Virtual Poetry Reading: Alicia Askenase & Mike Cohen, with Alina Macneal & Jennifer Hook
2020-11-25 19:00 (America/New_York) | PA
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
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

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

Virtual Poetry in Collaboration with Serotonin; C Cimmone, Barracuda Guarisco, Rami Obeid, with Sean Lynch
2020-12-05 14:00 - 17:00
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85662820989?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 856 6282 0989, Passcode: [REDACTED]
C Cimmone is a North American author, comic, and editor. She is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Versification and serves as Editor-at-Large for Trampset. Her work has been featured in a menagerie of print and digital publications. To read more visit www.ccimmone.com or follow her on Twitter @diefunnier.

Barracuda Guarisco / C. C. Hannett / Kris Hall is a cheesesteak obsessed, bisexual crybaby who enjoys absurdity at varying levels. Barry is the author of several books in the Spuyten Duyvil Publishing universe, as well as Uncomfortable Music (Vegetarian Alcoholic Press, 2021) and The Gold Boys are back in Gold Town (Really Serious Literature) co-authored with Joshua Robert Long. The Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Really Serious Literature, his work has been placed with giallo lit, Maudlin House, Meow Meow Pow Pow, Silent Auctions, and various others found under Entropy Mag’s ‘Where to Submit’ list. He lives with his wife, Pilar, and doesn’t know what day it is. You can find him if you want to.
Rami Obeid is a poet from Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He is a staff member for Versification Zine and has been published in Stone of Madness Press, Trampset, Serotonin Poetry, and Lucky Pierre Zine, among others. His chapbook Marooned on the Shores of Malaise is forthcoming from Whispering Wick Follow him on twitter: @obeid_ro
Sean Lynch, Host

Virtual Poetry Reading: 24th Annual Poetry Ink, 100 Poets Reading
2020-12-06 14:00 - 17:00
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83944818819?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 839 4481 8819, Passcode: [REDACTED]
Since 2006 Moonstone has had a party with 100 poets reading. This year is different. There will be no food, no gathering, no conversation. There will be a book and a virtual reading. Be part of our tradition of a marathon of poetry with both famous and unknown poets.

Do you Love Poetry? Moonstone Arts Center’s Poetry Ink has includ-
ed a diverse selection of participants, from renowned Philadelphia poet Sonia Sanchez to Matilda Bray, a 14-year-old girl who published her first poetry book at age thirteen. From nationally known poets to un-
published poets, academic poets to street poets, the Poetry Ink Reading truly captures the diversity within Philadelphia’s literary community. We have featured poets such as Maya Angelou Amiri Baraka, Dennis
Brutus, Rita Dove, Lamont Steptoe and Eleanor Wilner to name just a
few. This will not be the 6 hour marathon, but probably about 3 hours.
Not all of the poets will be reading, but they are in the anthology:
Dee Allen, James Andrews, Sharisse Austin, Peter Baroth, Michele Belluomini, Byron Beynon, Pamela Blanding, Megan Brown, Charles S. Carr, Barbara Clark, Damien Cooper, Beverly Cottman, James D’Aurelio, Kamaria Delaney, Marc Drake, Carlos Dufflar, Alfred Encarnacion, Demetrius Ford, Greg Francis, Keith Gaboury, hanoch guy, Sean Hanrahan, Hollie Hardy, Ditta Baron Hoeber, Jaz, Bea Joyner, Carl Kaucher, Kiraat, Lynette, Angel Martinez, John Mason, Christina McIntire, Barbara Meier, Patricia Middleton, Harve Nichols, Daniel O’Hara, joy olree, Hermond Palmer, Sophia Pope, Prabha Prabhu, Susana Praver-Perez, Elijah Pringle, Tonya Ryva, Gerard Sarnat, George Schaefer, Jennifer Schneider, Naasiha Siddiqui, Bob Small, Megha Sood, Jonathan Steadman, j.c. Sutton, Fatima Telwar, Elaine Terranova, John Timpane, Raymond Tyler, Lenore Uddyback-Fortson, Bill Van Buskirk, Eleanor Wilner, Nellie Wong, & Jing Jing Yang.

Virtual Poetry Reading in Collaboration with E-Verse Equinox Reading Series: Vasiliki Katsarou, David Livewell, Tamara Oakman, with John Wall Barger
2020-12-09 19:00
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82437345103?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 824 3734 5103, Passcode: [REDACTED] Phone: +1 646-876-9923
Vasiliki Katsarou is the author of the poetry collection Memento Tsunami, and the chapbook, Three Sea Stones, published this year by Lucia Press. She is also co-editor of two contemporary poetry anthologies: Eating Her Wedding Dress and Dark as a Hazel Eye (Ragged Sky Press, Princeton). Her award-winning 35mm short film Fruitlands 1843 has been screened at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Harvard Film Archive, the Angelika Film Center, and the Drama Film Festival in Greece. A new digitized version of the film is forthcoming. Vasiliki is a teaching artist at Hunterdon Art Museum, and a Geraldine R. Dodge Poet in New Jersey.
David Livewell grew up in the Kensington section of North Philadelphia. He has taught poetry courses at La Salle University. He won the T.S. Eliot Poetry Prize for his book, Shackamaxon (Truman State University Press). His poems have appeared in Poetry, Threepenny Review, Yale Review, The Hopkins Review, The Hudson Review, Southwest Review, and other journals.
Tamara Oakman is a neo-confessional writer, English, writing, ESL and humanities professor, with work published in Many Mountains Moving, Philadelphia Stories and Best of Anthology, Mad Poets Review, Certain Circuits Magazine, Fox Chase Review and other online and in print magazines. She has awards in poetry, fiction, non-fiction, and drama, and performs poetry and fiction in Philadelphia and the surrounding tri-state areas. Tamara is an event coordinator who has hosted, created and organized events, series, writing workshops and festivals in Philadelphia and has judged the Hidden River Arts fiction and drama contest, the Philadelphia Writer’s Conference poetry contest, the Montgomery County Poet Laureate poetry contest and Ursinis College’s Dolman Prize . She is co-founder and internship coordinator for APIARY magazine.
John Wall Barger, Host
Open reading follows

Virtual Poetry Reading: Black Lives Matter 2020
2020-12-13 14:00 - 17:00
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83944818819?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 839 4481 8819, Passcode: [REDACTED]
400 years in the making
Is America finally ready to confront the past, present and future of systemic racism? What do you think?
Poets Respond
People in the street demanding the end of systemic racism, recognizing that it is embedded as normal practice, leading to discrimination in criminal justice, employment, housing, health care, political power, education, and other issues. On May 25, 2020, George Floyd was killed, sparking demonstrations around the world which continue today and brought BlackLivesMatter to the forefront. Join us as contributors to our new anthology read.
Not all of the poets will be reading, but they are in the anthology:
Joy Alford, Dee Allen, Matilida Bray, Kamaria Delaney, Yves Marie Desir, Minna Duchovnay, Runett Ebo, William Foster, Shannon Frost Greenstein, Linda Goss, Steven Halpern, MaryAnn Miller, Stephen Page, Hermond Palmer, Susana Praver-Perez, George Schaefer, Jordan Webber, Kelley White, & Florence Woods.

