Moonstone Arts Center

Virtual Poetry Reading: Readings from New Voices: Fall 2021
2021-11-20 14:00 - 15:00 (America/New_York) | PA
Virtual Poetry Reading of Readings of New Voices: Fall 2021

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84532069956?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 845 3206 9956, Passcode: [REDACTED]
Help us celebrate the young voices of poetry with our Fall 2021 New Voices anthology release!
New Voices: Philadelphia’s Emerging Poets is a program designed for emerging poets under the age of 25. It aims to create a platform for younger poets by welcoming them into the larger Philadelphia poetry community and giving them the opportunity to share their work with a wider audience.
We tend to narrow our audience and present to others in our schools or poetry groups. Moonstone’s goal is to expand your audience, get you published, and introduce you to others who share your interest in poetry but live in different communities. Each month we present three poets from different communities followed by an open reading.
Click here to see our previous volumes of New Voices.

Live Poetry Reading: R.G. Evans, Michael Storm Miller, and Rocky Wilson
2021-11-24 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Live Poetry Reading with R.G. Evans, Michael Storm Miller, and Rocky Wilson

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84308329737?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 843 0832 9737 – Passcode: [REDACTED]

R.G. Evans’s books include Overtipping the Ferryman (Aldrich Press Poetry Prize), The Holy Both, and Imagine Sisyphus Happy. His poems and prose have appeared in RATTLE, Philadelphia Stories, and Weird Tales among other publications. Evans’s first album of original songs, Sweet Old Life, is available on most streaming platforms, and he is currently recording a follow up album.

Michael Storm Miller is a poet/ spoken word artist from Chester who served in the military for 15 and uses spoken word as a median to bridge the gap in understanding between veterans and civilians so that together we all can find healing.

Rocky Wilson is a poet, performance artist and substitute teacher who lives along the Delaware River in Camden, NJ with his little puppet friend bongo.
“Rocky Wilson is not just the muse of Camden, New Jersey, the poorest city in these rich, un-united states, he is its soul. Camden is where he finds redemption for a lifetime of loss, “What saves our lives” HE WRITES, “a 6th grade girl, a little cloth monkey, a dull knife, an angel’s wings brushing through the ghetto night.” There’s no doubt in my mind, that if Walt Whitman were alive, he would be rocky Wilson’s biggest fan.” -Peter E. Murphy, Stockton College

Open Reading Follows

Book Release Party: John Wall Barger's "Resurrection Fail" with Savannah Cooper-Ramsey, Ernest Hilbert, Warren C Longmire, Glorious Piner, Luke Stromberg
2021-12-01 19:00 - 20:00 | PA
Book Release Party for John Wall Barger’s “Resurrection Fail”
Featuring readings from Savannah Cooper-Ramsey, Ernest Hilbert, Warren C Longmire, Glorious Piner, Luke Stromberg, hosted by Fayyaz Vellani
1214 Sansom Street and on zoom
Register for the Zoom link here: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86880897372?pwd=[REDACTED]

John Wall Barger is the author of Pain-proof Men; Hummingbird; The Book of Festus; The Mean Game and Resurrection Fail. He is a contract editor for Frontenac House, and teaches at UARTS.

Savannah Cooper-Ramsey is the author of the artist book Not Fit for Print, winner of BOMB Magazine’s 2018 Biennial Poetry Prize and finalist for the 2018 Sandy Crimmins National Poetry Award.

Ernest Hilbert is the author of Sixty Sonnets, All of You on the Good Earth, Caligulan—selected as winner of the 2017 Poets’ Prize—and Last One Out, he works as a rare book dealer and book critic for The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal.

Warren C Longmire is a writer, software engineer and educator from the bad part of North Philadelphia. His writing has been published in American Poetry Review, Eleven Eleven, The Painted Bride Quarterly and in the upcoming Best American Poetry Anthology of 2021.

