Chad Parenteau: Poet for Hire

  I'll be updating this site with news concerning my work and readings, as well as including Stone Soup Poetry, where I host almost every week.  For slightly more updated news, more personal material, and occassionall more quirky material, you can visit my regular blog:

chadparenteaupoetforhire.blogspot.com

It started about a year ago (I think) when Steve Subrizi wrote a poem about a baby caught in seaweed.  This led to even more poems about babies in seaweed.  Some by the author, many more by other poets.  I even wrote a few myself.  The end result is the upcoming "Seaweed Baby" anthology, currently being put together by poet, artist and blog radio host Michael E. Quigg.  The plan is to have the book finished and debut it at Stone Soup this post-holiday Monday, November 30th, with Michael, Patrick Shaughnesy, myself, and the unintentional founder of the Seaweed Baby meme, Steve Subrizi. 

I bring special attention to this because my friend James Conant has created the book's cover art.  The final cover design, done at last, is to the left.  You can click here and see James' progession from simple conception to the final product.

I almost feel it's unfair when I list this Nantucket venue as my all-time favorite of all the places I've featured.  After all, poetry venues (as I well know) have it rough when it comes to resources, and not everyone can offer you an entire island as incentive for coming.

For years, Len Germinara and Sarah Oktay have been putting together an amazing poetry experience for both their fellow Nantucket  residents and those lucky to visit and perform.  On Sunday December 13th, I will be performing for their venue again at UMass Boston's Nantucket Field House on 180 Polpis Street in Nantucket. 

I know, of course, that this is a place that most won't be able to attend, so I hope to bring some pieces back in the form of audio or video.  Those who can come, however, I encourage to do so.  Nantucket is beautiful around Christmas time (which is why I chose December specifically), and the setting is as warm as it ever could be for a poetry reading.  Visit the Spoken Word Nantucket site here for more info.

In February of 2005, I appeared on Doug Holder's "Poet to Poet/Writer to Writer" series, which can now be viewed here.  (Shown at left of this text is a still of me rambling while Doug either consults his notes or begs in silence for me to shut up.)

Believe it or not, Doug has agreed to have me back.  If you are in Somerville, the show will air on Tuesday, December 15th, at 5:00 PM.  If I can get that show up on YouTube, I will.  For more information on Doug Holder's program (including a showing of all future guests), you can visit his website here.

A few years ago, I met Penhallow Press' Chris Volpe at Toscanini's in Cambridge .  We exchanged emails, he got a copy of my first chapbook, and we've been corresponding ever since.  At Stone Soup, I was proud to feature Chris, his wife and co-publisher Anna Birch, and Jeffrey Croteau, who they published through Penhallow.  Chris liked my own work as well and published a broadside of my poem "Beatdown" (pictured left).  He expressed interest in publishing a chapbook of some specific work of mine a couple of years ago, and now things are starting to come to fruition.  Stay tuned for more inforation as things take shape.