Chad Parenteau's Lost Causes, 1-29-25
I came to a fork in the road, and it tried to stab me
I’ll tell you the Chad News First
Last night I was waiting all the way down at the other end of this street. I checked my app and knew it was less than two minutes away. I stood near its stop on the sidewalk.
All of a sudden I hear, “The bus is coming.”
I say, “cool.”
He repeats himself. “The bus is going to come around the corner.”
I’m not on the road. I’m not even near the sidewalk’s edge. I saw my app and planned accordingly. What’s with this guy?
Then I think, Is this guy trying to bussplain me?
Then I realized it felt nice for my brain to be building up a tight five minutes for a comedy open mic I’ll never go to.
With everything going on, that felt like a triumph.
Spent Saturday doing absolutely nothing and fighting off exhaustion with my favorite battle technique: Not moving! That seemed to do the job as I’m giddy to get new work out.
Buy My Two Books (please)
My two collections All’s Well Isn’t You and Cant Republic: Erasures and Blackouts are available for purchase.
All’s Well has been called “[a]stunning work of original poetry that delves into the Bukowski-esque nether-regions of the psyche and comes up shining with a rollicking, stunned silence of the three-in-the morning, whiskey-soaked poetic journey into the hazy memory of yesterday.” Order it here.
Cant Republic was recently called “an interesting, provocative, and ultimately terrifying rumination on the words of one of the most divisive figures in modern politics.” Order it here.
I appreciate your support.
Stone Soup Poetry
Last week’s Stone Soup was enjoyable given last week’s mini-apocalypse. Read the latest Stone Soup Croutons poem, “Rewriting Survival Guides.”
An all-open mic tonight. I have two features to announce in February.
Oddball Magazine
Click here to read nonfiction and poetry from Matthew Sam Praxmarer, Kaylyn Mellace and Frances Gervais with visual art by Jennifer Matthews, Ira Joel Haber and Edward S. Gault. I’m also thrilled to have my own photography paired with John Roche’s opening salvo. Also glad to publish Steven David Justin Sills’ latest ethics treatise with artwork by Richard Spisak.Thanks also go to resident cartoonist Anne Skove (“She Who Laughs Lasts”) and Comics Spotlight contributor Mike Salva. Geoffrey Fallon, we miss you.
Jason Wright was our first poem columnist with a very powerful Jagged Thought for this week. Thursday and Friday will give us Van Looy (It’s All One Thing), Janet Cormier (Bamboozled No More!), and Bruce Wise (Wise Words).
Pause to Reflect
"When It's Time to Listen, They Concentrate" was published in dadakuku on n International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Thanks to Editor petro c.k.
Watching
My poem marking last year's anniversary of 1984 is up on my Patreon for paid and unpaid subscribers.
Only the Best
Tuesday Poem Sixty-Nine (nice) is up now at my Patreon. Be a paid subscriber to access all my paywalled work.
Let's All Black Out
"Order" is my Truth Social blackout poem based on Trump's recent executive order--no not that one...not that one either...yes, that one. It's up now on Medium.
Miscellaneous
Check out my website and get a lot of the news before it winds up in this newsletter. Also includes links to my other social media.
Check my blog out for exclusive content and poetry news not related to Stone Soup.
The Medium work is coming.
Geting a second wind on my TikTok today. More coming.
Thanks to everyone who subscribed to my Patreon.
Thanks for reading down this far.
Chad