Glorious Piner teaches Poetry at the University of Maryland and at the University of the Arts, published in Queerbook, The American Poetry Review, The Florida Review, Conduit Magazine, and more.

Luke Stromberg’s poetry and criticism have appeared in Smartish Pace, The Hopkins Review, The New Criterion, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Golidad Review, Think Journal, and others, he is Associate Poetry Editor of E-Verse Radio.

HOST: Fayyaz Vellani is a British-Canadian writer who has lived in London, New York, and Philadelphia, where he teaches writing at the University of Pennsylvania. His first novel Tea with Ms. Tanzania will be published by Africa World Press in 2022.

Virtual Poetry Reading: David R. Slavitt
2021-12-05 14:00 - 15:00 | PA
Registration Required, register at:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZAodOuoqDIjH9L0yqjhYo_jLZzXejq83PCT
Virtual poetry reading with David R. Slavitt.

David R. Slavitt’s new book is Opus Posthumous and Other Poems (19.95, LSU Press 978-0807175668). He is a poet, novelist, critic, and author of more than
130 works of literature, in styles ranging from dramatic translations to pulp fiction. His new book, Opus Posthumous and Other Poems, Slavitt traverses Africa, India, Israel, and the America in which he finds himself, complete with visits to zoos, casinos, baseball fields, and cemeteries, as he searches for clues from which he might learn at least a little. He translates verse from Yiddish and Provençal and offers commentaries on received wisdom, everyday events, and the vagaries of existence. Slavitt’s awards, including a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship for translation, an award for literature from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, and a Rockefeller Foundation artist’s
residency. He currently lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

“The power of narrative to transform the events it recounts is among the most rewarding mysteries by which we can be absorbed. David Slavitt is among the most accomplished living practitioners of that art, in both prose and verse; his poems give us a pleasurable, beautiful way of m
editating on a bad time. We can’t ask much more of literature, and usually we get far less.” ― Henry Taylor in “Compulsory Figures: Essays on Recent American Poets”
“[Slavitt’s] range in forms, tones of voice, and subject matter is wide and various. He shows that he can handle all kinds of tough, tricky forms, and that he likes forms. He is perfectly at home in many rhythms, formal and syncopated. The language is brilliant, the range almost complete (from Ronald Firbank to Lenny Bruce and Dave Gardner). He can be witty or can crack wise as the occasion demands. Above all, he can think in verse, thus inviting the reader to use his intelligence, too.” ― George Garrett in “The Hollins Critic”

PhillyCAM Interview and Reading Series: Daniel Simpson with Charles S. Carr
2021-12-07 18:30 - 19:30 | PA
PhillyCAM and Moonstone present Daniel Simpson in conversation with Charles S. Carr
Watch the live broadcast:
Comcast Cable 66/966HD/967 | Verizon FIOS 29/30 in Philadelphia | PhillyCAM TV: https://phillycam.org/watch

In 2017, Daniel Simpson and his wife, Ona Gritz, collaborated on two books, as co-authors of Border Songs: A Conversation in Poems and as co-editors of More Challenges for the Delusional, an anthology of prose, poetry, and writing prompts. School for the Blind, his first collection of poems, came out in 2014. His work has been anthologized in Welcome to the Resistance: Poetry as Protest, About Us: Essays from the Disability Series of the New York Times, and Beauty Is a Verb: The New Poetry of Disability, and has appeared in Prairie Schooner, The Cortland Review, and many other journals. “Let’s Walk Together,” a composition for bass soloist and choir, based on a text he wrote, received its premiere performance by Voces8 in London last December. Voces8 and four other choirs also performed “A Song Everyone Can Sing, for which he served as lyricist in March, 2019. The recipient of a Fellowship in Literature from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, he tends a blog, Inside the Invisible, which can be found at insidetheinvisible.wordpress.com.

