Moonstone Arts Center

BLACK LIVES MATTER: Virtual Poetry Reading
2020-08-05 19:00 (America/New_York)
Zoom Meeting ID: 821 6127 0135 – Zoom Passcode: [REDACTED] – Phone: 1-646-9923
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82161270135?pwd=[REDACTED]
Sandra Turner-Barnes is an author, poet, and jazz lover and vocalist. Her first book of poetry Always A Lady has sold over 7,000 copies. In 1996, Sandra won the EBONY MAGAZINE Literary Competition for Short Fiction, and in 1997, Sandra re-created the concept of “Jazz-Oetry” and began singing Jazz. In 2000, Sandra’s live jazz vocals’ video performance, with pianist Barry Sames, was selected for National & International airing on BET’s syndicated show “Jazz Discoveries.”
Theodore A. Harris is a collagist, poet, and founder and director of The Institute for Advanced Study in Black Aesthetics. He has co-authored books with Amiri Baraka, such as Our Flesh of Flames, Malcolm X as Ideology, and TRIPTYCH: Text by Amiri Baraka and Jack Hirschman, as well as i ran from it and was still in it with Fred Moten. “Posed against an eerily iridescent orange sky,” as quoted from Our Flesh Of Flames, Harris’ collaged landscapes are filled with urban dystopia. Upside down capitols and distorted banknotes pose the reality of a society fettered by the cash nexus. Controversial critic and poet Amiri Baraka provides lyrical assault through his captions with his trademark humor and biting social commentary.
Lamont B. Steptoe is an award-winning poet, photographer, founder of Whirlwind Press, and Vietnam veteran, born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He has published sixteen collections of poems and is the winner of an American Book Award, a Pew Fellow in the Arts, and two Pennsylvania Council on the Arts awards, as well as induction into the International Hall of Fame for Writers of African Descent by the Gwendolyn Brooks Center in Chicago. Steptoe’s work appears in over one hundred anthologies, the most recent being Waging Peace in Vietnam. His most recent titles are Crowns & Halos, Oracular Rumblings & Stilt Walking, Meditations in Congo Square, and Beyond the White Stone Lions.
M. Nzadi Keita is a native Philadelphian. Her most recent collection, Brief Evidence of Heaven, sheds light on Anna Murray Douglass, Frederick Douglass’ first wife. Poet Lore journal, The Ringing Ear: Black Poets Lean South, and other publications have featured her work. Keita received a 2017 Pew Fellowship for Poetry. She is an associate professor of English, Creative Writing, and African-American/Africana Studies at Ursinus College.
Kirwyn Sutherland is a Clinical Research Professional and poet who makes poems centering the black experience in America. He is a Watering Hole fellow and has attended workshops/residencies at Cave Canem, Winter Tangerine, Poets House, Philadelphia Sculpture Gym, and Pearlstein Art Gallery at Drexel University. Kirwyn was a member of the 2015 Philadelphia Pigeon Slam and the 2016 Philadelphia Fuze Poetry Slam Team. Kirwyn’s work has been published in American Poetry Review, Blueshift Journal, APIARY Magazine, FOLDER, The Wanderer, and elsewhere. He has served as Editor of Lists/Book Reviewer for WusGood magazine and poetry editor for APIARY Magazine and teaches Spoken Word/Poetry Performance at the University of the Arts.
Lamont B. Steptoe, Host

On the Verge: Poets of the Palisades with Dave Worrell
2020-08-16 14:00
Zoom Meeting ID: 818 3720 4326, Zoom Passcode: [REDACTED] Phone: 1-646-9923
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81837204326?pwd=[REDACTED]
On the Verge: Poets of the Palisades III is an anthology that consists of 80 contributors in the Tri-State who were featured over a four-year period from both series that are sponsored by the North Jersey Literary Community and hosted by Denise La Neve and Paul Nash.
Norma Ketzis Bernstock‘s poetry has appeared in many print and online journals, including Napalm and Novacaine, Stillwater Review, Exit 13, US 1 Worksheets, Connecticut River Review, and Paterson Literary Review.
Theresa Burns is author of Two Train Town, Pushcart Prize nominee, and founder and curator of Watershed Literary Events in New Jersey. Her poetry, reviews, and nonfiction have appeared in The New York Times, Prairie Schooner, New Ohio Review, JAMA, America Magazine, The Cortland Review, SWWIM, and elsewhere.
Deborah Gerris is the author of three books of poems, Light in Light (2017), The Language of Paisley, and the chapbook The Language of Rain. Her poems appear in many anthologies and journals.
Anton Yakovlev‘s latest poetry chapbook Chronos Dines Alone (SurVision Books, 2018) won the James Tate Poetry Prize. His poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The New Criterion, The Hopkins Review, and elsewhere.
Paul Nash works at AMNH, conducting laboratory and field research on ancient organisms preserved in amber and sedimentary rock. He authors scientific articles, poetry, fiction, and satire. He has been both an editor and contributor for three Poets of the Palisades anthologies, an editor for Roy Lucianna’s posthumous poetry collection Neptune on High, and founded and co-hosts two reading series (with his wife Denise).
Denise La Neve writes both poetry and fiction. She was a contributor and editor for the 2010 and 2016 Poets of the Palisades anthologies Beyond the Rift and META-LAND. She co-hosts two poetry series under the umbrella of the North Jersey Literary Community (The Poets of the Palisades in Teaneck and The High Mountain Meadow in Wayne).
John J. Trause, Director of Oradell Public Library, is the author of six books of poetry and one of parody, Latter-Day Litany (Éditions élastiques, 1996), the latter staged Off-Broadway. Marymark Press has published his visual poetry and art as broadsides and sheets. He is a founder of the William Carlos Williams Poetry Cooperative in Rutherford, N. J., and the former host and curator of its monthly reading series.
Dave Worrell is author of We Who Were Bound and the ekphrastic collection Close to Home features paintings by Catherine Kuzma. Dave’s poems have appeared in Slant, Canary, Shot Glass Journal, Painted Bride Quarterly, Schuylkill Valley Journal, U.S. 1 Worksheets, Exit 13, and elsewhere. He has performed his music-backed poems at Chris’ Jazz Café in Philadelphia.
Dave Worrell, Host

