Remembering the Vineyard

Listen to the voice

of each dead poet

as if it were yours.

It is.

Philip Dacey

From Mosquito Operas, 2010

The sad news came today that a poet and good friend to Stoneboat, Philip Dacey, has died after struggling with leukemia for quite a while. I only met Philip in person on one occasion, and that was at the Great Lakes Writers Festival at Lakeland College back in 2007. At the time, I had not tried to write a poem for many years. I was on major hiatus as far as poetry was concerned. But meeting Philip and hearing his work, I was impressed by his poems and by his welcoming nature. He was not snobbish about poetry. He did not make it seem like an enterprise for only some special sect of people. He helped me see that poetry is there for anyone who wants to partake of it. He was a true mentor in that regard.

Break Out Your Dancing Shoes, Poetic Pairings Are Coming

Lisa Vihos, Stoneboat's poetry and arts editor, reporting here:

I have been long fascinated by the way in which poetry, when spoken aloud (as opposed to read in silence from the printed page) is in fact a form of theater. This hit me upside the head a few years back when I staged a reading from my then-new chapbook, The Accidental Present, and instead of me droning on reading poem after poem, I had my friends and neighbors read the majority of poems in my stead. I cast my poems in the voices of people of all ages and walks of life, and the result was pretty nearly breathtaking. Seriously, it was very cool. Even people who had not come to Paradigm coffeehouse that night for poetry looked up from their laptops to listen.

Marketing Happens

Here at Pebblebrook Press, as is the case at so many small presses, we are grateful for the ingenuity of our authors’ marketing efforts to promote their books. Since our staff is only four people (all of us with day jobs and a literary journal called Stoneboat to produce twice a year), and since the bank account balance for the journal and press combined rarely exceeds triple digits, we simply don't have the time or the resources to extensively market our book titles. We send out review copies, we take books to festivals and other events, and we sing our titles’ praises on social media, but as far as actual "marketing campaigns" go, well, we know we are rather lacking in this department.

Zoltar Speaks! Call for Fortune Poems!

Perhaps you have heard we at Stoneboat are collaborating with our friends at the Paradigm Annex Theatre Collective (PATC) to offer Art Prom, a fundraiser to support the work of our two organizations.

The Passing of the Spark

There is nothing more life-affirming than the realization of the creative spark. If you are reading this blog  on any sort of regular or semi-regular basis, you are most likely in the camp of the human race that sees there is value in pursuing this spark, in preserving this spark, and in handing it--as it twinkles on the edge of a slender twig--onto another soul who is also looking for the spark. A few days after my dad, the artist Georg Vihos, passed on, I got this email from my "cousin" (not a blood relative, but the Greeks are a close-knit clan), sharing his story of the passing of the spark. He gave me permission to print the email here. I share it with you not so much because it is about my dad (and also about Ernie) but because it is a story about passing on that which is most beautiful, most delicate, most strong. I think you will find it relevant to your own story, somehow:

Georg Vihos, Phone Numbers, and Breaded Cutlets

Lisa here. In the coming days, I am going to be posting some tributes and meditations on my father who left this physical plane on September 26. He was an amazingly prolific artist, and a lover of life. His greatest pleasure, it seemed, was to pass on the spark of creativity to others. I think about him all the time, which I suppose is quite normal right after someone dies. However, I can't imagine how I will ever not think about him. I am not ready to write about him yet, but I know I will soon enough. One day, at the hospital, he said to me: "Write a story about me." I said, "I will, dad." He said, "Make it a good one." Before I get to my own stories about Georg, I will share some from others. Here is the first one, from Stoneboat contributor who happens to be my brother-in-law, Stephan Mazurek:

New Year, New Enterprise

Happy new year to all our friends and relations here in Stoneboatland. I hope 2013 is getting off to a good start for everyone and that your creative juices continue to flow even in our sub-zero Wisconsinwinterweather. Yes, that is one long word…

Sharing with the Ghosts

It is a nice feeling when the hard work of putting together an issue of Stoneboat results in not only a beautiful object that can be held in the hands and savored, (thank you Jim Giese, still our designer even though he is pursuing an MFA in environmental writing in Montana), but also a successful reading. We had great fun yesterday at Paradigm Coffee and Music in Sheboygan and had a nice turn out of "ghost readers." What is a ghost reader you may ask? This is a person, not the author of a particular work, who reads in the author's stead. Thank you ghost readers! This group included Nate Baake, Jake Belknap, the entire Byrand family, Karl Elder, Sean Gilligan, Amy Kudrow, and the editorial staff of Stoneboat (aka, me, Rob, and Signe.)

Going to Montana Soon...

So, we had a great editorial meeting on Tuesday night, working on the fall issue. We had so many submissions to go through, it was physically and spiritually daunting. I sometimes wish we had as many subscriptions as we had submissions. At one point, we were going to call it a night, and I remember Jim saying, "let's soldier on." It was almost grueling, but in a good way, and we did it. We are looking forward to another great issue, and we will be trying a new method of creating the journal, using CreateSpace.

Parakeets, Poetry, and Prose

We, the editors at Stoneboat, are happy to report that any second now, issue 2.2 will be in our hands, and the several additional online exclusive pieces are already available for you to view on our website. We are very excited that the cover image is a work of art by visual poet, Matthew Stolte.

National Poetry Month Off and Running

April is National Poetry Month, so it is very fitting that we are preparing Stoneboat 2.2 for your reading pleasure. We expect to have the new issue in hand on April 16 or thereabouts, just in time for the April 21 release reading at Paradigm Coffee and Music. We trust that if you are within a 60-mile radius of Sheboygan, you will do your best to come and join us. We will have folks coming from Milwaukee, Elkhart Lake, and Manitowoc as well as two readers participating via Skype from Alaska and San Francisco. The reading is from 2-4 p.m. and will conclude with an open mic, so bring an original poem or prose excerpt, or a favorite piece by another author.