Live Poetry Reading: Eduardo C. Corral, Cameron MacKenzie, Spencer Short, with John Wall Barger
2021-12-08 19:00 - 20:00 | PA
Live Poetry Reading with Eduardo C. Corral, Cameron MacKenzie, and Spencer Short, hosted by John Wall Barger
Live at Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street and on zoom
Registration Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIlf-mgpzwpHdZZB3CAIOVCXQ-8utbL0yWr

Eduardo C. Corral, author of Slow Lightning, which won the Yale Younger Poets Prize
and Guillotine. Praised for his seamless blending of English and Spanish, tender treatment of history, and careful exploration of sexuality, Corral has received numerous honors and awards, including the Discovery/The Nation Award, the J. Howard and Barbara M.J. Wood Prize, a Whiting Writers’ Award, and a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. A CantoMundo Fellow, he has held the Olive B. O’Connor Fellowship in Creative Writing at Colgate University and was the Philip Roth Resident in Creative Writing at Bucknell University. In 2016 he won the Holmes National Poetry Prize from Princeton University. Corral teaches in the MFA program at North Carolina State University is currently a Hodder Fellow at Princeton University.

Cameron MacKenzie was born in Virginia and has worked as a dry cleaner, house painter, contractor, editor, and teacher, residing in Santa Barbara, London, Tokyo, Philadelphia, San Francisco and now Virginia once again, where he lives with his wife and two children. Cameron MacKenzie’s work has appeared in The Michigan Quarterly Review, Salmagundi, The Rumpus, and J Journal, among other places. His novel, The Beginning of His Excellent and Eventful Career and monograph Badiou and American Modernist Poetics were both published in 2018. He teaches English at Ferrum College and writes for The Roanoke Review.

Spencer Short‘s collection of poetry, Tremolo, was a winner of the 2000 National Poetry Series, selected by Billy Collins. Emily Nussbaum, reviewing Tremolo for The New York Times, noted “”a prickly stir of humor, philosophy and romantic giddiness,” and that “reading this book is something like walking into a kitchen at a party and coming upon a wild charmer you’d never met, mid-gesticulation — a terrific storyteller, but also one eager to switch gears mid-sentence, mid-phrase, mid-thought.” Cal Bedient, reviewing Tremolo in the Boston Review, found “a clawing power of invention.” In 2003, Short was included in the Poetry Society of America’s New American Poets festival honoring the “most interesting recent first book poets.” His poems have been included in several anthologies.

Open Reading Follows

Virtual Poetry Reading: Daniel Biegelson, Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach, Lisa Grunberger, Alicia Jo Rabins
2021-12-09 19:00 - 20:00 | PA
Virtual Poetry Reading with Daniel Biegelson, Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach, Lisa Grunberger, Alicia Jo Rabins
Split at the Root: Jewish Writers Wrestle with Parenthood, Politics, and Memory

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84308329737?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 843 0832 9737 – Passcode: [REDACTED]

Daniel Biegelson is the author of the book of being neighbors (Ricochet Editions) and the chapbook Only the Borrowed Light (VERSE). He serves as the Director of the Visiting Writers Series at Northwest Missouri State University, where he also works as an editor for The Laurel Review. His poems have appeared in or are forthcoming from Denver Quarterly, Diagram, Mid-American Review, New Orleans Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, & RHINO Poetry, among other places He holds an MFA from the University of Montana and an MA from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. He lives near Kansas City with his wife and children.

Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach is the author of The Many Names for Mother, The Bear Who Ate the Stars, Don’t Touch the Bones and 40 WEEKS. Her poems have appeared in Gulf Coast, TriQuarterly, POETRY, American Poetry Review, and The Nation. She is Editor-in-Chief of Construction Magazine and occasionally writes Other women don’t tell you, a blog about motherhood. Julia came to the United States as a Jewish refugee in 1993, from Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine, and grew up in the DC metro area suburb of Rockville, Maryland. Her research focuses on contemporary poetry about the Holocaust, with a special focus on atrocity in former Soviet territories.

Pushcart nominee, Temple University Professor, Lisa Grunberger is a first-generation American writer. Her poetry books I am dirty and Born Knowing are lyrical reflections on life as a Jewish woman, a mother, and a daughter of Shoah survivors. Her book, Yiddish Yoga: Ruthie’s Adventures in Love, Loss and the Lotus Position is currently being adapted as a musical. Her work is widely published and translatred from The New York Times to the Crab Orchard Review. Almost Pregnant, her play about infertility and assisted reproductive technologies, is published by Smith Scripts. Alexa Talks to Rebecca won the Audience Choice Award at the Squeaky Bicyle Theatre and will soon be a short film.

Alicia Jo Rabins is a writer, musician, composer, performer and Torah teacher, author of Divinity School (2015 APR/Honickman First Book Prize) and Fruit Geode(a finalist for the Jewish Book Award.) She creates multi-genre works of experimental beauty which explore the intersection of ancient wisdom texts with everyday life, is the creator of Girls in Trouble, an indie-folk song cycle about the complicated lives of Biblical women and A Kaddish for Bernie Madoff (now an award-winning independent feature film). She is a coffee drinker, plant lover, DIY bar/bat/b’nai mitzvah tutor, and ritualist based in Portland, Oregon.

Virtual Poetry Reading: Christian Andres Alfaro De La Rosa, Paul Buchanan, Reuben Gelley Newman, Nicole Liu, Yi Wei, with Nathalie Anderson
2021-12-12 14:00 - 15:00 | PA
Virtual Poetry Reading: Poets in Their Youth
Featuring Christian Andres Alfaro De La Rosa, Paul Buchanan, Reuben Gelley Newman, Nicole Liu, and Yi Wei, hosted by Nathalie Anderson

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84532069956?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 845 3206 9956, Passcode: [REDACTED]

Christian Andres Alfaro De La Rosa (he/him) is a first generation, Mexican/Chicano writer based out of his hometown of Chicago, Illinois. He writes about the intersections of race, ethnicity, gender, class, inter racial solidarity, poems that touch on his hometown of Chicago, his upbringing, childhood and coming of age within the city’s Southwest Side; he also incorporates other mediums art into his poetry as well (such as photography, visual art, music) that not only inspire, but fuel his creativity and his writing.

Paul Buchanan (he/they) is a queer, Afro-Caribbean writer with roots in Guyana and the American South. His primary interests lie in the intersections between Black identity formation, trauma, and the Black literary tradition. Currently, he is teaching 1st grade full time, working on
extending his research surrounding Black family trauma narratives into a full paper, and working on a collection of chapbooks. He has a B.A in Black Studies and English from Swarthmore College and is a recipient of both the John Russel Hayes Poetry prize and the Mellon Mays Fellowship.

Reuben Gelley Newman (he/him) is a writer and musician from New York City. His work is available in diode, DIALOGIST, Hobart Pulp, and elsewhere. He was a Fall 2020 intern at Copper Canyon Press and works in the library at Williams College in Williamstown, MA. He tweets @joustingsnail.

Nicole Liu (she/her) was born in Hong Kong, raised in Shenzhen, and came of age in Boston. In her poems and essays, she is attracted to topics of miscommunication and the absurd details of her life. Nicole graduated magna cum laude from Swarthmore College with a B.A. in English and Chinese. She is currently applying to graduate school while working as a writer, writing instructor, and translator.

Yi Wei is a first-generation Chinese writer with a BA in Asian American Studies and English from Swarthmore College. She currently serves as the Assistant Flash Fiction Editor at the Asian American Writers’ Workshop. Yi has been awarded the Lois Morrell Poetry Prize and is the third-place winner for the 2021 Sappho Prize for Women Poets. Her work can be found in Palette Poetry, Lantern Review, and Crosswinds. She’s currently a Writer in the Public Schools fellow at NYU’s MFA in poetry.

