February 13th: Kevin Mahoney 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. February the 13th marks the first Stone Soup feature of open miker and author Kevin Mahoney.

Kevin Mahoney was born in the fall of 1965. Nothing special happened to him until the age of twelve. It was then he read the book A Coney Island of the Mind by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
freshman year in High School. After reading that book, he wrote his first poem. The poem was awful, but he was determined to get better.

After a brief yet unbelievable sensual affair with his High School English teacher he went on to pursue careers in food service, emergency care, broadcasting, sea air rescue, carpet installing, clown balloon delivery service, chimney sweeping and ultimately Radiology Information Technology. He was a principle writer and occasional performer with the theater troupe Catbox Cabaret in the 1990's.

He has been reading poetry, in public, since 1992. He is a three time Cantab featured poet, a cross dresser (please don't tell his mom) and an all around swell guy. In the spring of 2005 he published his first collection of poetry, Serendipity is a Son of a Bitch. A sample poem is included below.

My Best Christmas Ever

I awoke tired, cold, naked and dirty
handcuffed to a nativity scene.
It was not the first time,
and, God forgive me, I was certain
that it would not be the last.
The villagers walked past me
some in awe, most in horror on their
way to midnight mass.
"I’m not mad," I screamed,
"I know the difference between a hawk and
a handsaw."
A light snow began to fall
creating a charming scene
unless of course if you were not looking at me
wallowing in the mud.
I did not know how I had come to be
handcuffed to that nativity scene
nor did any of the passerby’s ask
or offer to help.
For all they knew or I for that matter,
I was as happy as anyone could be in that
moment in time.
The church bell rang.
Midnight,
12 am,
Christmas morning,
Peace on earth, good will toward men.
A dog pissed on me.

Tonight and Upcoming

G. Emil Reutter reads tonight, January 23rd.

In the coming weeks.

January 30th: Open mike regular turned feature Adam Thielker.

February 6th: FN Wombat and Sidewalk Sam return to Stone Soup.

February 13th: Local poet and infamous open miker of many names Kevin Mahoney.

February 21st: Anna Birch and Chris Volpe of Penhallow Press.

February 6th: F.N. Wombat and Sidewalk Sam Perform


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. Returning to the Out of The Blue to feature for the first time since 2001 will be Richard Jarrell and Robert Guillemin, otherwise known as F.N. Wombat and Sidewalk Sam.

The two performed their "Bob 'n' 'Bat Show" for Stone Soup on September 3rd, 2001, when the Out of The Blue Art Gallery had relocated to it's current location from Brookline Ave. Their performance for Stone Soup marked the first for the venue in that location. They have not been back until now, though their act--mostly comprising of Wombat reading from his collected quotations and Sidewalk Sam reacting to each quote--has been perfromed for Charlie's Tap and the State House over the past ten years.

Wombat has made 45 books of compiled quotations, 35 of which has been published. 25 of his "Remarkable Remarks" books are stored in the John Cage Archive.

Wombat's ebook, Sayings for Sidewalk Sam, will be available as an ebook for Art Street Inc., which was established as a non-profit organizaion by the well known street performer Sidewalk Sam in 1991.

Art Street Inc.'s goal, as explained on the web site, is "to develop collaborative, participatory art programs with communities, government agencies, businesses, schools and non-profit organizations."

Visit the Art Street Inc. web site.

January 30th: Adam Thielker 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. Making his debut feature at Stone Soup will be Adam Thielker.

Raised in 1950's New York City by a mid-sized party of New York Artists, he has been living in New England ever since.

He has always written poetry, but usually threw it away because he didn't like it.

A few years back, he moved to the Boston area and began to read out at the Cantab, Out of The Blue, and in Newburyport with the Pow Wow River Poets.

He has published an artice in Orion magazine recently, but no poetry until now. Adam Thielker also makes his debut publication credit on the Stone Soup web site below with his sample poem.

The Freeze

Shake dead leaves and hush
Still in the deep earth cold roots
Under empty beds

Come down snow

Now dark comes too soon
And winter taps my window
But I will not turn

To your heart

Black trees sit black birds
Fly high dry white icy sky
Sing far off wind words

--Adam Thielker

More Posting Soon

We at Stone Soup hope everyone enjoyed the holidays. Stone Soup has already started the new year with two well-received features. We apologize for not having posted any photos from past readers for some time. This will be rectified soon.