Virtual Poetry Reading: Adriann "Just The Pen" Bautista, Aileen Cassinetto, Joanne Leva, with Elijah Pringle
2020-12-16 19:00
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82437345103?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 824 3734 5103, Passcode: [REDACTED] Phone: +1 646-876-9923
Adriann “Just The Pen” Bautista is a Mother, Research Grant Manager at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Playwright, Poet , Founder and CEO of Just the Pen, LLC, Founder of Just The Pen Foundation, Founder & Facilitator of Inspired & Empowered to Move for Women Who Lead and Host of the new project Talks with Just The Pen. As an established Poet, Adriann is author of “Ballad of a Beautiful Brown King”, “Sister Strength” and “Sanctuary of Snow”. She is published in various anthologies including Poetry Ink, P.E.A.S. Magazine and Thomas Jefferson University’s Literary magazine, Inside Out, and Standing our Ground: Poems for Trayvon Martin & Marissa Alexander .
Aileen Cassinetto is the Poet Laureate of San Mateo County, California. Widely anthologized, she is also the author of the poetry collections, Traje de Boda and The Pink House of Purple Yam Preserves & Other Poems, as well as three chapbooks through Moria Books’ acclaimed Locofo series. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in the Asahi Shimbun, The Banyan Review, Moss Trill, The Nonconformist Magazine, the San Francisco Chronicle, and Vox Populi, among others. Organizer of “POWER TO THE POETS reading series, Aileen’s work is also featured in the curated “Wall + Response” project on social, political, racial and justice narratives in Clarion Alley, San Francisco.
Joanne Leva is the author of Eve Heads Back and Eve Would Know and 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. Her poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, Peace Is a Haiku Song, 50 Over Fifty, Apiary, E-Verse Radio, The Schuylkill Valley Journal, Rag Queen Periodical, Bucks County Writer, and Transcendent Visions, among others. Her poem, “God Walks into a Bar,” was featured in a Philadelphia Calligraphers’ Society Poetry Reading & Exhibit and companion publication entitled, Scripta.
Elijah Pringle, Host
Open reading follows

Virtual Poetry Reading: Queer Poetics, Gala Mukomolova, Alina Pleskova, Galina Rymbu
2020-12-20 14:00
Queer Poetics
From the former Soviet Union
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83944818819?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 839 4481 8819, Passcode: [REDACTED]
Gala Mukomolova is a Moscow-born, Brooklyn-raised, poet and essayist. Her full length poetry collection, Without Protection, is available through Coffee House Press. Her chapbook, One Above One Below: Positions & Lamentations, is available with YesYes Books. She is a recipient of the 2016 Discovery Prize from 92nd St Y & Boston Review and has held residencies at Vermont Studio Center, Pink Door, and ASYLUM Arts. Gala currently writes astrology articles for NYLON Magazine , cohosts Big Dyke Energy Podcast, and is one of the creators of QueerHealers.com. She is a founder and a part of The Cheburashka Collective.
Alina Pleskova is a poet, editor, and Russian immigrant turned proud Philadelphian. Her work has been featured in American Poetry Review, Thrush, Entropy, Cosmonauts Avenue, Peach Mag, Meduza, the Poetry Project, and elsewhere. Her chapbook, What Urge Will Save Us, was published by Spooky Girlfriend Press in 2017. She is co-editor of bedfellows magazine and a 2020 Leeway Foundation Art & Change grant awardee.
Galina Rymbu was born in 1990 in the city of Omsk (Siberia, Russia) and lives in Lviv, Ukraine. She edits F-Pis’mo, an online magazine for feminist literature and theory, as well as Gryoza, a website for contemporary poetry. She is the co-founder and co-curator of the Arkadii Dragomoshchenko Prize for emerging Russian-language poets. She has published three books of poems in Russia: Moving Space of the Revolution, Time of the Earth, and Life in Space. Her essays on cinema, literature, and sexuality have appeared on Séance, Colta, Your Art, and other journals. English translations of her work have appeared in The White Review, Arc Poetry, Berlin Quarterly, Music & Literature, n+1, Asymptote, Powder Keg, and Cosmonauts Avenue, as well as in the chapbook White. Her poetry has been translated into thirteen languages and stand-alone collections of her work have been published in Latvian, Dutch, Swedish, and Romanian. Her new book, Life in Space, is translated by Joan Brooks, and includes additional material translated by Helena Kernan, Charles Bernstein and others and is a co-production with After Hours Editions, who published Rymbu’s first English-language chapbook, White Bread and Ugly Duckling Presse. “ Daring and surprising in every poem, Life in Space is the arrival of a new major poet.” Valzhyna Mort

Virtual Poetry Reading: Moonstone Poetry @ PhillyCAM, with Valerie Fox & Lynn Levin, and Charles S. Carr
2021-01-05 18:30
699 Ranstead Street,Comcast Cable 66/966HD/967 or Verizon FIOS, 29/30 in Philadelphia.

