Introduction by Chad Parenteau

Photo by Bill Perrault

Welcome to issue # 0 of an ongoing tribute to the Stone Soup Poetry venue, founded over 36 years ago by Jack Powers. Spoonful will ideally start to come out quarterly following this "Zero" issue. There will be a call for submissions and a continuing effort to touch those who have never experienced Stone Soup and its various contributors before.

Some of you reading this may be Stone Soup veterans who are just discovering the new Stone Soup web site or wondering why you weren't invited to submit. To you I say: send us your names, give us the scoop on you or even other people you know who dropped out of the scene (though hopefully not out of poetry). We want all of your words and even hope you can drop back Stone Soup proper once in a while. There is now a general call for submissions, and we will try to include everyone who wants to participate.

For now, this issue offers you a selection of the many features and personalities that have come my way as booker and promoter of Stone Soup for nearly two years. This is just part of the group that have helped me make it work in honor of founder Jack Powers, Carol Weston, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, John Wieners, and everyone else who has come before me.

We will also be accepting artwork submissions. It pleases me to be giving exposure to two local artists, with more from anywhere and everywhere to come. It is fitting, however, that the majority of this issue's submissions come from the man whom I've dubbed jokingly (and appropriately) the "Multi-Media Master of Stone Soup," Stone Soup's archivist, Bill Perrault.

Thanks to all those voices I've worked with, past present and foreseeable future. And thank you, Jack Powers, whose hands appropriately adorn the cover of our first issue. None of this would be here without your inspiration.