Sunday June 3, 2023 – 2:00pm – VIRTUAL
The Rotunda 4014, Walnut Street in Philadelphia
S/He Speaks: Voices of Women and Trans Folx
From the people who bring you the annual Black Women’s Arts Festival comes an exciting joint and literary event. We are seeking contributions of writing from life experience. Topics could include: Family (of origin/choice, parenting, etc.), Self-Actualization (personal growth, transitioning, etc.), Career & Education, Health Matters (self-care, illness, etc.), Love & Romance (dating, finding/maintaining relationships), And more…
Sunday June 4, 2023 – 2pm Eastern – VIRTUAL on zoom
The Weight of Motherhood is not a program about your loving your mother but about motherhood in its many forms. We want poems that embrace the love but also the trials of motherhood. In times like ours, mothers have little room to be sentimental, probably in any times. Inspired by Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach book The Many Names for Mother https://www.kentstateuniversitypress.com/2019/the-many-names-for-mother , and 40 WEEKS https://www.yesyesbooks.com/product-page/40-weeks. Julia has graciously permitted to include her poetry in this anthology and will join us. Join us as poets reflect on the experience of motherhood.
Tuesday June 6, 2023 – 6:30pm – VIRTUAL- Philly Loves Poetry Interview and Readings Series
Can be viewed on the Phillycam website Or Cable 66/966HD/967 or Verizon FIOS,
Joanne Leva, author Eve Heads Back and Eve Would Know is an advocate for creative writing and community service. She is founder and Executive Director of the Montgomery County Poet Laureate Program (MCPL) and founder and Editor-in-Chief of Tekpoet, an online poetry manuscript services company. Leva’s poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, Peace is a Haiku Song, 50 Over Fifty, Apiary, Schuylkill Valley Journal, Rag Queen Periodical, Mad Poet’s Review, Bucks County Writer, Transcendent Visions, among others.
Hosted by Charles S. Carr
Wednesday June 7, 2023 – 7:00pm LIVE
Live at Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street and on zoom
Megan Fernandes is the author of Good Boys and I Do Everything I’m Told and has work published The New Yorker, The American Poetry Review, Tin House, and others. Raena Shirali is the author GILT and summonings, recipient of a Pushcart Prize, a Gulf Coast Poetry Prize, a Discovery and many more. Nicole Steinberg is the author of Elsie / seltzer, Fat Dreams, Glass Actress and Getting Lucky. She was Poet Laureate of Bucks County and has been featured in the New York Times, Newsweek, among other.
Hosted by Amy Saul-Zerby, Open Reading Follows
Sunday June 11, 2pm – virtual – tribute to Nikki Giovanni – VIRTUAL
Yolande Cornelia “Nikki” Giovanni Jr (born June 7, 1943) is an American poet, writer, commentator, activist, and educator. One of the world’s most well-known African-American poets, her work includes poetry anthologies, poetry recordings, and nonfiction essays, and covers topics ranging from race and social issues to children’s literature. She has won numerous awards, including the Langston Hughes Medal and the NAACP Image Award. She has been nominated for a Grammy Award for her poetry album, The Nikki Giovanni Poetry Collection. Additionally, she has been named as one of Oprah Winfrey’s 25 “Living Legends”.
Wednesday June 14, 2023 – 7pm In collaboration with E-Verse Equinox Reading Series – LIVE
Live at Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street and on zoom
Gregory Crosby is the author of Said No One Ever and Walking Away from Explosions in Slow Motion. He is currently the poetry editor for the online journal Bowery Gothic. Lynn Levin is a poet, writer, author of nine books, The Minor Virtues and Miss Plastique and most recently House Parties, her debut collection of short stories. Amy Saul-Zerby is the author of Paper Flowers Imaginary Birds, Deep Camoflage, and Choose Your Own Beginning as well as many other recognized poems.
Hosted by Ernest Hilbert – Open Reading Follows
Sunday June 18, 2023 – 2:00pm – VIRTUAL
Alfred Encarnacion, author of The Outskirts of Karma, Ambassadors of the Silenced, Library Suite, and Precincts of the Passion-Dragon, is director of the Stratford Public Library. He’s received an Academy of American Poets Award, the Wilson Foundation Scholarship Award, and a Poets House Scholarship. Elaine Terranova, author of Perido, Dollhouse, Damages and four others, her work has appeared literary magazines and anthologies. She has received grants from the PCA, the Walt Whitman Award, NEA and Pew fellowships, and a At the intersection of poetry and prose Pushcart Prize. Sharon White’s new book is The Body is Burden and Delight is at the intersection of poetry and prose, she is author of Vanished Gardens: Finding Nature in Philadelphia, winner of the AWP award in creative nonfiction.