Stone Soup is looking for features to fill out the new year. A more detailed call will be sent out next week as well.

Please be sure to try and make it out to Stone Soup on Martin Luther King Day. Elizabeth Doran will read.

January 23rd: G. Emil Reutter 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. Visiting Stone Soup from out of state for the first time will be poet, fiction writer, and essayist G. Emil Reutter.

G Emil Reutter is an author/poet from Lower Bucks County Pennsylvania. His home base is The Five Points Java Joint where he reads normally on the 3rd Friday of the month with the Madpoets Society. He currently has a chapbook of poetry entitled Asphalt Road (2004) and two collections of short stories/essays/poems entitled Life Views (2004), The Jonesville Collection (2004) available as ebooks at Stonegarden Publishing. A number of manuscripts are in submission status. His poetry/prose/essays have been published widely in the small and electronic press.

A sample poem of Reutter's is included below.

saturday night sinners

troubadours sing songs whose lyrics

have long lost their meaning

tina circles dave on the dance floor

as she eyes up johnny at the bar

who chugs another beer wondering

where his wife is

the band sings “born to run”

tina laughs at the crowd dancing

changing the lyric to “born to jog”

or “walk really fast”

dave scores a blond and leaves

tina saddles up next to johnny

listening to the cheat on me blues

waiting for him to take her

where she wants to go

sunday morning comes

as dave picks the tinted blue hair

from his pillow

johnny and his wife enter the church

tina walks by and winks

as johnny notices

the pastor eyeing up his wife

dave runs in sitting down

not noticing the blue haired lady

until she places her hand on his knee

cringing knowing he can’t get away

and here they all sit

saturday night sinners

in sunday morning forgiveness

--G. Emil Reutter

Click here to visit G. Emil Reutter's website.

January 16th: Elizabeth K. Doran 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. Returning to feature at Stone Soup is local poet and regular open miker Elizabeth K. Doran.

Elizabeth K. Doran has been influenced as a poet by modern women writers such as Sharon Olds and Louis Gluck. Although she would never want to be called a "nature poet" nature is always present in her work. "Nature is part of the environment we all share and informs my sensibility," she says. Elizabeth is drawn to syllabics and loves long syllabic lines. A major influence is Eugino Montale who in 1975 was awarded the Nobel prize for literature.

She is published in Poises and Spare Change news and has read at many Venues in Boston and beyond. She is the former host of poetry at Gallery Diablo.

A sample poem of Doran's is included below.

The Sinners

A woman stands in the middle of the square
she is covered in layers of blue cloth her eyes are hidden.
Men begin to gather, collect stones.
Somewhere under the cloth a heart beats.
It is said those without sin should cast the first stone.
But a sinner picks up a rock and throws it
then there is a frenzy of sinners casting
stones until their rage subsides.
Her god surely heard her heart beat
until it stopped.

--Elizabeth K. Doran

January 9th: Tom Daley 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. Featuring for the first time at Stone Soup on January 9th will be poet, performer teacher, producer and recent chapbook author Tom Daley.

Tom Daley leads poetry writing workshops at the Boston Center for Adult Education and starting January 15, 2006 at Jeff Robinson's Online School of Poetry. His poetry has been published in a number of journals, including Prairie Schooner, can we have our ball back?, 32 Poems and Poetry Ireland Review. His chapbook, Canticles & Inventories was published in the fall of 2005.

Click here to read two poems by Tom Daley.

Click here for the home of Jeff Robinson's Online School of Poetry.

January 2nd: Raffi Wolf 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. Featuring for the very first Stone Soup gathering in the new year will be Raphael Wolf.

Raphael Wolf was Bill Barnum's editor in the mid '80's, Rent Free (about homelessness) and I Wish That My Room Had A Floor (about mental illness). He has also had poems, articles, and short stories printed in Spare Change.

December 26th: Doug Holder 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. Returning to the venue next after his unfortunate cancellation in October will be Ibbetson Street publisher Doug Holder.