Celebrate small things, find creative inspiration in your junk drawer, give thanks (sincere or sarcastic), maybe even write an inaugural poem. Valerie Fox and Lynn Levin, both Drexel University creative writing instructors and co-authors of the acclaimed Poems for the Writing: Prompts for Poets, Second Edition, will help you power up your poetry with their signature prompts. Fox and Levin’s poetry prompts book was a finalist in Writing/Publishing in the 2020 Next Generation Indie Book Awards. Poets, student poets, teachers, and all who are looking for new ideas, inspiration, and fun should tune into this episode of Philly Loves Poetry.
Valerie Fox grew up in central Pennsylvania. She currently lives in New Jersey with her family and teaches at Drexel University in Philadelphia. Recent work can be found in New Flash Fiction Review, The Cafe Irreal, Juked, Literary Orphans, Reflex, and Cleaver. Much interested in collaboration, she has worked with artist Jacklynn Niemiec and writer Arlene Ang (Collaborative poems with Ang from Poemeleon).

Lynn Levin’s most recent poetry collection, The Minor Virtues 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 translatorof 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.
Charles S. Carr, Host

Virtual Poetry Reading: Peter Baroth, Bob McNeil, Pheralyn Dove, with Larry Robin
2021-01-06 19:00
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84308329737?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 843 0832 9737 Passcode: [REDACTED] Phone: 1 646 876 9923 US (New York)
Peter Baroth, writer, visual artist, musician, and staff member of Philadelphia Stories Magazine lives in Media, PA with his partner poet and professor Courtney Bambrick. His recent full-length book of poetry is Lost Autographs (Moonstone Press) and his novel is Long Green (iUniverse). His work has appeared in journals such as Mad Poets Review, Apiary, Schuylkill Valley Journal, and Philadelphia Poets where he has won both the Amy Tritsch Needle and Petracca Family awards. His paintings have appeared in such venues as the Imperfect Gallery, OUR Gallery, and the Wayne Art Center. He is also bass player and co-songwriter for the band the Party Crashers.
Bob McNeil, writer, editor, and spoken word artist, is the author of Verses of Realness. Hal Sirowitz, a Queens Poet Laureate, called the book “A fantastic trip through the mind of a poet who doesn’t flinch at the truth.” Among Bob’s recent accomplishments, he found working on Lyrics of Mature Hearts to be a humbling experience because of the anthology’s talented contributors. Copies of that collection are available here: Amazon.com
Pheralyn Dove is passionate about creating art that promotes the ideals of Cultural Preservation, Global African/Black Liberation and Emotional Healing. Although primarily a writer and performance poet, Pheralyn has emerged as a visual artist, working in mixed media, photography and abstract expressionism and has been included in “Generations 7 – Reflections on the Isms: Racism, Sexism, Ageism” curated by Dindga McCannon at Rush Arts Gallery Philadelphia. Pheralyn is the featured poet on Khan Jamal’s “Return from Exile” and Tyrone Brown’s, “Moon of the Falling Leaves” CDs. She has been a press agent, radio producer, entertainment editor for the “Philadelphia Tribune,” feature writer for the “Philadelphia Inquirer,” and lead grant writer on teams that have raised more than $175 million dollars for worthy nonprofit concerns. “All praises to the Creator,” she says. “Thank you for choosing me as the vessel.”
Larry Robin, Host
Open reading follows

Virtual Poetry Reading: In Collaboration with Serotonin, Lindsey Heatherly & Dawn Watts, and Sean Lynch
2021-01-09 14:00 - 17:00
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82855093815?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 828 5509 3815 Passcode: [REDACTED] Phone: 1-646 876 9923 US (New York)
Lindsey Heatherly is a writer born and raised in Upstate South Carolina. She has words in Emerge Literary Journal, X-R-A-Y, Emrys Journal, Red Fez, Schuylkill Valley Journal and more. She spends her time at home raising a strong, confident daughter. Find her on her website at https://r3dwillow.wixsite.com/rydanmardsey or on Twitter: @rydanmardsey.
Dawn Watts is a former barista from Chester Pa. She has poems published in Serotonin, Tealightpress and Stone of Madness Press. Her Twitter handle is @wattswritten.

Sean Lynch, Host
Open Reading Follows

Virtual Poetry Reading: Alyson Shore Adler, Katherine Barham, and Cathleen Cohen, with Larry Robin
2021-01-13 19:00
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84308329737?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 843 0832 9737 Passcode: [REDACTED] Phone: 1 646 876 9923 US (New York)
Alyson Shore Adler has been a Clinical Social Worker specializing in working with trauma for 40 years. She’s been writing poetry for the past 20 and has workshopped with and been mentored by many brilliant poets including AV Christie and now Nat Anderson. Alyson is thrilled to celebrate the release of new books by her colleagues Kathy Barham and Cathleen Cohen.
Katherine Barham received an MFA from Warren Wilson Program for Writers and her poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, The Drunken Boat, Spillway, Mad Poets Review, Hubbub, North of Oxford (January, 2021). Katherine’s chapbook, From the Familiar, was published by Moonstone Press in 2015. Katherine is a retired high school English teacher and currently resides in Rose Valley, PA, birdwatching with her cat Elliott.
Cathleen Cohen was the 2019 Poet Laureate of Montgomery County, PA. A painter and teacher, she founded the We the Poets program at ArtWell, an arts education non-profit in Philadelphia (www.theartwell.org). Her poems appear in Apiary, Baltimore Review, Cagibi, East Coast Ink, 6ix, North of Oxford, Passager, Philadelphia Stories, Rockvale Review, Rogue Agent, Camera Obscura (Moonstone Press, 2017) and Etching the Ghost (Atmosphere Press, forthcoming 2021). She received the Interfaith Relations Award from the Montgomery County PA Human Rights Commission and the Public Service Award from National Association of Poetry Therapy. Her artwork is on view at Cerulean Arts Gallery (www.ceruleanarts.com).
Larry Robin, Host
Open reading follows