M. Nzadi Keita, JC Todd, Alina Macneal, Jennifer Hook
2020-08-26 19:00
Zoom Meeting ID: 849 0497 4839, Passcode: [REDACTED] Phone: +1 646-876-9923
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84904974839?pwd=[REDACTED]
Nzadi Keita, a Philly-born writer, editor, and scholar, is a 2017 Pew Fellow for the Arts in Poetry. Her book of persona poems, BRIEF EVIDENCE OF HEAVEN, gives voice to abolitionist Anna Murray Douglass, first wife of Frederick Douglass. Cited by Yale historian David Blight, the book was also a finalist for the Phillis Wheatley Prize from the Quarterly Black Book Review. Keita is an alumna of Cave Canem, whose poems have appeared in journals such as Poet Lore and anthologies including A Face to Meet the Faces: An Anthology of Contemporary Persona Poetry. Fellowships from Yaddo, the Fine Arts Work Center, and Leeway Foundation have supported Keita’s writing and community work. She has collaborated with the Philadelphia Mural Arts Project, Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, and WHYY. Keita is an associate professor at Ursinus College.
J. C. Todd is author of five books of poetry; most recent are Beyond Repair, runner-up in the 2020 Able Muse Press Contest (forthcoming in 2020), and The Damages of Morning (Moonstone Press), a 2019 Eric Hoffer Award finalist. Winner of the Rita Dove Prize and twice a finalist for Poetry Society of America awards, she holds fellowships from the Pew Center for Arts and Heritage, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts and has poems in Beloit Poetry Journal, The Paris Review, and Journal of Compressed Creative Arts.
Alina Macneal & Jennifer Hook, Hosts
You can sign up for the open reading at 7PM!

Serotonin Poetry Project
2020-09-05 14:00
Zoom Meeting ID: 851 0353 5295, Passcode: [REDACTED] Phone: +1 646-876-9923
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85103535295?pwd=[REDACTED]
Cynthia Arrieu-King teaches creative writing, literature, and general studies. Her poetry books include People are Tiny in Paintings of China, Manifest, and Futureless Languages. Her poetry book Continuity is forthcoming from Octopus Books and her book of experimental memoir The Betweens is forthcoming from Noemi in 2021.
Praise Osawaru is a Nigerian writer, (performance) poet, & wannabe entrepreneur studying at the University of Benin, Nigeria. His works have appeared/forthcoming in African Writer, Kreative Diadem, Ibua Journal, Ngiga Review, Perhappened Magazine, Praxis Magazine & elsewhere. He was longlisted for African Writers Award 2019 and shortlisted in the 2019 Kreative Diadem Creative Writing Contest. He’s openly a film fanatic & overall art enthusiast/lover. Say hello on Instagram/Twitter: @wordsmithpraise
Amber Renee, she/her, 26, writes from her home in suburban Bucks County, PA. A fool hopelessly in love with the pursuit of psycheverse knowledge, she often writes autobiographically. “Thoughts on This Most Recent Episode” was her 2016 full length collection of self-published poetry ruminating on her thoughts & illnesses. As recently as January 2020 she published a Poetry Picture book “i feel like i’m nothing” available online. Find her on social media @amberreneepoet
Sean Lynch, Host

2020 Philly Loves Poetry Interview and Reading Series on PhillyCAM
2020-09-08 18:30
699 Ranstead Street. Comcast Cable 66/966HD/967 or Verizon FIOS 29/30 in Philadelphia
2020-2021 Philadelphia Poet Laureate on the role of the Laureate in promoting the love of poetry in the City and communities.
Trapeta B. Mayson is the 2020-2021 Philadelphia Poet Laureate. She is a recipient of a Pew Fellowship in Literature, Leeway Transformation Award, Leeway Art and Change Grant and Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Grants. Her work was also nominated for a 2016 Pushcart Prize. Mayson is a Cave Canem and Callaloo Fellow and a 2019 Aspen Words Emerging Writers Fellow with the Aspen Institute. She is the author of She Was Once Herself and Mocha Melodies. Mayson also released two music and poetry projects, SCAT and This Is How We Get Through, in collaboration with internationally acclaimed jazz guitarist, Monnette Sudler. Her other publications include submissions in The American Poetry Review, Epiphany Literary Journal, Aesthetica Magazine, Margie: The American Journal of Poetry among others. Mayson is a native of Liberia. She is a graduate of Temple University, Bryn Mawr Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research and Villanova University School of Business. Currently working in the social services field, Mayson is a member of several local organizations where she uses the arts to mobilize, build community and create change. trapetamayson.com
Charles S. Carr, Host

2019 Chapbook Contest Winners
2020-09-09 19:00
Zoom Meeting ID: 824 4272 1486, Passcode: [REDACTED] Phone: +1 646-876-9923
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82442721486?pwd=[REDACTED]
Book of Micah – Kenneth Pobo
Kenneth Pobo teaches Creative Writing and English at Widener University near Philadelphia. He and his husband live in Media. He began writing poetry in 1970 at the age of fifteen. He likes doing character studies in poetry form. His poems are often concerned with issues related to the LGBTQ community as well as the environment.
Help Me to Fall – Emma Wynn
Emma Wynn received her masters degree from Harvard Divinity School and teaches Philosophy & Religion at a boarding school in rural Connecticut, where she lives with her partner and two children. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Coffin Bell Journal, Sky Island Journal (which nominated her poem for the Pushcart Prize), Prime Number Magazine, Apricity Press, and West Trade Review.
letters in the dirt – Rosie DeSantis
Rosie DeSantis is a theater-maker, poet, facilitator, native Detroiter, and local community organizer. Their poetry has been featured in a number of local, national, and international publications, including Rabbit Catastrophe Press as a 2017 finalist in their Real Good Poem competition. Letters in the Dirt earned them a spot on No Proscenium’s 2018 list of 25 Immersive Companies & Creators to Watch in New York and was nominated for three awards by the New York Innovative Theatre Foundation.
Larry Robin, Host
Open reading follows event

