Live Poetry Reading: John Wall Barger, Charles S. Carr, Sean Hanrahan, Jennifer Hook, Sean Lynch, and Alina Macneal

Live at Fergie’s Pub – 1214 Sansom Street and on zoom – Registration Link https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZckc-yvrzwqH9Cg_QQzT4paZiiDOh1XucDH

John Wall Barger’s poems and critical writing have appeared in American Poetry Review, Kenyon Review Online, ZYZZYVA, The Cincinnati Review, Poetry Ireland Review, and Best of the Best Canadian Poetry. His sixth book of poems, Smog Mother, just came out. He is a contract editor for Frontenac House, and teaches in the BFA Program for Creative Writing at The University of the Arts in Philadelphia.

Charles S. Carr, author of paradise, pennsylvania, and & Haitian Mudpies & Other Poems, was The Mad Poets Review First Prize Winner for his poem Waiting To Come North For five years Charles was the host of the Moonstone Poetry series at Fergie’s Pub and is the host of Philly Loves Poetry, a monthly broadcast on Philly Cam. He has read poems in the Garden of Remembrance in Dublin Ireland as part of international 100,000 Poets for Peace.

Sean Hanrahan is a Philadelphian poet originally hailing from Dale City, Virginia. He is the author of the full-length collection Safer Behind Popcorn and the chapbooks Hardened Eyes on the Scan and Gay Cake. His work is included in several anthologies and journals including Moonstone Featured Poets, Queer Around the World, Stonewall’s Legacy, Impossible Archetype, and Voicemail Poems. He has taught classes  A Chapbook in 49 Days and Ekphrastic Poetry and hosted poetry events throughout Philadelphia.

Jennifer Hook is a California native who came to Philadelphia for the grit. Following the death of her husband and creative partner of thirty-five years, she chose poetry as an entry into the territory of loss and self-reinvention. She has read her work at 100,000 Poets for Change, Poetic Feats of Strength, The Osage Poets at the Green Line Café, Philadelphia Poetry Day, and Why Are They Called The Poetry Liberation Front?. She author of This is How He Left Me and co-host of Moonstone’s fourth Wednesday at Fergie’s.

Sean Lynch is a writer and editor who lives in South Philly. He has worked with Moonstone Arts Center since 2016. His fourth chapbook, On Violence, was published by Radical Paper Press in 2019. Poems have appeared in journals such as Hobart, Poetry Quarterly, and Apiary Magazine.

Alina Macneal is a Philadelphia-based educator/writer/poet/translator/architect and co-host of the Fourth Wednesday Moonstone poetry series at Fergie’s.  Her poems have appeared in Apiary, Poems for the Writing, The World to Come, and Poetry 24.  In 2015 she was a finalist for the Raynes poetry prize.  She has been a member of the faculty at Drexel University for over 20 years.  Since the last presidential election Alina has been translating the 1930’s political poems of the Polish poet, Julian Tuwim.  As Mark Twain said, History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes