Happy Birthday, Juliet Stone

 

 

New Souvenir

Added a sticker from the Massachusetts Poetry Festival to my beat up journal.

Weekend Highlight

Check out Timothy Gager's poem "We" performed by Betsy Miller at the Massachusetts Poetry Festival this past Sunday.

 

 

What a Day

For the first time ever, I ran a workshop at the Massachusetts Poetry Festival yesterday. It was on blackout/erasure poetry, and the participants were amazing. 

See My Workshop This Saturday at the Massachusetts Poetry Festival

 

 So happy to be presenting my workshop for this year's Massachusetts Poetry Festival.

Come by for "Filtering White Noise: Using Erasure and Blackout Poetry To Make Sense of It All" being held by me at the St. Peter's Church chapel in downtown Salem on Saturday May 31, 2025 at 11:30 AM to 12:30 PM ET.

It's first come, first serve, and there are already over twenty attendees. I'm excited. Let's see what we can create together.

Happy Birthday, Juliet Stone

 

Happy Birthday, Richard Hoffman

 

 

Things That Were't As Bad As I Thought They Were: My Massachusetts Poetry Festival Challenge

 

 

This illustration by Peter Urkowiz reminds me that my panel, "You Own the Mic: The Emergence of Online Poetry Readings," was not as poor as my mind makes it out to be. I've been organizing online gatherings for so long, I'm not used to giving up so much control. And there were more people there than I had ever anticipated. Not bad for my return to the festival.

My Few Pics from the Massachusetts Poetry Festival

Toni Bee, Jha D and me. 

At the Festival

 

 

Illustration by Peter Urkowitz.

At the Massachusetts Poetry Festival

Already in Progress. 

See My Panel at the Massachusetts Poetry Festival on May 6

 

This Saturday I'll be in Salem with Jha D Amazi, Toni Bee and Timothy Gager for our panel discussion at the Massachusetts Poetry Festival: "You Own the Mic: The Emergence of Online Poetry Readings."​

The panel starts at 11:30 at the Peabody Essex Museum.

Thanks to everyone at the Massachusetts Poetry Festival for giving me another panel. I'm looking forward to the weekend. Hope to see you there.

Click here to register. We appreciate everyone who has signed up so far.

Come to my Panel at the Massachusetts Poetry Festival on May 6

 

 

You Own the Mic: The Emergence of Online Poetry Readings 

Saturday, May 6 • 11:30am - 12:30pm

In early 2020, the pandemic struck with most of the world facing indefinite lockdown. Poets were just one of many groups taking to the internet with the hopes of forming or maintaining bonds during uncertain times. Then came the advent of Zoom, and the online open mic became popularized. Not since the introduction of slam poetry were spoken word venues changed so completely with no apparent road back to the simple days of pages and podiums. What were the positive effects? the negative? What does the future hold? This panel features a group of organizers whose poetry venues and events were transformed seemingly forever as online forums became the new normal.

Speakers

Jha D Amazi is an architectural designer by day and a spoken word artist by passion. She has been performing and organizing events for the past 15 years, and is the founder of the "if you can Feel it, you can Speak it" Open Mic Movement. Jha D's poetry and space making is a celebratory exploration of identity, sexuality and self-realization, and she professes that there is "undeniable art in expressing your own truth."

Toni Bee is a poet, educator, and photographer raised in Boston, MA, educated in Roxbury. She was elected as Poet Populist of Cambridge, MA - the first woman to grace that position. In 2016, Toni was selected as the Cambridge Inaugural Poetry Ambassador. She was a teaching artist and storyteller at The Wang Theatre, and received her BA from Simmons University. Bee self-published 22 Again, her first book of poetry and was currently serves on the Advisory Board of The New England Poetry Club. The poet has featured at: The Lizard Lounge, The Boston Poetry Slam, New England Poetry Club, The Boston National Poetry Month Festival, the Boston Poetry Marathon and several other venues. Bee has been awarded by YWCA Cambridge and given her flowers from Mass Poetry.

Bestselling Author, Timothy Gager has published 18 books of fiction and poetry, which includes his third novel, Joe the Salamander. He hosted the successful Dire Literary Series in Cambridge, MA from 2001 to 2018, and started a weekly virtual series in 2020. He has had over 1000 works of fiction and poetry published, 17 nominated for the Pushcart Prize. His work also has been nominated for a Massachusetts Book Award, The Best of the Web, The Best Small Fictions Anthology and has been read on National Public Radio.

In 2023, Big Table Publishing published an anthology of twenty years of his selected work, with 175 pages of new material: The Best of Timothy Gager.

Timothy is the former Fiction Editor of The Wilderness House Literary Review, and the founding co-editor of The Heat City Literary Review. A graduate of the University of Delaware, Timothy lives in Dedham, Massachusetts,and is employed as a social worker.

Chad Parenteau hosts Boston's long-running Stone Soup Poetry series. His latest collection is The Collapsed Bookshelf. His poetry has appeared in journals such as Résonancee, Molecule, Ibbetson Street, Pocket Lint, Cape Cod Poetry Review, Tell-Tale Inklings, Off The Coast, The Skinny Poetry Journal, The New Verse News, The Rye Whiskey Review, Nixes Mate Review and anthologies such as French Connections and Reimagine America. He serves as Associate Editor of the online journal Oddball Magazine.

Click here to register.

This Just In

The Massachusetts Poetry Festival has accepted my proposal for the panel discussion “Bring Your Own Mic: The Emergence of Online Poetry Reading."It is scheduled for Saturday, May 6 from 11:30 to 12:30. 

More information to follow. 

 

Happy Belated Birthday, Juliet Stone

Her work was instrumental in helping to put together Stone Soup's retrospective for the 2013 Massachusetts Poetry Festival.

 

Happy Birthday, DiDi Delgado

 

Things I'm Glad I Finally Got Archived in 2021: Stone Soup's 2013 Retrospective

Nearly a decade after Stone Soup's panel with Carol Weston, Dan Shanahan and James Van Looy at the Massachusetts Poetry Festival, I was finally able to share it on YouTube to a wider audience. The quality is dicey, the camera angle not great, but it's the only archive to this momentous occasion and I'm glad it's anyone can view it now.

Now Online! Stone Soup's Retrospective from the 2013 Massachusetts Poetry Festival

 

 

This presentation was given at Salem's Hawthorne Hotel the month of Stone Soup Poetry's forty second anniversary. It was a rare opportunity to have three long-time friends of the late Jack Powers share the story of Stone Soup with the help of photos and other memorabilia from Julie Stone. Much gratitude to Bill Perrault for filming.

Surprise!

I wouldn’t say I went out of my way to not be part of the Massachusetts Poetry Festival this year, but I sure as hell didn’t want to make any effort to create pitches for a workshop  or lecture. 

Now, however, it turns out I am going to be part of the Massachusetts Poetry Festival after all. Two cursory roles anyway, which is still an unexpected treat. 

Just please keep me away from any MC work. I have enough already. 

Mass Poetry Calls for Submissions

The Massachusetts Poetry Festival is taking place on May 13 this year. There are two poetry contests happening in relation to it. There is even a "Redo" opportunity for winning poets from last year who were unable to celebrate. Click here to find out more.