Virtual Poetry Reading: Antonio Lopez, Chukwuma Ndulue, Ewuare Osayande, with Elijah Pringle
2020-09-16 19:00
Zoom Meeting ID: 836 1745 1559, Passcode: [REDACTED] Phone: +1 646-876-9923
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83617451559?pwd=[REDACTED]
Antonio López received a double B.A. in Global Cultural Studies and African & African-American studies from Duke University, scholarships to attend the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley, Tin House, the Vermont Studio Center, and Bread Loaf. He is a proud member of the Macondo Writers Workshop and a CantoMundo Fellow. His nonfiction has been featured or is forthcoming in PEN/America, Jacket2, and Insider Higher Education, and his poetry in The New Republic, Tin House, and elsewhere. He received his Masters in Fine Arts (poetry) at Rutgers-Newark and a Masters in Philosophy in Modern Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Oxford. He is currently pursuing a PhD in Modern Thought and Literature at Stanford University. His debut collection, Gentefication, was selected by Gregory Pardlo as the winner of the 2019 Levis Prize in Poetry to be published through Four Way Books.
Chukwuma Ndulue is the author of the chapbook Boys Quarter (Ugly Duckling Presse). His work has appeared in BOAAT, Muse/A Journal, Tinderbox, PANK, Brooklyn Poets and other publications. He has been the recipient of fellowships from Columbia University and Kenyon College.
Ewuare X. Osayande is a poet and publisher. He is the founder of FreedomSeed Press, established in 2002. The author of several books including Whose America?: New and Selected Poems, his latest book is entitled Black Phoenix Uprising published by Africa World Press. Poet icon Amiri Baraka has said that “Ewuare Osayande is one of the United States’ most important poets of this generation.” Learn more about his work at Osayande.org.
Elijah Pringle, Host
Open reading follows event

Take Five: Laura Baird, Deborah Brown, Barbara Siegel Carlson, Richard Jackson, Susan Thomas, with Dave Worrell
2020-09-20 14:00
Zoom Meeting ID: 828 6011 8796 Passcode: [REDACTED] Phone: +1 646-876-9923
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82860118796?pwd=[REDACTED]
Generous, empathetic, and deftly observant, these poems leave an afterglow, each one small candle guiding us through the forest of so much we don’t know. – Leslie Ullman, author of Library Of Small Happiness and Progress on the Subject of Immensity
Laura (Behr) Baird has published in The Cortland Review, Numero Cinq, Canyon Voices, vox poetica, among others. Laura lives in Montgomery, Alabama. As a psychotherapist, she has been in private practice for 25 year
Deborah Brown’s new book, The Human Half was published from BOA Editions in 2019. Her first book Walking the Dog’s Shadow, was a winner of the A. J. Poulin Jr. Award and of a New Hampshire Literary Award for Outstanding Book of Poetry. The title poem of the collection was awarded a Pushcart Prize. She co-edited Lofty Dogmas: Poets on Poetics and co-translated the poems in Last Voyage: Selected Poems of Giovanni Pascoli. She lives in Warner, NH.
Barbara Siegel Carlson is the author of poetry books Once in Every Language and Fire Road, co-translator of Open: Selected Poems and Thoughts of of Srečko Kosovel (2018) and Look Back, Look Ahead, Selected Poems of Srečko Kosovel and co-editor of A Bridge of Voices: Contemporary Slovene Poetry and Perspectives. Carlson serves as Poetry in Translation Editor for Solstice and teaches in Boston.
Richard Jackson has published twenty-five books including fifteen books of poems, most recently Broken Horizons. He was awarded the Order of Freedom Medal for literary and humanitarian work in the Balkans by the President of Slovenia for his work with the Slovene-based Peace and Sarajevo Committees of PEN International. He has received Guggenheim, NEA, NEH, and two Witter-Bynner fellowships, five Pushcart Prizes and has appeared in Best American Poems ‘97 as well as many other anthologies. In 2009 he won the AWP George Garret Award for teaching and writing.
Susan Thomas is author of State of Blessed Gluttony which won the Benjamin Saltman prize, The Empty Notebook Interrogates Itself and In the Sadness. She has also published two chapbooks, a collection of short stories, Among Angelic Orders, and is co-translator of Last Voyage, a collection of Giovanni Pascoli’s selected poems. . She has also won first prizes for poetry from the Iowa Poetry Review, USC, Spoon River Review and Mississippi Review.
Dave Worrell, Host

The E-Verse Equinox Reading Series: Indran Amirthanayagam, James Arthur, Leonard Gontarek, with John Wall Barger
2020-09-22 19:00
Zoom Meeting ID: 884 1011 7845, Passcode: [REDACTED] Phone: +1 646-876-9923
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88410117845?pwd=[REDACTED]
Indran Amirthanayagam, writes in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese and Haitian Creole, has published 19 poetry collections and recorded a spoken word album Rankont Dout, edits The Beltway Poetry Quarterly. He has won the Paterson Poetry Prize. His new books are The Migrant States, Sur l’île nostalgique and Lírica a Tiempo
(Editorial Mesa Redonda, Lima, 2020). Signed copies of these new books are available from the author. Contact: indranmx@gmail.com. Twitter: @indranmx. Instagram: @Indran1960. Facebook: Indran Amirthanayagam

Canadian-American poet James Arthur is the author of The Suicide’s Son (Véhicule Press 2019) and Charms Against Lightning (Copper Canyon Press, 2012.) His poems have also appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry, The New York Review of Books, The American Poetry Review, The New Republic, and The London Review of Books. He has received the Amy Lowell Travelling Poetry Scholarship, a Hodder Fellowship, a Stegner Fellowship, a Discovery/The Nation Prize, a Fulbright Scholarship to Northern Ireland, and a Visiting Fellowship at Exeter College, Oxford. Arthur lives in Baltimore, where he teaches in the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University.

Leonard Gontarek coordinates Peace/Works, Poetry In Common, Philly Poetry Day, hosts The Green Line Reading & Interview Series, is Poetry Consultant for Whitman at 200: Art and Democracy and contributing editor for The American Poetry Review. He is the author of six books of poems, most recently Take Your Hand Out of My Pocket, Shiva. His poems have appeared in Field, Poet Lore, Verse Daily, Fence, Poetry Northwest, and The Best American Poetry. He has twice received poetry fellowships from the Pennsylvania Council on The Arts. He conducts poetry workshops in venues including, The Kelly Writers House, Free Library of Philadelphia, Philadelphia Arts in Education Partnership, and weekly workshops from his home in West Philadelphia.
John Wall Barger, Host
Open reading to follow