Live Book Release: Open Source - Warren C. Longmire, with Sean Lynch
2021-12-15 19:00 - 20:00 | PA
Live Book Release: Open Source by Warren C. Longmire, hosted by Sean Lynch
Wednesday December 15, 2021 – 7pm
Live at Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street and on Zoom
Registration Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIlf-mgpzwpHdZZB3CAIOVCXQ-8utbL0yWr

“OPEN SOURCE is a book we’ve been waiting for in Philly, from a poet who can sing its songs through smog and shame with such tender aplomb that it makes me wanna wander these streets we share in search of myself, in search of us. This book be its own city of errant and ecstatic bodies.” –Yolanda Wisher, author of Monk Eats an Afro, Philadelphia Poet Laureate 2016-2017

Selected from two decades of work, the poetry in Warren C. Longmire’s OPEN SOURCE chronicles the complexities of language, identity, love and time. Ranging widely in style, with a lyric intensity rooted in the Philly landscape, this book reveals the interconnections between public and private history, a black man’s daily struggle for self-acceptance and joy amidst “disastrous news and the grace/of each of arc of decay.” Longmire addresses work in the tech industry as well as the gentrifying city as it grinds through a pandemic. At times raw, playful, painful and technical, OPEN SOURCE is poetry alert to the particulars and subtle shifts from day to day in uncertain times, unafraid to grapple with the past inside the present.

Warren C. Longmire is a writer, educator, software engineer and human from North Philadelphia. He is a two-time Pushcart nominee and the co-founder of the Excellano Project Spoken Word Collective. He is a former contributing editor for Apiary Magazine, Director of Poetry Events for Blue Stoop and Programming Manager for the Nick Virgilio Haiku Society. Poems featured in this collection have been published in Stone Fruit, American Poetry Review, Bedfellows, Prolit, Voicemail Poems and The Best American Poetry 2021. Open Source is his first full-length book.

Sean Lynch Host, Open Reading Follows

POSTPONED: Serotonin Marathon Virtual Reading
2021-12-18 14:00 - 16:00 | PA
Serotonin Marathon Virtual Reading
POSTPONED until further notice

Serotonin is partnering with Moonstone Arts Center for a mental illness marathon poetry reading over Zoom.
Neurodivergent readers from around the world will share their work on how they live with their mental illnesses. Readers include Sean Lynch, Raye Hendrix, Thomas Nuhfer, Kika Man, Cleo, Lemmy Ya’akova, Jerica Taylor, Alexandra Weiss, James Roach, Erica Abbott, Lexi Locket, Lauren Theresa, Claire Taylor, Maddi Crease, plus an open mic! Serotonin seeks to be a safe haven for neurodivergent writers and readers. We publish poetry and short poetic prose on mental illness, neurodivergence, and suicide prevention.
Sean Lynch, Host

Live Poetry Reading: Lynn Levin, Jim Mancinelli, Elijah B. Pringle III
2021-12-22 19:00 - 20:00 | PA
Live Poetry Reading with Lynn Levin, Jim Mancinelli, and Elijah B. Pringle III

1214 Sansom Street and on zoom –
Registration Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIlf-mgpzwpHdZZB3CAIOVCXQ-8utbL0yWr

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 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

Jim Mancinelli is author of Primer, In Deep, and The Bartimeus Poems for which he also did the improvisational drawings. His writing is informed by gazing upwards, wandering the depths, and digging in the muddy present. His poems have appeared in The Connecticut River Review, Philadelphia Poets, The Schuylkill Valley Journal of the Arts, Sea Change, Mad Poets Review, Fox Chase Review, and Poetry Ink. He has been a featured reader in various Philadelphia, New Jersey and Delaware including Live from Kelly Writer’s House, was selected as a finalist in the 2011 Atlanta Queer Literary Festival, judged by Mark Doty and is the moderator and founder of the Moveable Beats Reading Series. Jim is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at La Salle University in Philadelphia with research interests in the sociological aspects of stuttering.