Virtual Poetry Reading - New Voices: Emerging Poets, Cydney Brown, Husnaa Haajarah Hashim, and Teyanna Stone, with Larry Robin
2021-01-16 14:00 - 17:00
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82855093815?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 828 5509 3815 Passcode: [REDACTED] Phone: 1-646 876 9923 US (New York)
New Voices: Emerging Poets
New Voices is a program designed for emerging poets under the age of 25. It aims to create a platform for young poets by welcoming them into the larger Philadelphia poetry collaborative and giving them the opportunity to share their work with a wide audience.
Cydney Brown is the 2020-2021 Philadelphia Youth Poet Laureate. She is currently a Junior at Abington Friends School. She grew to love poetry by reading poems by Maya Angelou and Robert Frost. She loves how there are no limitations with writing. She wrote a book of poems entitled “Daydreaming” and is currently working on another. Her poetry explores the topics of love, self image, and social justice. She won first place in The Hip Hop workshop poetry competition in 2020. Cydney wishes to inspire people to stand up for what they believe in and to share her poetry with the world.
Husnaa Haajarah Hashim is the 2017-2018 Youth Poet Laureate of Philadelphia, and author of the poetry collection Honey Sequence (The Head and The Hand, 2018). She is an undergraduate student at the University of Pennsylvania. Husnaa has competed at Brave New Voices, performed at various conferences, festivals, and Philadelphia-area colleges, and received numerous Scholastic Art and Writing Awards including a National American Voices Medal awarded at Carnegie Hall. Husnaa’s work has been published by Apiary and The On Being Project among others.
Teyanna Stone is a storyteller, a creator of worlds through song, poetry, and other forms of art. A proud Philly girl and a Temple University student majoring in Media Studies and Production and additionally studying Theater and Music, Teyanna is exploring her interests in the arts. When it comes to poetry, her pen goes to love songs, life struggles, and sci-fi and fantasy adventures.
Larry Robin, Host, Open Reading Follows
Join us each month for readings by emerging poets on the third Saturday at 2pm
A Voice for Everyone – Listen, Share, Connect with Other Writers

Virtual Poetry Reading: F. X. Baird, Steve Burke, and Charles S. Carr, with Larry Robin
2021-01-20 19:00
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84308329737?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 843 0832 9737 Passcode: [REDACTED] Phone: 1 646 876 9923 US (New York)
F. X. Baird was born in Philadelphia, the youngest of 12 children. He studied with David Ignatow at the 92nd Street Y in New York City in the early 80’s and later at the Antioch Writers’ Workshop in Yellow Springs, Ohio. He currently studies with Leonard Gontarek in Philadelphia and conducts a poetry workshop, via email since the pandemic, with long term inmates at Phoenix (formerly Graterford) Prison sponsored by the Prison Literacy Project of Pennsylvania and the Phoenix Lifers organization. Ten poems from five poets from this workshop were published in the Fall 2017 Schuylkill Valley Journal. He received “honorable mention” in the 2019 Sandy Crimmins National Poetry Prize for his poem “Phantom Limb” published in the Spring 2019 edition of Philadelphia Stories. His first chapbook, Painting with my Father.
Steve Burke is the author of two chapbooks – After The Harvest & For Now. His work-life consisted of being a psychiatric technician & a labor-and-delivery nurse. He now lives in the Mount Airy section of Philadelphia with wife-Giselle & cat “Luigi ‘Golden Eyes’ Boccherini.”
Charles S. Carr was born in Philadelphia and lived here his whole life. Charles was educated at LaSalle and Bryn Mawr College and has worked in social and community development services for 45 years. He has also been active in raising funds for various missions and organizations serving the poorest of the poor In Haiti. In 2007 Charles was The Mad Poets Review First Prize Winner for his poem “Waiting To Come North”. Charles has two published books of poetry: paradise, pennsylvania and Haitian Mudpies & Other Poems and his poems have been published in various local and national poetry journals. For five years Charles was the host of the Moonstone Poetry series at Fergie’s Pub. Since 2016 he has been 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.
Larry Robin, Host
Open reading follows

Virtual Poetry Reading: 2020 Featured Poets
2021-01-24 14:00
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84532069956?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 845 3206 9956 Passcode: [REDACTED] Phone: +1 646 876 9923 US (New York)
Each year we publish a special anthology of those poets who were featured in the year. In 2020 Moonstone presented 67 Poetry Readings with 160 featured poets, despite the pandemic. Unlike our other anthologies this one is by invitation only, and we have had some terrific poets. Please join us on Zoom as some of them share their poetry
with you. Our 2020 Featured Poets Anthology will be available on our website on January 24 in two volumes for $15. Not all contributors will be reading.

Virtual Poetry Reading: F. X. Baird & Liz Chang, with Alina McNeal and Jennifer Hook
2021-01-27 19:00
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84308329737?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 843 0832 9737 Passcode: [REDACTED] Phone: 1 646 876 9923 US (New York)
F. X. Baird was born in Philadelphia, the youngest of 12 children. He studied with David Ignatow at the 92nd Street Y in New York City in the early 80’s and later at the Antioch Writers’ Workshop in Yellow Springs, Ohio. He currently studies with Leonard Gontarek in Philadelphia and conducts a poetry workshop, via email since the pandemic, with long term inmates at Phoenix (formerly Graterford) Prison sponsored by the Prison Literacy Project of Pennsylvania and the Phoenix Lifers organization. Ten poems from five poets from this workshop were published in the Fall 2017 Schuylkill Valley Journal. He received “honorable mention” in the 2019 Sandy Crimmins National Poetry Prize for his poem “Phantom Limb” published in the Spring 2019 edition of Philadelphia Stories. His first chapbook, Painting with my Father.
Liz Chang was 2012 Montgomery County Poet Laureate in Pennsylvania. Her poems have appeared in Verse Daily, Rock & Sling, Origins Journal, Breakwater Review and Stoneboat Literary Journal, among others. Her translations from French appeared in The Adirondack Review. Her 2018 chapbook Animal Nocturne is available from Moonstone Press. She is an Associate Professor of English at Delaware County Community College.
Baird and Chang were inaugural members of the Lansdale Workshop Group, founded in 2010 and sponsored by the Montgomery County Poet Laureate program.
Alina McNeal & Jennifer Hook, Hosts
Open reading follows

It Can't Happen Here Reading
2021-01-31 14:00
Reflections on January 6, 2021
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84532069956?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 845 3206 9956 Passcode: [REDACTED] – Phone +1 646 876 9923 US (New York)
On the same day that an African American minister and a person of Jewish heritage are elected to the Senate from the state of Georgia, giving the Democratic party control of both houses of congress and the presidency, Donald Trump incites a crowd of his supporters to attack the capitol. People waving Confederate flags, breaking into the building, leaving two pipe bombs and several people dead. Sinclair Lewis is reported to have said, “When Fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.” The Sinclair Lewis Society says, “This quote sounds like something Sinclair Lewis might have said or written, but we’ve never been able to find this exact quote. There is a similar quote in It Can’t Happen Here”. We depend on poets to speak the truth. Moonstone will release It Can’t Happen Here Anthology today.
$15 – Not All Contributors Will Be Reading

Moonstone Poetry @ PhillyCAM: Norma Ketzis Bernstock, Sean Hanrahan, and Elaine Terranova, with Charles S. Carr
2021-02-02 18:30
699 Ranstead Street,Comcast Cable 66/966HD/967 or Verizon FIOS, 29/30 in Philadelphia.