New Voices: Lex Bakey, Matilda Bray, Zillah Elcin, Rachel Haas-Gutin, Devon James, Cooper Kidd, Sam Lyons, Kelly McGeehan, Cecelia McKinney, Isabella Piacentino, Aimee Schwartz, Hoa-Angel Tran, Maya Workowski, Darian Zenouzi, with Krisann Janowitz
2020-09-26 15:00
Zoom Meeting ID: 867 1393 7746, Passcode: [REDACTED] Phone: +1 646-876-9923
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86713937746?pwd=[REDACTED]
New Voices feature poets under the age of 25 who have much to say and we believe they should be heard. We are excited to be a part of this community of young writers through readings and publications.
I think it’s fair to say 2020 has been a weird year. Given the scale of COVID Moonstone was forced to close for over three months Meaning projects, like New Voices, were put on hold.
While we’d like to say things are completely back to normal, they’re not. Still, we’re back and we’ve made some adjustments!
The reading on September 26 features some of the poets from 2020 in a zoom presentation with an eBook on our website. We are continuing to solicit poems and plan on having another event and book in December. Please joins us to hear these poets and send us your work.
Readers may include (not everyone is reading)
Lex Bakey, Matilda Bray, Zillah Elcin, Rachel Haas-Gutin, Devon James, Cooper Kidd, Sam Lyons, Kelly McGeehan, Cecelia McKinney, Isabella Piacentino, Aimee Schwartz, Hoa-Angel Tran, Maya Workowski, Darian Zenouzi
Krisann Janowitz, Host

Virtual Poetry Reading: Sarah Browning, Kathleen O'Toole, with Larry Robin
2020-09-30 19:00
Zoom Meeting ID: 824 3734 5103, Passcode: [REDACTED] Phone: +1 646-876-9923
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82437345103?pwd=[REDACTED]
Sarah Browning is the author of Killing Summer and Whiskey in the Garden of Eden. She is co-founder and for 10 years was Executive Director of Split This Rock: Poems of Provocation & Witness. She is recipient of the Lillian E. Smith Writer-in-Service Award as well as of fellowships from the DC Commission on the Arts & Humanities, Yaddo, Mesa Refuge, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She has been guest editor or co-edited special issues of Beltway Poetry Quarterly, The Delaware Poetry Review, and three issues of POETRY magazine. She’s currently pursuing an MFA in poetry and creative non-fiction at Rutgers Camden. For more info: www.sarahbrowning.net
Kathleen O’Toole is the author of This Far: Poems
“The poetic and personal journey that has led me to the threshold of This Far braids a long professional life in community organizing with poetry − both writing and teaching. My creativity was nurtured in a family of actors in Wilmington Delaware. After earning a BA in French at Catholic University in DC, and a year of graduate Divinity studies, I poured most of my energy into my public vocation for decades. But poetry and the pull of more contemplative pursuits remained strong. In 1991, I received an MA in creative writing from Johns Hopkins University, and subsequently taught writing at Hopkins and at the Maryland Institute College of Art.”
Larry Robin, Host
Open reading to follow

Serotonin: Ejiro Elizabeth Edward, Adam Grabowski, and Maria S. Picone, with Sean Lynch
2020-10-03 14:00
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85477143675?pwd=[REDACTED]
Zoom Meeting ID: 854 7714 3675, Passcode: [REDACTED] Phone: +1 646-876-9923
Ejiro Elizabeth Edward is a writer from Nigeria. A passionate lover of the arts, she has been published on Inverse journal, stone of madness, Fortunate traveler and has been shortlisted for the dark juices anthology. She loves to travel and read when she’s not been frustrated by the school system.
Adam Grabowski holds an MFA in Writing from the Vermont College of Fine Arts and is the recipient of a 2020 Parent-Writer Fellowship from the Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing. His poems have been featured or are forthcoming in such journals as Hobart, jubilat, and Sixth Finch, as well as the anthologies What Saves Us: Poems of Empathy and Rage in the Age of Trump and Alongside We Travel: Contemporary Poets on Autism. Adam currently lives a life of stern comfort, alongside his wife and two daughters, in Holyoke, Massachusetts.
Maria S. Picone (she/her/hers) writes, paints, and teaches from her home in South Carolina. Her writing has been published in Kissing Dynamite, Ligeia, and Q/A Poetry, among others. A Korean adoptee, Maria often explores themes of identity, exile, and social issues facing Asian Americans. She received an MFA in fiction from Goddard College and holds degrees in philosophy and political science. You can find more on her website, mariaspicone.com, or Twitter @mspicone.
Sean Lynch, Host

Philly Loves Poetry, Poetry & Jazz @ PhillyCAM: Aaren Perry and Sandra Turner-Barnes, with Charles S. Carr
2020-10-06 18:30
Moonstone Poetry @ PhillyCAM, 699 Ranstead Street Comcast Cable 66/966HD/967 or Verizon FIOS 29/30 in Philadelphia.
“For seventy-five years, poets have listened to jazz and assimilated certain relationships between the two arts-not merely the issue of language but also the connection between jazz improvisation and poetic narratives as journeys.” (Preface of The Second Set by Sasha Feinstein & Yusef Kommunyakaa).
On this broadcast we explore that connection.

Aaren Perry taught writing workshops to all ages at schools, colleges and festivals on the East Coast and in the Midwest for over 20 years. He has performed his poems at the Nuyorican Cafe, Bower Poetry Club, Kimmel Center, World Café, Fringe Festival, and Philadelphia Writers Conference along with stages and classrooms. His work appears in magazines on NPR and on regional television. He produced and directed Page2Stage, a long-running, all-poetry TV show on Cable. As Production Director at the Painted Bride Art Center, he worked with 100’s of the top poets and jazz musicians between 1986 and 2000. Bilingual with an MFA from Vermont College, he received a PA Council on the Arts Grant. His collections include Open Fire (CWhirlwind); Poetry Across the Curriculum: An Action Guide for Teachers (Pearson); a spokenword recording, Mercury Calling (MelodyVision), and a poetry collection called “Shipping and Receiving” forthcoming in 2021.