Elijah B Pringle III is a Philadelphia based writer/director/actor/choreographer. He has published several chapbooks and his words have been published on every continent except for South American and Antarctica. He has lectured and lead workshops on poetry in AZ, CA,IL, MA, MD, MN, NY, PA, SC and DC. His opinions and insights have appeared in the NY Times, Newsweek and the Philadelphia Daily News. He has recently completed his first full length play entitled “Should Be.” His most recent publication is Lamda Lancer, a collection of LGBT inspired poetry.

Open Reading Follows

Moonstone Poetry @ PhillyCam: Siduri Beckman
2022-01-04 18:30 - 20:30 | PA
Moonstone Poetry @ PhillyCam: Siduri Beckman
Join us at Comcast Cable 66/966HD/967 or Verizon FIOS 29/30 in Philadelphia for an interview and reading by Siduri Beckman!
Siduri Beckman is a lifelong Philadelphian. She served as the inaugural Youth Poet Laureate of Philadelphia where she was mentored by Poet Laureate Sonia Sanchez. She was published most recently in MSU Press’s 2019 collection, Undocumented: Great Lakes Poet Laureates on Social Justice. Siduri is passionate about the intersection of poetry, public education, and civic engagement. Siduri graduated from Yale University in 2020.

Virtual Poetry Reading: Hannah McDonald, Dave Worrell, Sekai'afua Zankel
2022-01-05 19:00 | PA
Virtual Poetry Reading: Hannah McDonald, Dave Worrell, Sekai’afua Zankel
On zoom – Registration Required – Registration Link
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0uduqqqT4tGdxHPamACb5lmRvm5KxM3fY3

Hannah McDonald is a writer, poet, geek, and generally funny queer woman. You may have caught her onstage at The Bechdel Test Fest, the National Poetry Slam, or any number of literary events in the Philly area. The strangest place she’s ever performed her work was a sex toy shop in Vineland, NJ. Her past chapbooks are, sadly, out of print. Her writing has appeared in Apiary, The Legendary, and Dreamstreets. Hannah writes fan-fiction, if you’re into that sort of thing, and is currently dreaming of writing a novel. You might also find her singing karaoke, eating popsicles, baby-talking to her two guinea pigs, or having adventures with friends like you.

Dave Worrell is the author of We Who Were Bound and Close to Home featuring paintings by Catherine Kuzma. Dave’s poems have appeared in Slant, Canary, Heroin Chic, Shot Glass Journal, Referential Magazine, Wild River Review, and elsewhere. He has performed his music-backed poems at Chris’ Jazz Café in Philadelphia and The Cornelia Street Café in New York.
He began writing poetry toward the end of his 30-plus year law career, has taught writing at area community colleges and business law to undergraduates at Drexel University’s LeBow College of Business.

Sekai’afua Zankel, actor, writer, and poet, She is the author of Behind These Eyes/Optical Poems, and a winner of the Leeway Foundation, Art and Change Grant for her Poetry Play, Miss Pearl’s Spirit: In the Mysteries of Mirrors. Her poems have been published In the CAP literary magazine, “Poetry Ink”, several Anthologies, and in “Apiary”, 7 Power Issue. Sekai lives in Philadelphia with her husband, musician Bobby Zankel.

Open Reading Follows

Virtual Poetry Reading: Hope
2022-01-09 14:00 - 16:00 | PA
Virtual Poetry Reading: Hope

What do you hope for – Send us a poem!
DEADLINE – December 31st, 2021
Registration Required – Registration Link
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZYvdO-rpjkoHN1QpCSC9zQU-VrVqTUCFuem

In Greek mythology, Pandora was the first human woman created by the gods. … Nonetheless, Pandora
opened the jar (in modern accounts often mistranslated as “Pandora’s box“) releasing all the evils that
visit humanity like pain and suffering, leaving only hope (expectation) inside once she had closed it
again.
As a noun: Aspiration, desire, wish, expectation, ambition, aim, plan, dream, daydream, pipe dream,
longing, yearning, craving, hankering – As a verb: Expect, anticipate, look for, wait for, be hopeful of, pin
one’s hopes on, want, wish for, dream of, hope against hope for.