2021 Philly Loves Poetry Interview and Readings Series
Writing During the Pandemic
How have writers coped? Have they producd more or less? How has it effected what they write about? Their insights, observations, fears, hopes.

Norma Ketzis Bernstock – After retiring from a 34-year career in education in New York City and Northern New Jersey, Norma moved to Milford, Pennsylvania where she became a member of the Upper Delaware Writers Collective. She now works full-time writing and publishing her poetry which has appeared in many journals and anthologies including Stillwater Review, Exit 13, Connecticut River Review, Paterson Literary Review, Lips, Meta-Land—Poets of the Palisades II, Pennsylvania Seasons and the International Bilingual Anthology, Bridging the Waters, II. Norma is author of Don’t Write a Poem About Me After I’m Dead (Big Table Publishing.)
Sean Hanrahan is the author of the full-length poetry collection Safer Behind Popcorn (Cajun Mutt 2019) and the chapbooks Hardened Eyes on the Scan (Moonstone Press 2018) and Gay Cake (Toho 2020). He is head poetry editor for Toho, serves on the Moonstone Press Editorial Board and as an instructor for Green Street Poetry, writes poetry reviews for Mad Poets, and hosts a poetry series at Moonstone and Art with Spirits. photo credit to Reed Gustow

Elaine Terranova grew up in a working-class neighborhood and has held a variety of jobs: factory worker, office temp, preschool teacher, and editor. She taught at the Community College of Philadelphia, Temple University, the University of Delaware, and in the Rutgers, Camden MFA program. She is author of seven collections of poetry and two chapbooks. Terranova’s first book, The Cult of the Right Hand won the 1990 Walt Whitman Award, Perdido, 2018, is her most recent book. Her poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The American Poetry Review, Pleiades, Ploughshares, and other magazines and anthologies. Among her awards are a Pushcart Prize, the Margaret Banister residency at Sweet Briar, the Judah L. Magnes Gold Medal, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Pew Center. Her memoir, The Diamond Cutter’s Daughter will be out this spring.

Charles S. Carr, Host

Virtual Poetry Reading: James Feichthaler, Anthony Palma, Mbarek Sryfi, with Larry Robin
2021-02-03 19:00
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84308329737?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 843 0832 9737 – Passcode: [REDACTED] – Phone: 1 646 876 9923 US (New York)
James Feichthaler is a poet and essayist whose work has appeared in One Art, Sortes, Schuylkill Valley Journal, and the Mad Poets Society’s Local Lyrics series. His new book The Rise of the COVFEFE, a poetical satire of these divided and uncertain times, was recently published by Parnilis Media. He is also the host of an open mic reading in Manayunk, PA called The Dead Bards of Philadelphia. “With its controversial take on politics, recent events, and all things Americana, James Feichthaler’s epic poem The Rise of the COVFEFE addresses the seriousness of these divided times with a brutal honesty and sharp humor, and the dark undertones that haunt its stanzas speak to the frail uncertainty of a society unhinged.”
Anthony Palma’s work attempts to bridge the gap between poetry and other forms while addressing issues of social justice, identity, and existence. His work has appeared in publications such as Rue Scribe, Oddball Magazine, and the Show Us Your Papers Anthology. His debut collection of poetry, flashes of light from the deep (Parnilis Media), is now available on Amazon. Be sure to look him up on social media at anthonypalmapoetry
Mbarek Sryfi is a lecturer in foreign languages and Arabic language Coordinator at the University of Pennsylvania. His work has been widely published in many journals and magazines, and anthologies including Al-Arabiyya, Banipal, CEELAN Review, Metamorphoses, Middle Eastern Literatures, The Journal of North African Studies, Translation Review, World Literature Today, and has contributed to A New Divan— a lyrical dialogue between East & West, among others. Sryfi has co-authored Perspectives: Arabic Language and Culture in Film, co-translated four books, The Monarch of the Square, The Arabs and the Art of Storytelling, The Elusive Fox, The Blueness of the Evening, and published two poetry collections, The Trace of a Smile and City Poems.

Larry Robin, Host – Open Reading Follows

Virtual Poetry Reading in Collaboration with Serotonin: Lexi Locket, Warren Longmire, Basil Wright, with Sean Lynch
2021-02-06 14:00
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82855093815?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 828 5509 3815 Passcode: [REDACTED] – Phone: 1-646 876 9923 US (New York)
Lexi Locket is a creative in Phoenix, AZ. She enjoys the art of storytelling through poetry, prose, music, and performance art. When not creating, Lexi works as a music therapist in the mental health field. Lexi also enjoys playing roller derby, spending time with her family and friends, and raising her fur babies. She self-published her first chapbook, ‘The After Life’, in the fall of 2019, and has been featured in Tealight Press and has work forthcoming in the All Female Menu Zine. She can be found on Twitter @punkiepie394 and on Instagram @poetrywithlexi

Warren Longmire is the co-founder of the Excelano Project Spoken Word Collective and the former Director of Poetry Events for Blue Stoop. He’s been published in journals including American Poetry Review, Eleven Eleven, Graviton and The Painted Bride Quarterly. He is featured in the Best American Poetry 2021 anthology and will release his first full collection with Radiator Press this fall. You can find his writings, musings and selfies on instagram @alongmirewriter.

Basil Wright is a Black and Indigenous autistic queer writer that lives in Florida with their sibling. Their work has appeared in Perhappened Mag, The Daily Drunk Mag, and Disability Madison’s Black and Disabled Virtual Showcase.

Sean Lynch, Host

Virtual Poetry Reading: Hermond Palmer, Cherise A. Pollard, Leena Taylor, with Sean Hanahan
2021-02-10 19:00
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84308329737?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 843 0832 9737 Passcode: [REDACTED] Phone: 1 646 876 9923 US (New York)

Hermond Palmer is a poet, author and song writer who has performed his work at spoken-word venues in and around Harlem, Philadelphia, and Washington D.C. He is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania’s College of Arts & Sciences and the Wharton Graduate School of Business. He has published three books of poetry; Echoes from the Quiet that I Keep, Words to Fill the Light in You, and What the Ancestors Told Me and I Decided to Listen. He has a Chapbook of Love poems entitled Aquarian Love Poems forthcoming from Moonstone Publishing in 2021 and he is currently wrapping up his first book of fiction, entitled Road Kings.