Sandra Turner-Barnes, Author, Poet, Jazz vocalist, Sandra Turner-Barnes was born as Sandra J. Farmer, in Lawnside, New Jersey. She was educated in the City of Camden, New Jersey, and graduated with a degree in Business Management from Pierce College of Philadelphia. Sandra is primarily the published author of poetry, fiction and song lyrics, but also loves Jazz. Her first book of poetry, “Always A Lady”, originally self-published in 1986, was published for the third time in April of 1995, and to date, over 7,000 copies have been sold. In 1996, Sandra won the EBONY MAGAZINE Literary Competition for Short Fiction, and in 1997, Sandra re-created the concept of “Jazz-Oetry” and began singing Jazz. In 2000, Sandra’s live jazz vocals’ video performance, with pianist Barry Sames, was selected for National & International airing on BET’s syndicated show, “Jazz Discoveries.”
Charles S. Carr, Host

Not Our President 2020
2020-10-11 14:00
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83733936968?pwd=[REDACTED]
Zoom Meeting ID: 837 3393 6968, Passcode: [REDACTED] Phone: +1 646-876-9923
“Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official, save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country. It is patriotic to support him insofar as he efficiently serves the country. It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to the exact extent that by inefficiency or otherwise he fails in his duty to stand by the country. In either event, it is unpatriotic not to tell the truth, whether about the president or anyone else.” Theodore Roosevelt, 1918
In 2017 Moonstone published, Philadelphia Says Not Our President. Here it is 2020 and another election.
What do poets have to say?
Join us as poets read their submission to this Moonstone Anthology
Available at our website for $10

Virtual Poetry Reading: Dr. Neal Hall and Krisann Janowitz, with Aaren Perry
2020-10-14 19:00
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82437345103?pwd=[REDACTED]
Zoom Meeting ID: 824 3734 5103, Passcode: [REDACTED] Phone: +1 646-876-9923
Dr. Neal Hall is a medical-surgical eye physician, an internationally acclaimed poet, who has performed poetry readings throughout the United States and internationally. Dr. Hall is an award-winning author of Nigger For Life, Winter’s A’ Coming Still, Where Do I Sit, and Appalling Silence. The intellectual and philosopher Cornel West, Ph.D., said of Dr. Hall “ [he] is a warrior of the spirit, a warrior of the mind, an activist, a poet. I sense Dr. Hall’s hypersensitivity to suffering – Martin, Malcolm and Jesus all had this hypersensitivity. Both sides of his soul have prophetic leanings. His poetry has the capacity to change ordinary people’s philosophy on social and racial issues.”
Krisann Janowitz has always had a passion for poetry and words (since elementary school– if you count all the song lyrics about bubblegum). She was Editor-in-Chief of the St. Joseph’s University literary magazine, The Avenue and her poems have been published by streetcake magazine, The Avenue, Cliterature Journal and Z Publishing. Along with her chapbook Home(less): A Sampling of Poems on Home & Homelessness published by Moonstone Press, Krisann is host of Moonstone’s New Voices.
Aaren Perry, Host
Open reading follows event

Long Story Short Poetry Project (ekphrastic poems, in a way): Virtual Reading with Mr. Fish
2020-10-21 19:00
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84270491773?pwd=[REDACTED]
Zoom Meeting ID: 842 7049 1773, Passcode: [REDACTED] Phone: +1 646-876-9923
An ekphrastic poem is a vivid description of a work of art. Through the imaginative act of narrating and reflecting on the “action” of a painting, the poet may amplify and expand its meaning.
Classic works spectacularly distilled by Mr. Fish and a very talented group of painters, illustrators, graphic designers, and political cartoonists into succinct snapshots that are at times funny, sad, inspiring, rude, crude, beautiful, profound, stomach-turning, and mind-blowing. Contributors to the Moonstone anthology will read their poems. The anthology is available on our website for $10.

The Red Brick Poet: A Tribute to Peter Krok
2020-10-25 18:00
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83446748712?pwd=[REDACTED]
Zoom Meeting ID: 834 4674 8712, Passcode: [REDACTED] Phone: +1 646-876-9923
Please join us as poets pay tribute to Peter Krok, the editor of the Schuylkill Valley Journal and the Humanities Director of the Manayunk Roxborough Art Center where he has been coordinating a literary series since 1990. His poem “10PM at Philadelphia Recreation Center” was included in Common Wealth: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania.
Contributing poets include:
Courtney Bambrick, John Wall Barger, Lisa Alexander Baron, Peter Baroth, Leonard Belasco, Chris Bursk, Bill Van Buskirk, Rosemary Cappello, Joe Chelius, Mike Cohen, Greg Coleman, W.D. Ehrhart, Brian Fanelli, Eric Greinke, Hanoch Guy, Alison Hicks, Ernest Hilbert, Ron Howard, Carolynn Kingyens, David Kozinski, Antoinette Libro, Marjorie Maddox, Dan MaGuire, Lew Maltby, Emiliano Marin, Suzanne Marinell, Bernadette McBride, Fran Metzman, Ann E. Michael, A.E. Milford, Eileen Moeller, Mike Muir, Prabha Prabhu, Gloria Parker, Tree Riesener, Don Riggs, Hayden Saunier, Nancy Scott, Fereshteh Sholevar, Amy Small-McKinney, Luke Stromberg, Joe Tyson, Kelley Jean White, Bill Wunder, Robert Zaller.

Virtual Poetry Reading + Interview: Lynn Levin and Barbara Sabol, with Alina Macneal & Jennifer Hook
2020-10-28 19:00
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82437345103?pwd=[REDACTED]
Zoom Meeting ID: 824 3734 5103, Passcode: [REDACTED] Phone: +1 646-876-9923
Lynn Levin’s most recent poetry collection, The Minor Virtues (Ragged Sky, 2020) is listed as one of Spring 2020’s best books by The Philadelphia Inquirer. Poet Ross Gay calls the book “a lovely honoring of the small, the minor sweetnesses that a life is made of.” Her previous collections include Miss Plastique, Fair Creatures of an Hour, and Imaginarium. She is the translator, from the Spanish, of Birds on the Kiswar Tree by Odi Gonzales and co-author of Poems for the Writing: Prompts for Poets. Her poems have appeared in Boulevard, Artful Dodge, Rattle, on Garrison Keillor’s The Writer’s Almanac, and other places. She teaches at Drexel University. Her website is lynnlevinpoet.com
Barbara Sabol’s second full-length book, Imagine a Town, was awarded the 2019 Sheila-Na-Gig Editions poetry manuscript prize. She is the author of Solitary Spin (Main Street Rag Press) and two chapbooks. Barbara’s poetry has appeared widely in journals and anthologies. Barbara’s awards include an Individual Excellence Award from the Ohio Arts Council and the Mary Jean Irion Poetry Prize. She contributes book reviews to the Poetry Matters blog and the Ohioana Quarterly. Barbara lives in Akron, OH with her husband and wonder dogs.
Alina Macneal & Jennifer Hook, Hosts
Open reading follows

