Happy Birthday, Colorado T. Sky

Been a while!

 

Your Wednesday Morning Poetry

Ending May and Stone Soup's fifty-fifth anniversary month with an eye on the criminally underpublished Walter Howard, who passed away in 2018. Here is his poem "Old Deacon Blackbird" from my old zine Spoonful.

Your Wednesday Morning Poetry

Joanna Nealon, the woman I dubbed the matriarch of Stone Soup Poetry, passed away in November. Though her books are still available to buy online, almost none of her poems are published online in journals. None except the ones I published in the old Stone Soup adjacent journal Spoonful years ago. Read  "Narcissus Speaks" and 
"Spring Again" in issue #4.

Your Wednesday Morning Poetry

 

 

Last weeked marked the anniversary of Gary Hicks' passing. Maybe someday I'll find that Christmas poem he read at Stone Soup Poetry one year. For now, all I have is what he gave me to publish in my old online journal Spoonful. Check out "in dubious battle: notes on my twentieth birthday in new hampshire."

Happy Birthday, Daniel Cantor

aka Rafael "Raffi" Woolf. 

 

Happy Birthday, Colorado T. Sky

Remember the Spoonful days?

Happy Birthday, Shannon McGinnis

Remember when?

Happy Birthday, Daniel Cantor

 aka Rafael "Raffi" Woolf. 

Thirty Days of Stone Soup Stuff

 

Before I put my efforts into Oddball Magazine, there was Spoonful, an online tribute magazine to Stone Soup Poetry and its participants. 

I would never have had to courage to press on with this idea if it weren't for James Conant and his wife Cindy K. Williams, two artists who always had work for me for six straight issues (Issues #0 to #5). Cindy would give me a great cover photo to anchor the work in place, and James would provide the quirkier works for the poems inside, though they would work together as well.

The above art piece is called "Lost Days" one they worked on together. I believe Cindy took the initial photo and James did his style over it. It adorned a poem by Sam Cha in issue #3 back in 2008. 

There's probably a lot of poets who wish they could take back their work for that journal, given that I was just learning how to manipulate Blogger. Whatever. I did the best with what I knew and what I had, and I still owe James and Cindy the world a dozen times over for all their help. 

One One More Thing

"The Zannotated 'Cockatoo'" by Rafael Woolf, a romping riff on Bill Barnum's poem.

One More Thing

Bill Barnum's classic "Cockatoo." 



Read the text version here.

More About Bill Barnum

In 2007, I published a selection of Bill Barnum tribute poems from Stone Soup's online zine, Spoonful. I'm reposting them today to keep the Barnum love going.

The Poem I Always Post on Days Like These

First published in Spoonful, later in Patron Emeritus.

Forgot to post this on his birthday.

My One Mother Poem

"Hail," from back in the days of Spoonful. Inspiration came from a poem about the rosary by Marc Goldfinger.

Spoonful

Spoonful was my online tribute to Stone Soup Poetry and its contributors past and (then) present. It culminated with both a fifth and sixth issue published shortly after Jack Powers' death. A seventh issue had work submitted to it but was never published. I may go back to what was submitted and put it out someday. For now, you can look at what was in all seven issues (there was a zero issue also published) right here.

Happy Birthday Doug Holder

Here's a poem from the Spoonful days. 

Happy Birthday Dad

Here's one of the last published poems I wrote for my Dad. Published in my online zine Spoonful and later in my book Patron Emeritus. Photo taken by Su Red aka Susan Lilly. Out of all the photography contributions, hers was the most "Woonsocket " for my purposes.

From Picture to Page: Hail (Part Two)

I've done this before, write a poem based on a picture I've taken. I have a hard time doing this because I use a lot of my best pictures nowadays for Oddball Magazine and my own projects. You can read the new one below (and see "Part One" of this piece here if you like, though it's not necessary. Oh, and you can click here if you want some context for the quote. Is it poorer taste to use her quote or to reference a Jewish woman in a poem revolving around the Catholic religion? You tell me.

A Returning Friend

Luis Lázaro Tijerina used to be a regular contributor to my old journal Spoonful, a publication that fell to the wayside after six issues. It may come back again soon, but recently I decided that I should contact Luis and see if he wanted to do anything with Oddball Magazine.

He got back to me and submitted to me an amazing piece.

You're going to see it later this afternoon.

For a warm-up, you can check out his Spoonful work here and here. One of his more recently published pieces is up here.

See you later today.

People I Want to See Tonight at Stone Soup

Mignon Ariel King

She RSVP'ed personally, so this is a bit of a cheat. Still, I haven't seen her since her Stone Soup feature last November. With a new Tell Tale issue coming out, it's a great time to hear her work again and play catch up.

Chris Robbins

Not that it usually means anything these days, but he did put himself down as attending on Facebook. I'll be happy if I see him. In the video above, BTW, Chris recites a poem that was originally published in Spoonful, another project I need to get back to some day.