Cherise A. Pollard, Ph.D., is Professor of English and Director of the Poetry Center at West Chester University of PA. A Cave Canem and Callaloo Fellow, Pollard was awarded a grant from the Money for Women/Barbara Deming Memorial Fund. Her work has a in several journals including 5 AM, Affilia: The Journal of Women in Social Work, African American Review, Connotations Press, The Healing Muse, The Mom Egg, The Pittsburgh Poetry Review, PoemMemoirStory, and Rattle. Her poem, “Sugar Babe” was a Finalist for the 2015 Rattle Poetry Prize. Her chapbook, Outsiders, was chosen by C.M. Burroughs as the winner of the 2015 Susan K. Collins/Mississippi Valley Chapbook Contest sponsored by the Midwest Writing Center.

Leena Taylor spent her formative years in northeast Philadelphia. Leena exists at the crossroads of multiple sometimes conflicting cultures. Her poetry is an expression of a women that is often overlooked in America she is black she is Muslim she is women in a place that can hardly understand the nuances of one of those identities. As a caregiver, Leena loves amplifying the voice of those othered by society and writes with the intention of giving a home to women who are often omitted from the narrative of America. Her debut chapbook is available at https://www.tohopub.com/product-page/they-shot-anyway.

Sean Hanahan, Host – Open Reading Follows

Virtual Poetry Reading: Samantha Barrow, Lisa Grunberger, Jane Ellen Ibur, with Aaren Perry
2021-02-17 19:00
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84308329737?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 843 0832 9737 Passcode: [REDACTED] Phone: 1-646 876 9923 US (New York)

Samantha Barrow is director of the Humanities in Medicine at the Sophie Davis School of Biomedical Education at The City College of New York, and teaching in the Program of Narrative Medicine at Columbia. Spoken word poet, performance artist and educator. Author of ‘GRIT’, ‘tender membrane’, ‘Jelly’ and ‘Chap’. Her poetry, prose, reviews and interviews have been published in places such as Off Our Backs, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Philadelphia City Paper, Lesbian Nation and Feminist Review.

Lisa Grunberger is the author of three books: Yiddish Yoga: Ruthie’s Adventures in Love, Loss and the Lotus Position (Harper Collins, 2009) and two poetry books: Born Knowing (Finishing Line Press) and I am dirty (Moonstone Press, First Prize Winner). A Pushcart nominee and Temple University Professor, her work has appeared in a wide variety of publications including The New York Times, Hanging Loose Press, Crab Orchard Review, Krytyka Literacka and The Mom Egg Review. She teaches Narrative Medicine and Yoga and Writing at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine. Her play about motherhood, infertility, and assisted reproductive technologies, Almost Pregnant, is currently under artistic development at the Squeaky Bicycle Theatre company in NYC. When she’s not being a mom, a professor and a poet, she teaches Yoga and Writing Workshops at The Healing Arts Center in Philadelphia.

Jane Ellen Ibur, Poet Laureate of St Louis, Missouri, an established arts educator, received a Visionary Award for Outstanding Arts Educator; recognized as a Warrior Poet from Word in Motion; two awards from the Missouri Scholar’s Academy, A World of Difference Award from the Anti-Defamation League. Honored with an Author Recognition Award by the Missouri Center for the Book, she is published in literary journals and anthologies since 1972 garnering numerous additional awards. She is the author of Both Wings Flappin’, Still Not Flyin’ and The Little Mrs./Misses both published by PenUltimate Press. For further details, visit Ibur’s Wikipedia page.
Aaren Perry, Host – Open Reading Follows

Virtual Poetry Reading: New Voices: Emerging Poets, Rose-Marie Athiley, Colby Bellman, Wes Mathews, with Larry Robin
2021-02-20 14:00
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82855093815?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 828 5509 3815 Passcode: [REDACTED]
New Voices is a program designed for emerging poets under the age of 25.

Rose-Marie Athiley (she/hers) is a senior at Hamline University in Saint Paul, MN, where she studies English and Communications. She moved to the United States in 2006 and through learning her third language found the art of the pen and word. Her love for poetry has found itself in her academic essays and newspaper articles. Rose-Marie uses her poems and essays to foster empathy and understanding. Her most recent publication was in 22 Under 22: Young People Speak!, an anthology of fiction, essay, and poetry by 22 people under the age of 22.

Colby Bellman is more than just your typical “average person.” His whacky personality always shines amongst the crowd, and he tries to incorporate that “shine” in all of his projects. He’s perusing a Film & Media Arts degree at Temple University while also obtaining an English minor and an acting certificate. Colby enjoys writing of all kinds and aims to entertain his readers by taking them on a journey into his bizarre (but creative) mind.

Wes Mathews is currently at the University of Pennsylvania. As Philadelphia’s Youth Poet Laureate (2018/2019) he held workshops for elementary–school students across the city in hopes of fostering that same foundation he had. “Having a foundation in poetry as a child will sustain you for life…you experience so much internal freedom, and it’s kind of hard to let go of that feeling.” Without forcing any definitions on students, he gave them the opportunity to think more about how they personally experienced their world. Matthews, a two-time Brave New Voices competitor, was a speaker at the 2016 TEDx in Detroit. A winner of the 2018 Philly Slam League All-Star Poetry Slam, he has published in the Detroit Free Press, Eunoia Review, Dreginald Magazine, and elsewhere. “Poetry is an open field, It allows you to exercise your imagination and creative freedom and intuition…”
Larry Robin, Host. Open Reading Follows.