Virtual Poetry Reading: Morri Creech, Joseph Harrison, & Dora Malech
2020-11-04 19:00
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82437345103?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 824 3734 5103, Passcode: [REDACTED] Phone: +1 646-876-9923
Morri Creech is the author of three collections of poetry, Paper Cathedrals, Field Knowledge, which received the Anthony Hecht Poetry prize and was nominated for both the Los Angeles Times Book Award and the Poet’s Prize, and The Sleep of Reason, a 2014 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. His most recent book is Blue Rooms published by Waywiser Press in 2018. A recipient of NEA and Ruth Lilly Fellowships, as well as grants from the North Carolina and Louisiana Arts councils, he is the Writer in Residence at Queens University of Charlotte, where he teaches courses in both the undergraduate creative writing program and in the low residency M.F.A. program. He lives in Charlotte, North Carolina with his wife and two children.
Joseph Harrison is the author of six books of poetry, including Someone Else’s Name, Identity Theft, Shakespeare’s Horse, and, most recently, Sometimes I Dream That I Am Not Walt Whitman. Someone Else’s Name was named one of five poetry books of the year by The Washington Post and was a finalist for the Poets’ Prize; Shakespeare’s Horse was also a finalist for the Poets’ Prize. He has received a Guggenheim fellowship in poetry and an Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, among other honors. Mr. Harrison has directed the Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize since its inception in 2006. He edited The Hecht Prize Anthology and, with Damiano Abeni, Un mondo che non può essere migliore, a selection from the poetry of John Ashbery that won a Special Prize from the Premio Napoli. He lives in Baltimore, where he teaches privately and works as an editor.
Dora Malech is the author of Flourish, Stet, Say So, and Shore Ordered Ocean. She has been the recipient of an Amy Clampitt Residency Award, a Mary Sawyers Baker Prize, a Ruth Lilly Poetry Fellowship, and a Writing Residency Fellowship from the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, and she has been the Distinguished Poet-in-Residence at Saint Mary’s College and a visiting artist at the American Academy in Rome. She is a co-founder and former director of the arts engagement organization the Iowa Youth Writing Project. She is an assistant professor in The Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University, where she has received a Crenson-Hertz Award for Community Based Learning, two Arts Innovation Grants, a Dean’s Award for Excellence in Service, and a Catalyst Award. She serves on the advisory board of Writers in Baltimore Schools and as an associate editor of The Waywiser Press and Tupelo Quarterly.
Larry Robin, Host
Open reading follows

Virtual Poetry in Collaboration with Serotonin: Fizza Abbas, Jane-Rebecca Cannarella, & Leah Holbrook Sackett, with Sean Lynch
2020-11-07 14:00
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85662820989?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 856 6282 0989, Passcode: [REDACTED]
Fizza Abbas is a Freelance Content Writer based in Karachi, Pakistan. She is fond of poetry and music. Her poetry has been published or is forthcoming in quite a few journals including Poetry Village, The Daily Drunk, Indiana Voice Journal, London Grip and Poetry Pacific.

Jane-Rebecca Cannarella is a writer and editor living in Philadelphia. She is the editor of HOOT Review and Meow Meow Pow Pow Lit, as well as the author of Better Bones and Marrow, both published by Thirty West Publishing House, and The Guessing Game published by BA Press. She occasionally drinks wine out of a mug that has a smug poodle on it; she believes that the poodle is the reincarnated spirit of the television show Parker Lewis Can’t Lose.
Leah Holbrook Sackett is an adjunct lecturer in the English department at the University of Missouri – St. Louis, where she also earned her M.F.A. Leah’s stories explore journeys toward autonomy and the boundaries placed on the individual by society, family, and self. Learn about her published fiction at LeahHolbrookSackett.com
Sean Lynch, Host

The Virus: Poets Respond
2020-11-08 14:00 - 17:00
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83944818819?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 839 4481 8819, Passcode: [REDACTED]
Coronaviruses are a group of RNA viruses that cause diseases in mammals and birds. In humans and birds, they cause respiratory tract infections that can range from mild to lethal. Mild illnesses in humans include some cases of the common cold (which is also caused by other viruses, predominantly rhinoviruses), while more lethal varieties can cause SARS, MERS, and COVID-19. There are as yet no vaccines or antiviral drugs to prevent or treat human coronavirus infections.
What is it? How do you survive? How has it changed your life?
What Experiences has it generated – loneliness, fear, anti-social feelings
Moonstone Press invited poets to express themselves and the anthology, which includes poems by 50 poets. The list of poets and the book ($10, Moonstone Press) is now available at our website www.moonstoneartscenter.com

Poetry & Grief: Moonstone Poetry @ PhillyCAM: Amy Small-McKinney, with Charles S. Carr
2020-11-10 18:30
Moonstone Poetry @ PhillyCAM, 699 Ranstead Street
Comcast Cable 66/966HD/967 or Verizon FIOS 29/30 in Philadelphia.
Philly Loves Poetry Interview and Readings Series on PhillyCAM
There is so much to grieve for now. Deaths of loved ones. Death of human contact and some semblance of normalcy. Deaths of our dreams for the world, the earth, for ourselves, and for others. As a poet whose husband died recently, in the midst of this pandemic, I know first-hand how poetry can contain the uncontainable and allow us to say the unsayable. Amy Small-McKinney
Amy Small-McKinney’s poems have been published in numerous journals including American Poetry Review, The Indianapolis Review, and Pedestal Magazine and she has been a guest editor for Pedestal Magazine. Her second full-length book of poems, Walking Toward Cranes, won the Kithara Book Prize 2016. Small-McKinney has an MS in Clinical Neuropsychology from Drexel University and an MFA in Poetry from Drew University and she teaches community poetry workshops and private students.
Charles S. Carr, Host