After many years of publishing numerous small press poets through his own Ibbetson Street Press, including his own chapbooks (Dreams At The Au Bon Pan, On Either Side of The Charles, waking In A Cold Sweat), Doug Holder finally gets to sit back and enjoy simply being a published author, thanks to Yellow Pepper Press. On the 31st, Stone Soup Poetry will premiere Holder's new chapbook Wrestling With My Father, which has earned advance praise from poets such as Harris Gardner and Hugh Fox.

Most recently, Ibbetson Street Press published Sanctus! Sanctus! Sanctus! by past Stone Soup feature Ann Carhart. Also The Somerville News Writers Festival, created by Holder and Heat City Literary Review Editor Tim Gager, took place on November 13 at the Somerville Theatre (see the link at the end of this post).

A sample poem of Holder's is included here.

Another...in a series of turning fifty poems.

My Life: In Contrast With Others.

There is no need for comparison.
Nor is there time.
What I wanted before
has been rendered to caricature.
The Phantom that pulls and pulls at me
I will never clearly see--

The only contrast
will be that short,
tenuous last breath
that will surely be,
the death
of me.


The Ibbetson Street Press website.

The Yellow Pepper Press Website.

The Somerville News Writers Festival.

December 19th: Philip E. Burnham, Jr. 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. Featuring December 19th will be poet Philip E. Burnham, Jr.

Philip E. Burnham, Jr. was born in Rochester, New York, and grew up in New England. He is a graduate of Harvard College and served as American Vice Consul in Marseille, France. After receiving a doctorate in Medieval History from Tufts University, he taught in public and private secondary schools and colleges in the Boston area. He has published three books of poetry, My neighbor Adam (2003) and Sailing from Boston (2003), and his newest, Housekeeping (2005). He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. A sample poem is included below.


Voices of The Dead

From the radio, voices of the dead
Fill the kitchen like Christmas cinnamon
This low, late december, sun day pink red
Cloud, yellow morning, disembodied sounds

Of music for opera, concert stage
Performed as a lyric necrology,
A year's sum of loss, encore passages
To other shores, scores with these noteworthy

Musicians, their places left to the young
Who play muted instruments, the tempo
A reverence for keys, strings, brass, winds, drums
Voices untuned, unstrung, adagio.

But your songs for children and for love were
Never recorded to be replayed when
You were out of touch, time; their echoes bear
On my hearing as ocean waves wear through

The icy gates of great December's end
and winter's opening, songs whisper in
My heart's good ear where I may often spend
Time's purse to recall you as I listen.

December 12th: John Sturm 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. Making his debut feature at Stone Soup is John Sturm, orator of great local renown, performing "The Raven," among other works by Edgar Allen Poe.

John Sturm has been performing at open mikes for the last few years at The Cantab, Club Passim, Out of The Blue and other venues. He has twice performed at Forsyth Chapel for e.e. cummings' birthday anniversary. Although he writes almost nothing of his own, he will include several haiku and at least one longer poem of his own. A sample sonnet and haiku are included below:



When our little pups stretch out for belly rubs
Or beg for Snaussages with pleading eyes
When our best exercise is walking them
Or throwing Frisbees till they tire us out

When we delight in all the tricks they do
Rewarding them with kibbles and with praise
Or watch them running free within a yard
Bringing sticks or rubber balls for us to throw

When in the living room they find the sun
Or in the winter lie before the fire
And seem asleep yet stay alert
For any sound which threatens us

They've added joy unto another day
And shown their loving in the way they play



No love poem has
the eloquence of lovers
Silent--eye to eye.

Tonight

Vicki Bosch Murray Features

Out Of The Blue Benefit Link

Click here for updates on the December 10th raffle to benefit the Out Of The Blue Art Gallery. More information on the pieces being raffled will be available by the end of the week.

You can also purchase raffle tickets via a PayPal link on the site.

Out of The Blue Holiday Raffle

When: Saturday, December 10^th, 12-5 p.m.

Where: Out of The Blue Art Gallery, 106 Prospect Street, Cambridge

Artists have donated various works like poetry books, framed photography, sculpture, and paintings for the benefit raffle. Come have food, drink, and see the entertainment. Enter to win an item, or purchase one of the many affordable pieces for sale.

