Stone Soup Revisited
Andrew’s definition of poetry as “a living art” which Jack and his Stone Soup venue embody, is what makes it so unique, and thereby eludes precise definition. I was relieved to find that unchanged during my visit.
Like Stone Soup, other poetry venues have their well known, run of the mill, new & exciting and not so exciting poets reading. The poets come and go; Stone Soup remains. Jack Powers remains — immune to fads, criticism, competing venues and loss of physical space.
There have been many places, from Stone Soup’s origin in Goodspeed’s storefront bookstore at the foot of Beacon Hill to T.T. the Bears (where we first read), to Charlie’s Tap in Cambridge, and now Out Of the Blue Gallery (106 Prospect Street, Cambridge, MASS). The draw is Jack. He is Stone Soup. His vision, not the place, is what infuses the atmosphere and makes everyone feel the heartbeat of poetry. Andrew & I both felt it the first time we read there. I felt it this time too, amidst the sad, not unwelcoming presence of ghosts hovering.
In Douglas Holder’s “Stone Soup Poetry’s 30th Birthday” (published online by Lucid Moon, 2000) he describes that event in which “Ian Thal... voiced a tribute to Jack Powers, by the poet Walter Howard... calling Jack one of “God’s holy fools... his hands reach to the stars.” The venues have changed, not the philosophy. According to Powers, if Stone Soup has a mission, it’s to “rescue people from... artistic isolation” in what he calls “a very, very closed industry....
Poetry publishing in America,” Powers says, “is more closed off than the corporate board rooms... and we’re out to democratize freedom of expression.” (This quote appeared in the Boston Globe Magazine, January 29, 1989.)
In Doug Holder’s interview with Powers on the late Gregory Corso (published online by Lucid Moon, 2001), Jack said that for Corso, there are “no rules with poetry... just as long as you are using as much of your total self as possible.” This is how Jack Powers feels, and what, for 30 years, he has been quietly practicing in his own work, his dramatic readings, and with Stone Soup. He’s published about 30 anthologies housed at the UMass Boston library, and about 80 poetry collections under the Stone Soup imprint. All the Stone Soup readings are videotaped and shown on local Cambridge cable channel TV (CCTV) each week.
For what he’s done for the past 30 years, and continues to do, Jack Powers was just given Ibbetson Street Press’s lifetime achievement award.
Mike Basinski, assistant curator of the University of Buffalo’s poetry and rare book collection, was in Boston November 20th (arranged by Doug Holder) to collect videos, books, photos, etc. from Jack for a new Jack Powers/Stone Soup Poets Collection at the University of Buffalo. This will insure a secure place for Stone Soup’s rich archives for future generations — for anyone — to see how poetry can really live — outside academia, politics, and the whole “po biz” world, as Anne Sexton called it.
With Andrew Gettler’s passing in 2002, I now know I needed to return to Boston, to Stone Soup, no matter how difficult it would be (and was...), to thank Jack for what he gave us and to say some final words — if there ever are any — to Andrew, here, in our poetry-church home (for those, like us, who have no other church), and to Leo, who passed away in 2001 & who, unintentionally, set it all in motion.
The journey made, I must carry on what we started, explore the vision further on my own. “Someone else’s wisdom and light aren’t stepping stones,” Andrew wrote, “they are junping off places.” I am standing on one right now.
~Linda Lerner
Now to the poems themselves:
Like Stone Soup, other poetry venues have their well known, run of the mill, new & exciting and not so exciting poets reading. The poets come and go; Stone Soup remains. Jack Powers remains — immune to fads, criticism, competing venues and loss of physical space.
There have been many places, from Stone Soup’s origin in Goodspeed’s storefront bookstore at the foot of Beacon Hill to T.T. the Bears (where we first read), to Charlie’s Tap in Cambridge, and now Out Of the Blue Gallery (106 Prospect Street, Cambridge, MASS). The draw is Jack. He is Stone Soup. His vision, not the place, is what infuses the atmosphere and makes everyone feel the heartbeat of poetry. Andrew & I both felt it the first time we read there. I felt it this time too, amidst the sad, not unwelcoming presence of ghosts hovering.
In Douglas Holder’s “Stone Soup Poetry’s 30th Birthday” (published online by Lucid Moon, 2000) he describes that event in which “Ian Thal... voiced a tribute to Jack Powers, by the poet Walter Howard... calling Jack one of “God’s holy fools... his hands reach to the stars.” The venues have changed, not the philosophy. According to Powers, if Stone Soup has a mission, it’s to “rescue people from... artistic isolation” in what he calls “a very, very closed industry....
Poetry publishing in America,” Powers says, “is more closed off than the corporate board rooms... and we’re out to democratize freedom of expression.” (This quote appeared in the Boston Globe Magazine, January 29, 1989.)
In Doug Holder’s interview with Powers on the late Gregory Corso (published online by Lucid Moon, 2001), Jack said that for Corso, there are “no rules with poetry... just as long as you are using as much of your total self as possible.” This is how Jack Powers feels, and what, for 30 years, he has been quietly practicing in his own work, his dramatic readings, and with Stone Soup. He’s published about 30 anthologies housed at the UMass Boston library, and about 80 poetry collections under the Stone Soup imprint. All the Stone Soup readings are videotaped and shown on local Cambridge cable channel TV (CCTV) each week.
For what he’s done for the past 30 years, and continues to do, Jack Powers was just given Ibbetson Street Press’s lifetime achievement award.
Mike Basinski, assistant curator of the University of Buffalo’s poetry and rare book collection, was in Boston November 20th (arranged by Doug Holder) to collect videos, books, photos, etc. from Jack for a new Jack Powers/Stone Soup Poets Collection at the University of Buffalo. This will insure a secure place for Stone Soup’s rich archives for future generations — for anyone — to see how poetry can really live — outside academia, politics, and the whole “po biz” world, as Anne Sexton called it.
With Andrew Gettler’s passing in 2002, I now know I needed to return to Boston, to Stone Soup, no matter how difficult it would be (and was...), to thank Jack for what he gave us and to say some final words — if there ever are any — to Andrew, here, in our poetry-church home (for those, like us, who have no other church), and to Leo, who passed away in 2001 & who, unintentionally, set it all in motion.
The journey made, I must carry on what we started, explore the vision further on my own. “Someone else’s wisdom and light aren’t stepping stones,” Andrew wrote, “they are junping off places.” I am standing on one right now.
~Linda Lerner
Now to the poems themselves:
- “the poem the rare soul,” by Linda Lerner
- “A Condition, Not an Event,” by Andrew Gettler