Virtual Poetry Reading: Dilruba Ahmed, Sham-e-Ali Nayeem, Cynthia Dewi Oka, J.C Todd,
2020-11-11 19:00
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83696541345?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 836 9654 1345, Passcode: [REDACTED] Phone: +1 646-876-9923
Dilruba Ahmed is the author of Bring Now the Angels. Her debut book of poetry, Dhaka Dust, won the Bakeless Prize. Her poems have appeared in Kenyon Review, New England Review, and The New York Times Magazine. Her poems have also been anthologized in The Best American Poetry 2019, Halal If You Hear Me, Indivisible: An Anthology of Contemporary South Asian American Poetry, and elsewhere. She holds degrees from the University of Pittsburgh and Warren Wilson College’s MFA Program for Writers.
Sham-e-Ali Nayeem is author of the poetry collection, City of Pearls, she is an Indian Muslim American poet, artist and public interest lawyer of Hyderabadi descent. Her poetry has appeared in Apiary, Dusie and Mizna, and can be found in anthologies, including Shattering the Stereotypes:
Muslim Women Speak Out (Olive Branch Press, 2005), Living Islam Out Loud: American Muslim Women Speak (Beacon Press, 2005) and Shout Out: Women of Color Respond to Violence (Seal Press, 2008). Sham-e-Ali is the recipient of the Loft Literary Center Spoken Word Immersion Fellowship.
Cynthia Dewi Oka is the author of Salvage: Poems (and Nomad of Salt and Hard Water. Her work has appeared widely in print and online, including in ESPNW, Hyperallergic, Guernica, Scoundrel Time, Academy of American Poets, American Poetry Review, Kenyon Review, The Massachusetts Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, and various anthologies. With community partner Asian Arts Initiative, she created Sanctuary: A Migrant Poetry Workshop for immigrant poets in Philadelphia. She has received scholarships from VONA and the Vermont Studio Center, the Fifth Wednesday Journal Editor’s Prize in Poetry, the Tupelo Quarterly Poetry Prize, and the Leeway Foundation's Transformation Award. She holds an MFA from Warren Wilson College and is originally from Bali, Indonesia.
J. C. Todd’s recent work explores the traumatic effects of war on women. Her most recent books are Beyond Repair, runner-up in the Able Muse Poetry Book Contest, forthcoming in 2020, and The Damages of Morning, a 2019 Eric Hoffer Award finalist. Winner of the 2016 Rita Dove Prize in Poetry and twice a finalist for Poetry Society of America awards, she has held fellowships in poetry from the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, Bemis Center, and elsewhere. Her work has been published in Beloit Poetry Journal, The Paris Review, the Journal of Compressed Creative Arts. She has taught in the Rosemont MFA Program and the Creative Writing Program at Bryn Mawr College.
Larry Robin, Host

Virtual Poetry Reading: Phillip Berryman
2020-11-16 19:00
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86344964528?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 863 4496 4528, Passcode: [REDACTED] Phone: +1 646-876-9923
El Salvador’s crisis of poverty and violence has remained the primal scene for liberation theology’s political assertion that the most vulnerable people pose a moral opportunity for organized religions. This year, we are remembering November 16th, the iconic anniversary of the 1989 massacre of six Jesuit Priests, their housekeeper and her daughter. The occasion honors the memory of Latin American clergy assassinated for their preaching against exploitation of poor people and draws together dramatic and traumatizing memories of the 1980 murder of Oscar Romero as well as nuns, Maura Clarke, Ida Ford, Ursuline Dorothy Kazel and lay missionary Jean Donovan, also killed in that year. The cause enunciated in this year’s celebration demonstrates special respect for lives and memories that are memorialized by the writing and lived experience of Phillip Berryman, author of Memento of the Living and the Dead, A First-Person Account of Church, Violence, and Resistance in Latin America ($33.00, Wipf and Stock Publishers).
In Memento of the Living and the Dead, Phillip Berryman relates his experiences as a Catholic priest in Panama City starting in 1965, and then, after leaving the priesthood to marry, in Central America in the late 1970s, as conflict and repression rose in Guatemala and El Salvador and the Sandinista revolution overthrew the Somoza dictatorship. Berryman was leading an ecumenical delegation in El Salvador when Archbishop Oscar Romero was murdered at the altar and was at the archbishop’s funeral when it was attacked. Under increasing surveillance in Guatemala, he and his family returned to the United States in 1980, where he took part in the movement against US interference in Central America. Through study, travel, and research in South America, he followed the emergence and evolution of liberation theology and the rise of evangelical Pentecostalism.
“With relentless honesty and humbleness, Berryman is always there just before something happens, liberation theology, revolutions in Central America, the end of communism, globalization, and a rising middle class. His focus is Latin America, but his observations carry over into an understanding of the world today . . . and tomorrow.”—June Carolyn Erlick, editor-in-chief, ReVista, the Harvard Review of Latin America
“For all of us who struggle for human rights—especially for the rights of the poor—whether in the United States or Central America, Berryman will remain a memorable ethical and spiritual reference point.” —Leonardo Boff, Brazilian theologian
Larry Robin, Host

Virtual Poetry Reading: Chad Frame, Leah E. Jackson, Shosh Lovett-Graff, with Sean Hanrahan
2020-11-18 19:00
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82437345103?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 824 3734 5103, Passcode: [REDACTED] Phone: +1 646-876-9923
Chad Frame’s work appears in Rattle, Pedestal, Menacing Hedge, Mom Egg Review, Philadelphia Stories, Barrelhouse, and other journals. He is Director of the Montgomery County Poet Laureate Program, the Poetry Editor of Ovunque Siamo: New Italian American Writing, and founder of the Caesura Poetry Festival and Retreat.

Leah E. Jackson aka Lyric: Advocate. Mother. Counselor. Poet. Agitator. is author of Release and Journey from Release, and a Nuyorican Poet’s Café 1998 Grand Slam Semi-Finalist. Leah co-produced #SayHerNameNewark, a social justice multi-media art exhibition and program – featuring ONLY female artists – that explores and responds to violence, sexual assault and police brutality against Black Women and Girls.
Shosh Lovett-Graff is is a founding editor of Toho Journal, and her poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction can be read in Qwerty Magazine, Pittsburgh Poetry Journal, Crab Fat Magazine, South Broadway Ghost Society, The Flexible Persona (nominated for a Pushcart Prize), and is forthcoming in Forbidden Peak Press.

