaret Nairn. A downside to Stone Soup ending prematurely in 2017 was that we were unable to crown a winner in time.

On January 18, we have the pleasure finally awarding the 2017 prize to Lee Varon, longtime participant in Stone Soup's open mic as well as the author of a new poetry collection, Affairs Run In The Family. Gordon Marshall will be on hand to present the award.

We hope you will be able to attend the full night of celebration at Stone Soup this Thursday.

Toni Bee to Give Blessing to Stone Soup's New Venue on January 18

Stone Soup begins a new era in a new location at Brew on the Grid this Thursday, January 18. Stone Soup's new home would not have happened if not for the efforts of Cambridge's own poetry ambassador, Toni Bee.

Toni Bee has agreed to be the inaugural open mic poet, going first at 8:00 PM to give the new location its blessing. We are thrilled to have her open the night out of respect for her efforts past and present to keep Stone Soup Poetry alive as a venue.