Wednesday June 21, 2023 – 7pm – LIVE
Live at Fergie’s Pub – 1214 Sansom Street and on zoom
C.M. Crockford has published two chapbooks, dozens of essays, poems, and stories, and writes extensively about neurodivergence, culture, and philosophy. Autumn McClintock newest chapbook, Dirt Bird, and poems of hers have appeared in The Account, Cimarron Review, Denver Quarterly, among others. She is Poetry Editor of Doubleback Review. Dan Simpson, author of Inside the Invisible and School for the Blind, co-author of Border Songs: A Conversation in Poems and as co-editor of More Challenges for the Delusional. His work is in About Us: Essays from the Disability Series of the New York Times, Welcome to the Resistance: Poetry as Protest, and Beauty Is a Verb: The New Poetry of Disability. Deborah Turner’s work have appeared in Philadelphia Stories, the Lavender Reader, and anthologies including The Body Eclectic and Testimony: Young African-Americans on Self-Discovery and Black Identity.
Hosted by Sean Hanahan, Open Reading Follows
Sunday June 25, 2023 2pm -VIRTUAL
“FRANCOPHONE LITERATURE is the literature in French from Guadeloupe, Martinique, French Guiana, and Haiti. Except in the case of Haiti, this literature developed along three major concepts: negritude, Caribbeanness, and Creoleness. Critics trace its origins to the rise of the negritude movement (in the 1930s), when black students, intellectuals, and artists revolted against France’s assimilation policies to adopt an ideology aimed at restoring black and African values embedded in popular culture. The literary landmark of Francophone literature was undoubtedly Aime Cesaire’s Notebook of a Return to My Native Land (1939.)”
Kapanga, Kasongo Mulenda. “Caribbean Literature (Francophone).” In Encyclopedia of Literature and Politics: Censorship, Revolution, and Writing, edited by M. Keith Booker, 137-40. Vol. 1. Westport: Greenwood Press, 2005.
Aimé Césaire, who, with Léopold Sédar Senghor cofounded Negritude, an influential movement to restore the cultural identity of black Africans. Cesaire was educated in Paris and returned to Martinique in the early 1940’s to engage in political action against the French colonies there. He found that Surrealism, which freed him from traditional forms of language, best expressed his convictions and voiced his ardent rebellion in a French that was heavy with African imagery. We invite poetry that celebrates the traditions of the French speaking people of the Caribbean, and poems inspired by Césaire’s life and work.
Poetry that celebrates the traditions of the French speaking people of the Caribbean, and poems inspired by Césaire’s life and work.
Monday, June 26, 2023 – 6:30 pm – LIVE
Free Library of Philadelphia presents PRIDE
Shakespeare Park 1901 Vine Street
PRIDE: Poets in the Park
PRIDE: Poets in the Park is a celebration hosted in Shakespeare Park celebrating local poets such Boston Gordon, Campbell Simmons and Sean Hanrahan. Sean Hanrahan is the host for many of Moonstone Arts Centers events. Each presenter will read and discuss their poetry. If time permits, there may also be questions and poetry readings from the audience. We invite you to register online.
For more information, visit https://libwww.freelibrary.org/calendar/event/123770
Wednesday June 28, 2023 – 7pm – LIVE
Live at Fergie’s Pub – 1214 Sansom Street and on Zoom
Adriann “Justthepen” Toombs Bautista, author of Ballad of a Beautiful Brown King, Sanctuary of Snow and SisterStrength: She/Her/We/Me and is in over 15 various anthologies. is a mother, Grant Administrator, Playwright, Poet, Workshop Facilitator, Founder of Just The Pen Foundation, Founder & Facilitator of SisterStrength and Creator and host of “Talks with Just The Pen”. Terri Lyons, author of August Moon, is Philadelphia based writer and speaker who blends the landscapes of music, history and family emphasizing its impact on the present in a union of poetry, short stories, and lectures. She is developing her play, When The Truth Comes Out, highlighting African American women, the silent architects of the modern civil rights movement
Hosted by Alina Macneal & Jennifer Hook, Open Reading Follows