Sean Hanrahan, Host
Open reading follows

New Voices: Emerging Poets; Matilda Bray, Taylor Byas, Cordelia David, with Colin Faughnan
2020-11-21 19:00
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86713937746?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 867 1393 7746, Passcode: [REDACTED] Phone: +1 646-876-9923
New Voices is a program designed for poets under the age of 25 in order to give A Voice for Everyone: Listen, Share, and Connect with other writers.
Matilda Bray “Matilda’s passion is contagious. Her writing is imaginative, focused, and thoughtful. Clearly, this young writer is quickly establishing herself as one of tomorrow’s brightest and cherished writers.” – Lorraine Henrie Lins, 2010 Bucks County Poet Laureate.
Taylor Byas is a Black poet and essayist who has been nominated for two Pushcart Prizes, and Best New Poets 2020. She attends the University of Cincinnati, pursuing her degree in Creative Writing (Poetry) and is a reader for both The Rumpus and The Cincinnati Review, and the Poetry Editor for FlyPaper Lit.
Cordelia David is an aspiring physics student at Drexel University with interests in creative writing and philosophy. So far non-fiction and depressing poetry is her cup of tea. She has published “Letter my Rapist Never Sent Me” at poemsforthewriting.com, and a few academic papers that aren’t very interesting.
Colin Faughnan, Host
Open reading follows

Virtual Poetry Reading: Alicia Askenase & Mike Cohen, with Alina Macneal & Jennifer Hook
2020-11-25 19:00
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82437345103?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 824 3734 5103, Passcode: [REDACTED] Phone: +1 646-876-9923
Alicia Askenase is the author of four chapbooks, including The Luxury of Pathos (Texture Press) and Shirley Shirley (sonaweb). Her poetry has appeared in many lit journals, including: Chain#2 and #11, Poetry New York, The World, 6ix, Feminist Studies, Big Bridge, The Journal of Modern Languages, and the Manhattanville Review. Recent writing is published in the anthologies New Works by Philadelphia Poets, Remembering Walt Whitman, and Poems for the Writing: Prompts for Poets, Second Edition, edited by Valerie Fox and Lynn Levin, and the most recent edition of The Painted Bride Quarterly.
Mike Cohen is author of Between the I’s and Between the Shadow and the Wall and he hosts Poetry Aloud and Alive at Philadelphia’s Big Blue Marble Book Store. His articles on sculpture regularly appear in the Schuylkill Valley Journal in which he is a contributing editor. His wry writing has appeared in the Mad Poets Review, Fox Chase Review, and other journals. His poetic presentations feature humor and drama against a philosophical backdrop. Mike likes to bring poetry and audiences to life in cafes, libraries, book stores and venues including Princeton’s Café Improv, the Pen and Pencil Club, the Hedgerow Theatre, Fergie’s Pub, Harlem’s Apollo Theater, and neither least nor last, Philadelphia’s Laurel Hill Cemetery.
Alina Macneal & Jennifer Hook, Hosts
Open reading follows

Virtual Poetry Reading, with Serotonin: Fizza Abbas, Jane-Rebecca Cannarella, Leah Holbrook Sackett, with Sean Lynch
2020-11-27 14:00

Poetry in the Time of Pandemics: Moonstone Poetry @ PhillyCAM, David Acosta, with Charles S. Carr
2020-12-01 18:30
Poetry in the Time of Pandemics: Moonstone Poetry @ PhillyCAM
699 Ranstead Street | Comcast Cable 66/966HD/967 or Verizon FIOS 29/30 in Philadelphia
This December 1st marks the 31st anniversary of Day Without Art. Launched by Visual AIDS on December 1, 1989, as a national day of action and mourning in response to the AIDS crisis, Day Without Art, focused specifically on bringing attention to the impact that AIDS had on the arts community.
On December 1st, 2020, Philly Loves Poetry features a conversation with poet and activist David Acosta who was one of the founders of Day Without Art in Philadelphia. David will read from poems he wrote during the worst years of the AIDS epidemic as well as new work, and will discuss artistic responses to both the AIDS and COVID pandemics specially as it relates to artistic creation by writers and poets responding to both.
David Acosta, is a poet, writer, and curator. His writings have appeared in many literary journals among them The Painted Bride Quarterly, The Evergreen Chronicles, The Americas Review, Mayrena, and the anthologies: American Poetry Confronts the 1990s (Black Tie Press 1990). The Limits of Silence (Asterion Press 1991), Poesida (Ollantay Press, 1995), and Floating Borderlands: Twenty-Five Years of Latin American Poetry in The United States (University of Washington Press, 1998). He is also included as a contributor in Queer Brown Voices, the first anthology of Latino LGBT history in the United States and Puerto Rico published by University of Texas Press, in 2015. He is currently the Artistic Director for Casa de Duende and he is a co-founding editor of Wicked Gay Ways an online artistic and literary journal devoted to queer erotica at the intersections of art and desire.
Charles S. Carr, Host

Virtual Poetry Reading: Ishmael Reed and Tennessee Reed, with Aaren Perry
2020-12-02 20:00
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82437345103?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 824 3734 5103, Passcode: [REDACTED] Phone: +1 646-876-9923
Ishmael Reed is the award-winning author of over twenty-five books including Mumbo Jumbo, The Last Days of Louisiana Red, Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down and Juice!. He is also a publisher, television producer, songwriter, radio and television commentator, lecturer, and has long been devoted to exploring an alternative black aesthetic: the trickster tradition, or Neo-Hoodooism as he calls it. Founder of the Before Columbus Foundation, he taught at the University of California, Berkeley for over thirty years, retiring in 2005. In 2003, he received the coveted Otto Award for political theater. His newest book is WHY THE BLACK HOLE SINGS THE BLUES ($15.95, Dalkey Archive Press). The poems in this new collection from Ishmael Reed were written between 2007 and 2020. They range from poems based on events that occurred around Reed’s house to cataclysmic space events. Some of the poems were commissioned. “Moving Richmond” was part of a public art installation created by Mildred Howard. The poem, in huge letters forged into weathering steel billboards greets passengers who enter the new Bay Area mass transit hub in Richmond, California. Other poems were commissioned by musicians. ”Hope Is The Thing With Feathers” was performed by Gregory Porter. “Red Summer, 2015” appeared in print first and then was set to music by David Murray. Reed writes, “The longest poem in the book, “Jazz Martyrs,” was begun when Reed learned about the number of black Jazz greats who didn’t live past the age of forty. “I have been fortunate to live beyond the age of 80,” says Reed. “I’ve found out who my best friends are. The ones who got me there.”
Tennessee Reed is the author of six poetry collections, a memoir and a novel. She has read her work around the continental United States, Alaska, Hawaii, England, the Netherlands, Spain, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Israel and Japan. She is the chairperson of PEN Oakland and the managing editor of Konch Magazine. Her seventh poetry collection, Calafia Burning, is new collection of poems produced between the years 2012 and 2019 is Califia Burning: Poems, 2012-2019 ($17.95)
Aaren Perry, Host
Open reading follows