Virtual Poetry Reading: Philly Jawns: For Women Revisited, Poetry Anthology Tribute to Nina Simone
2021-02-21 19:00
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81841890688?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 818 4189 0688 Passcode: [REDACTED]
PHILLY JAWNS: FOR WOMEN REVISITED
A poetry anthology in tribute to Nina Simone
“Editors Debra Powell-Wright and Pat McLean-Smith have lovingly gathered a chorus of voices from the city of brotherly love and sisterly affection to honor Nina Simone, the queen of Black Woman Magic, Rage and Reckoning. These Philly jawns revisit and revive Nina’s infinite gospel. This anthology is both playlist and prayer for Ms. Simone, our mold-breaker and future fashioner.” —Yolanda Wisher, Philadelphia Poet Laureate 2016-2017
With: Annette Deigh, Wanda Flowers, Brenda Hodges, Jaz, Aziza Kebe, Kia Knight, Oni Lasana, Pat McLean-Smith, Alida Padilla, Debra Powell-Wright, Rahnda Rize, Sandra Turner-Barnes, Kimmika Williams-Witherspoon

Annette Deigh is a mother, wife, daughter, sister, friend, child of God, and survivor of child abuse and sexual assault, which led her to become an “artivist,” channeling her love of the arts and humanity into helping to heal others.

Wanda Flowers Peacock has spent her life advocating for human rights, as a teacher and as an attorney fighting discrimination in the workplace. She is focused on creating peace through interfaith activities, exploring justice through poetic expression, and by elevating the state of girls and women, as a mentor.

Brenda Hodges is a poet and author whose work centers on telling the stories of Black, Brown, and Indigenous Women. She is the author of Contradictions in Shades of Blue, a poetry collection, and Naima The Junkman’s Daughter, a novel.

Jaz is a Performance Poet, Singer, Actress, Author, Award-Winning Poet & ASCAP songwriter, who has performed at venues including Freedom Theater, Temple University, and Enon Tabernacle Baptist Church. Jaz is interested being of service to those considered to be castaways and forgotten people of the world.

Aziza Kebe is an Art Activist, Poet, Griot, Public Servant, and Citizen of the World who utilizes her art form to uplift her culture, promote Black Womanhood in a positive light, and cultivate a consciousness receptive to social and political change.

Kia Knight is a poet, singer, songwriter, dancer and percussionist. She has been performing in the Philadelphia area and surround area as a guest artist with In The Company of Poets and as a member of For Women Collective.

Nish Pugh is a founding member of In The Company of Poets and The Free-Though Collective performance ensembles, she is also founder and facilitator of spoken word venues Word4Word, Moods in Mocha, and TOPS–Taste of Philly S.O.U.L.

Oni Lasana (Desirable Poet of The People), a descendant of African San peoples with roots in Barbados, is a life-long spirit-driven poet, storyteller, musician, performance and teaching artist. As “Auntie Oni” she can be heard telling stories on ABF Creative podcast.

Pat McLean-Smith is a poet and teaching artist, author of Poetry Pulls Pain and Healing Her Hurts, author and illustrator of her children’s book Reggie Rascal. In addition, Pat is the Founder and Director of the Tomorrow’s Girls Mentoring Program.

Alida L. Padilla aka Poetic Ali, is a Puerto Rican woman who has loved poetry, music and art since a young age. Poetic Ali contributes an inspired work influenced by Nina Simone’s music and voice for this collection.

Debra Powell-Wright serves as lead strategist of social justice artist advocacy collective, SistahWrites!, founder of the multi-genre performance ensemble, For Women Collective, and a founding member of Philly’s first female spoken word ensemble, In The Company of Poets. Her work can be found in Check the Rhyme: An Anthology of Female Poets & Emcees, Imaging the Black Female Body: Reconciling Image in Print and Visual Culture, Stand Our Ground: Poems for Trayvon Martin & Marissa Alexander, The Pierian: Albany State University Literary Journal.

Rahnda Rize is a singer/songwriter, actor dancer and poet as well as an arts facilitator, event organizer/host, and an art for social change agent who advocates for the self esteem, well-being and representation of Black women and girls.

Sandra Turner-Barnes is a Poet, Author, Historian, and Workshop Presenter, author of Beyond the Back of the Bus, But, Mostly Love, and a CD, September Will Never Be the Same. She is a Trustee of the Camden County Historical Society; founding member of the New Jersey Black Cultural & Heritage Initiative Foundation; and the first African American woman appointed Executive Director of the Camden County Cultural & Heritage Commission.

Kimmika Williams Witherspoon is an Associate Professor of Urban Theater and Community Engagement at Temple University. She is the author of Through Smiles and Tears: The History of African American Theater (From Kemet to the Americas); The Secret Messages in African American Theater: Hidden Meaning Embedded in Public Discourse. Her scholarly work centers around pedagogy, women’s issues, the African diaspora, performance rituals and community engagement.

Host: Ewuare X. Osayande is an award-winning poet, essayist, publisher, international social justice activist and anti-oppression educator.

Virtual Poetry Reading: Ahmad Almallah, Grant Clauser, with Larry Robin
2021-02-24 19:00
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84308329737?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 843 0832 9737 Passcode: [REDACTED]

Ahmad Almallah holds a Ph.D. in Classical Arabic Poetry from Indiana University Bloomington. He is currently a Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania, working on writing a book on Arabic love poetry and the ghazal. He held the position of Assistant Professor of Arabic and Arabic Literature at Middlebury College and left that position to move to Philadelphia with his wife and daughter in 2014. Since then he has found inspiration in Philadelphia to work on writing poetry and has been involved with the Arab arts and education organization, Al-Bustan Seeds of Culture, in West Philadelphia. He is currently managing their project “Words Adorned: Andalusian Poetry and Music.”

Grant Clauser is the author of five books, most recently Muddy Dragon on the Road to Heaven (winner of the Codhill Press Poetry Award) and Reckless Constellations (winner of the Cider Press Review Book Award). Poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, Cortland Review, The Literary Review, The Journal, Rattle, Southern Poetry Review and others. He was the 2010 Montgomery County Poet Laureate, has been a presenter at numerous writing conferences and a guest speaker at the Sharjah International Book Fair in the United Arab Emirates. He received his MFA from Bowling Green State University where he was a Richard Devine Fellow. He is a senior editor at the New York Times’ Wirecutter and teaches poetry classes at Rosemont College

