One More

Another zombie cat (I think) from Salem. 

 

More Halloweeny Graffiti

Some more of this wolf drawing that I shared at the beginning of October.

More Halloweeny Stuff

Don't think this is drawn by the same guy who I believe did the last two Halloween posts. Could be. Not sure if this is a devil or a zombie cat/dog. More coming next Monday for Halloween week.

More Blue and Cute

Another of the little creatures I saw around around Salem for an October treat.

Special Halloween Treat!

For the month of Halloween, I'm featuring monster graffiti found in Salem.

 

Quick Scene from Saturday at the Salem Literary Festival's Micro-Marvels Presentation

So happy to be there this past Saturday with my fellow micro-poets, flash fiction writers, and micro-memoirists.

Every Place Has a Heart

You just have to squint to see it sometimes. 

Catch Me Tomorrow

I'll be part of Micro Marvels at the Salem Literary Festival on Saturday, September 6 at 10 AM. It's located at Ames Hall on 208 Essex Street! I'll be reading with other contributors to the literary journal Molecule. 

Catch Me This Saturday

I'll be part of Micro Marvels at the Salem Literary Festival on Saturday, September 6 at 10 AM. It's located at Ames Hall on 208 Essex Street! I'll be reading with other contributors to the literary journal Molecule. 

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. 

Your Weekly Dose of God

Seeing Anna Geoffroy read her poetry for Tim Gager's Poetry-Go-Round at St. Peter's Church in Salem for the Massachusetts Poetry Festival was my holy moment for the weekend.

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.

Graffiti from Salem

Is this the same "Ferral Royal" who does comics? I hope so.

Waiting for the Gate to be Announced

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.

Register Now!

 

 

You can register now for this year's Massachusetts Poetry Festival in Salem.

 

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.

We Did It for You! New Onlline Shows Dedicated to Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Information courtesy of Thea Iberall.

Three free shows coming up 

 

ALL PERFORMANCES
DEDICATED TO
THE MEMORY OF
RUTH BADER GINSBURG

One Good Thing

Around Spring, I noticed these little smoke stashes around Jamaica Plain.