Oddball Surives The Blizzard

Jason gets out of shoveling during today's storm long enough to do another Jagged Thoughts column today at Oddball Magazine.

January 26: Tonight's Stone Soup Cancelled

No Stone Soup tonight due to crazy weather. Hannah Brown is staying off the road, and it's certainly not worth endangering poets for just an open mic. The Out of The Blue Art Gallery will be closing now as I post this. I will announce the reschedule date as soon as I can.

The Flyer for Tomorrow's Stone Soup Feature

January 26: Here Comes Hannah Brown

I try to make it a point to take one poet in January and give them their first feature at Stone Soup. Sometimes, I can do it, sometimes I can't. This January, I can. In fact, I'm having the most highly anticipated debut I can remember in a while. Hannah Brown has been making waves on open mics and in the pages of Oddball Magazine. with her poetry (like many other newcomers to Stone Soup's open mic) accomplishing a challenging mix of both the personal and political. I anticipate her reading this Monday will be able to fill even Stone Soup's new larger home at the new Out of The Blue Art Gallery. There's room for everyone. If you haven't taken the to visit Stone Soup's new digs yet, now is the time. Check out her work in this week's Stone Soup Servings if you need further convincing.

January 19: Culture MC at Stone Soup

Happy Martin Luther King Day weekend everyone. I hope you enjoyed your time off this weekend and your extra day of reflection. You can extend that by listening to Culture the Emcee tonight. And stay tuned for more Stone Soup news as we provide a great segue to Black History Month with some great features, including one hosted by Toni Bee!

Work Sent Out

One of my many resolutions for 2015 was to send out more poems to journals for publication.  I've already sent out to two this week with at least one more planned by tomorrow.  The only delay is in figuring out what to send and going through my Excel file to see if I've already sent certain poems out (I try to avoid simultaneous submissions whenever possible, just a personal neurosis I don't recommend copying).

Except for one or two rare exceptions, I never know what to send out of my work.  I have never had a clue what anyone wants, even if it's someplace where I've already published.   The number of times I've sent something to a literary review thinking it's my best work for them and getting a "no thanks" has to be in the triple digits now.

With poetry publication, it's not so much getting hoping to get struck by lightning as it is to wait for lightning and, when it comes, trying to get out of the way at the last second.

Wish me luck.

Coming Next Week to Stone Soup Poetry

This simple photo is all the rave since I posted it this morning on my Facebook page.  For nearly a decade, I have been struggling to control the open mic time limits at Stone Soup Poetry. 

The idea of a sand timer has been rolling around in my head for a while, ever since I saw Tony Toledo use it a tthe Speak UP: Spoken Word venue in Lynnfield Massachusetts.  After some particularly long nights over the last few months with Stone Soup's increasing audience, I decided to throw down the fifty-odd bucks and got one three-minute timer and one five-minute timer.

The three-minute timer will be used for keeping the open mic manageable when there's a lot of people signed up to read.  The five-minute timer will help to give open mic readers some leeway during quieter nights or the usually less-attended second half of the open mic.

Let's see how this works.