Scheduled performers include:

Carolyn Gregory (poet)
Chad Parenteau (poet, co-host of Stone Soup Poetry)
Bill Perrault (poet, producer of Stone Soup TV series)
Deb Priestly (poet, Out of The Blue Sales Manager)
Meg Smith (poet, dancer)
Lynne Sticklor (The Prize Lady)

And an Open Mike as well.

Many ways to participate, whether or not you can attend the show:

$10 Two raffle tickets, and admission on December 10^th.
$7 One raffle ticket, plus admission.
$5 One raffle ticket.
$4 Suggested Donation Admission only.
$? Donation to Out of the Blue.
$!! Participates in the open mike will be eligible for an exclusive raffle!

All money for purchased raffle tickets and donations will solely benefit the Out of The Blue art gallery. All art, time and food have been donated (thanks to the Middle East Café and other local venders and peoples).

We will continue to accept donations of artwork until the day of the event.

Raffle tickets sales will be going on all day- up to the drawing.

You will be notified if you win and are not in attendance.

Admission and raffle tickets will be available at the Out of The Blue Art gallery. For more information on the event, call Out of The Blue at 617-354-5287 or email Chad Parenteau at freakmachinepress@yahoo.com for more information.

Poem of The Week

Due to a late entry, we were not able to have a featured poem last week. We apologize and hope this doesn't happen again.

This week, we have Dan Shanahan, a veteran poet and an associate of Janaka Stucky who came to Stucky's November 21st reading and impressed in the open mike. Hopefully, he will have his own feature sometime in 2006.


A Silk Moth In Holyoke, Massachusetts

There was a moth
from Koboke, Japan
Who it is said made thread
With lineage from China,
Three thousand years old.
When its eggs hatched
Stars were stitched upon thier backs.
As caterpillars they mused and grazed
At zero speed on green fields
Of Mulberry leaves.
In such idle ways
They dreamed themseves
Into cocoons,
Dangled in their solitudes,
Pupas pulsing with the moon.
when they woke
Their work began
Spinning silk for my mother,
Who sewed by hand
Buttonholes and linings
I recall, for a sweater
She made for me one fall.

Boxi moth, furry,
Plain khaki tan,
My city was spun
From your imaginings.
You threaded the river
Through the needles of canals
Dug out with immigrant hands.
In your sleep you turned the mills
The cogs and wheels
Spooling bobbins by the millions
To bind this world in silk
And pay for the shop-floor girl's
Bottle of milk.

--Dan Shanahan

Upcoming Features

Don't forget our future features for the month of December. The poet for December 26th will be announced soon.

November 28th: Ryk McIntyre
December 5th: Victoria Bosch Murray
December 12th: John Sturm
December 19th: Philip burnham, Jr.

Janaka Stucky's November 21st Reading

Photo by Bill Perrault

Thanks to Janaka Stucky for reading at Stone Soup Poetry and introducing new people to the venue.

December 5th: Victoria Bosch Murray 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. Making her debut feature on December 5th will be poet and venue host Victoria Bosch Murray.

Victoria Bosch Murray, 2004 Cambridge Poetry Award recipient, has published poetry most recently in Poetic Voices Without Borders, Dos Pasos Review, Green Hills Literary Lantern, and Wolf Moon Press Journal. Murray has also published two chapbooks: Running A Red, and her most recent, Not to Scale. She is host of Poetribe in East Bridgewater, Massachusetts.

A sample poem of Murray's from Wolf Moon Press Journal.

November 28th: Ryk McIntyre 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. Returning to Stone Soup on November 28th will be performance poet Ryk McIntyre.

Ryk McIntyre is a three-time National Poetry Slam Team member, as well as Co-host at The Cantab Poetry Reading. He has toured nationally and in Canada, opening for acts as varied as Leon Redbone and Jim Carroll, as well as appearing as part of Lollapalooza 1994. He has been published in Short-Fuse: an Anthology of New Fusion Poets, 100 Poets Against The New World Order, Nth Position Magazine and The Worcester Review. He is also the author of four chapbooks, including his most recent, Love Is A Flashlight. He is a known biped.

A sample poem from Nth Position.

The latest PDF version of 100 Poets Against The War.