Virtual Poetry Reading: Martín Espada, Afaa Weaver, with Larry Robin
2021-02-27 14:00
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82855093815?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 828 5509 3815 Passcode: [REDACTED]
Martín Espada
Celebrating his new book Floaters: Poems
Autographed copies for $26.95 available at our website www.moonstoneartscenter.com
Martín Espada is celebrating his new book Floaters: Poems ($26.95, W. W. Norton & Company, 978-0393541038).
“Vintage Espada―essential, topical, political, irrepressible; in his poems, mercy acquires muscle and close attention confers value―reminding us that protest and praise rise from the same source. Such eloquence in comradeship, elegy and homage to those who lit the path, and, oh, a fresh bounty of love poems, written ‘not in lust but in astonishment.'” — Eleanor Wilner
Floaters takes its title from a term used by certain Border Patrol agents to describe migrants who drown trying to cross over. The title poem responds to the viral photograph of Óscar and Valeria, a Salvadoran father and daughter who drowned in the Río Grande, and allegations posted in the “I’m 10-15” Border Patrol Facebook group that the photo was faked.
Espada bears eloquent witness to confrontations with anti-immigrant bigotry as a tenant lawyer years ago, and now sings the praises of Central American adolescents kicking soccer balls over a barbed wire fence in an internment camp founded on that same bigotry. He also knows that times of hate call for poems of love―even in the voice of a cantankerous Galápagos tortoise.
Martín Espada has published more than twenty books as a poet, editor, essayist and translator, including Vivas to Those Who Have Failed and Pulitzer finalist The Republic of Poetry. His many honors include the Ruth Lilly Prize, the Shelley Memorial Award, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Born in Brooklyn, he now lives in western Massachusetts.

Afaa M. Weaver (尉雅風)
“Afaa Michael Weaver reaffirms the value and necessity of a worker’s poetics in his latest collection, Spirit Boxing. Here, work is not celebrated for its own sake or merely derided as drudgery but is considered as a primary source of hardship, solidarity, pain, pride, and joy.” —the Literary Review
Born in 1951 in Baltimore, Maryland, he spent fifteen years (1970-85) working in factories and developing himself as a poet, editor, and free-lance journalist. Near the end of that period, he received a 1985 NEA in poetry. He has published fifteen books of poetry, the most recent of which is Spirit Boxing. From 1997 to 2001, he was the editor of Obsidian III. His awards include the 1993 PDI playwriting award, multiple Pushcarts, a 2002 Fulbright at National Taiwan University, the Beijing Writers’ Gold Friendship medal in 2005, the 2014 Kingsley Tufts, the 2015 Phyllis Wheatley award, and a 2017 Guggenheim. In 2019, Afaa was given two lifetime achievement awards, from the St. Botolph Club Foundation in Boston and in Taiwan the 96th National Medal in Art & Literature. His poetry has been translated into Arabic and Chinese. Afaa is a lifelong student of Chinese language and culture. In 2017, he retired from Simmons U, after twenty years holding the Alumnae Endowed Chair. He now teaches at Sarah Lawrence.

Moonstone Poetry @ PhillyCAM: Dilruba Ahmed with Charles S. Carr
2021-03-02 18:30
Watch the live broadcast:
Comcast Cable 66/966HD/967 | Verizon FIOS 29/30 in Philadelphia | PhillyCAM TV:
https://phillycam.org/watch2021
2021 Philly Loves Poetry Interview and Readings Series
Dilruba Ahmed is the author Bring Now the Angels (Pitt Poetry Series, 2020), with poems featured in New York Times Magazine, The Best American Poetry 2019, and podcasts such as The Slowdown and Poetry Unbound. Her debut book of poetry, Dhaka Dust (Graywolf Press, 2011), won the Bakeless Prize. Her poems have appeared in Kenyon Review, New England Review, and Ploughshares. Ahmed is part of the low-residency MFA faculty at Warren Wilson College’s MFA Program for Writers and Chatham University’s MFA Program. She also teaches with Hugo House and The Writing Lab. Website: www.dilrubaahmed.com/

“In Bring Now the Angels, Dilruba Ahmed sings a complex song of loss: loss of a father, loss of a culture, and loss of country, both the original country and the one in which one is raised. In tightly-wound lyrics, Ahmed questions what it is to live in this present moment where loss seems to build almost hourly. With stringent rhetoric and beautiful imagery, Ahmed shows us what it means to be ‘[c]aught between one world / and the next . . .’”—C. Dale Young

“There are books of poetry whose service approaches public ritual of private feeling, Dilruba Ahmed’s Bring Now the Angels is one of those books. It is a prayer to see more clearly one’s grief and one’s relationship to the vibrancy and complexity of parents and children and the natural world. This is a book that asks about neglect and regret in order to understand how we might care for the living and the dead. What a healing collection of poems Ahmed has given us.” —Patrick Rosal

“Dilruba Ahmed’s luminous second book of poems, Bring Now the Angels, considers layered relationships and identities: adults to parents and children; bystanders as public witnesses; humans to angels, to water, or bureaucracy — or, as in ‘Zodiac,’ to the self.” —Naomi Shihab Nye, New York Times Magazine
Charles S. Carr, Host

Virtual Poetry Reading: Nathan Antoine, Philip Dykhouse, Susana Praver-Pérez, with Elijah Pringle
2021-03-03 19:00
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84308329737?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 843 0832 9737 Passcode: [REDACTED]

Nathan Antoine – “I’m an introverted poet living somewhere in my mind. Although, Charlotte, NC is where you’ll find me. I’ve been writing poetry for over 15 years, specializing in poetry that details our specific thoughts, feelings, observations, rage or whatever comes mind. I mix current and traditional style poetry, prose and story telling and create art from my mind, that you feel in your soul.”

Philip Dykhouse lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His first chapbook, Bury Me Here, was published by Toho Publishing in 2020. His work has appeared in Toho Journal, Moonstone Press, everseradio.com, and Spiral Poetry. He was the featured reader for the Dead Bards of Philadelphia at the 2018 Philadelphia Poetry Festival. Visit his website philipdykhousepoetry.home.blog

Susana Praver-Pérez is an Oakland-based, Pushcart nominated poet. By day, she works as a Physician Assistant at La Clínica de la Raza. By night, she can be found reading poetry at open mics from San Francisco to San Juan, By nature, she is a storyteller recounting that to which she bears witness through her poetic lens. Susana’s work has appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies including two published by Moonstone Press. Her first full-length book of poetry titled: Hurricanes, Love Affairs and Other Disasters, will be released by Nomadic Press in mid to late 2021.

Elijah Pringle, Host – Open Reading Follows