Virtual Poetry Reading: Jeffrey Ethan Lee, Mbarek Sryfi, Octavia McBride-Ahebee
2022-01-12 19:00 - 21:00 | PA
Virtual Poetry Reading: Jeffrey Ethan Lee, Mbarek Sryfi, Octavia McBride-Ahebee
ON ZOOM
Registration Required – Registration Link
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0uduqqqT4tGdxHPamACb5lmRvm5KxM3fY3

Jeffrey Ethan Lee‘s first poetry book, invisible sister, was a finalist for the
MMM Press Book Prize. His second book, identity papers, was a finalist for
the Colorado Book Award. His novel, The Autobiography of Somebody Else,
was published by White Pine Press. He won the Sow’s Ear Poetry Press Prize
and the Seven Kitchens Press prizes for poetry chapbooks, and he has
published other poetry chapbooks with Ashland Poetry Press and Moonstone
Press. Poems and prose have been published in APR, North American Review,
Xconnect, etc.

Mbarek Sryfi, poet and translator, teaches at the University of Pennsylvania.
He is the author of The Trace of a Smile and City Poems, co-authored
Perspectives: Arabic Language and Culture in Film and co-translator of
several books. His work has been widely published in many journals and
anthologies including Al-Arabiyya, Banipal, CELAAN Review,
Metamorphoses, Middle Eastern Literatures, The Journal of North African
Studies, Translation Review, and World Literature Today.

Octavia McBride-Ahebee‘s work presents human relationships within the
context of global inequality. She is the author of Assuming Voices, Where My
Birthmark Dances and Praise Song for the Gravediggers. Her work has
appeared in numerous journals and anthologies including Rigorous, For
Harriet, Raising Lilly Ledbetter; Women Poets Occupy the Workplace, Yellow
Medicine, Damazine; A Literary Journal of the Muslim World, Fingernails
Across The Chalkboard: Poetry And Prose on HIV/AIDS From the Black
Diaspora, Under Our Skin: Literature of Breast Cancer and others.

New Voices: Finn Holovacs, Nilah Swan, Evan Wang
2022-01-15 14:00 - 16:00 | PA
New Voices: Finn Holovacs, Nilah Swan, Evan Wang
Registration Required, Registration link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMpcuGtpzIoG9dikX3bDiCslAgJT2w7eGZh
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 poetry community and giving them the opportunity to share their work with a wide audience.
Finn Holovacs is 20 year old from Sparta, New Jersey. He is currently a Communications major with a focus in Journalism at Drexel University. He is an avid writer and has been creating poetry since he was young. Finn enjoys water skiing, spending time with his Siberian Husky, Juneau, and reading/collecting comic books.

Nilah Swan is a freshman at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She is studying Secondary English Education in hopes of being a high school English teacher. She loves dance, tennis, and poetry and is on the dance team at Temple.

Evan Wang is a poet, artist, and musician who was raised on and by the internet. He’s always found a love for words and discovered his niche for poetry at age 12. His work has appeared in Teen Ink, Youth Be Heard, Cathartic Youth Literary Magazine, Bleeding Soul Poetry, among other publications. Evan attends Upper Merion High School and is a Topical Winner of JUST POETRY!!!’s National High School Poetry Contest and winner of Teen Ink’s weekly competition. He has performed at cultural events and readings around the Philadelphia area.

Moonstone Poetry Reading: Five New Chapbooks from Moonstone Press
2022-01-19 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Moonstone Poetry Reading: Five New Chapbooks from Moonstone Press
Live at Fergie’s Pub (1214 Sansom Street) and on Zoom – Registration Required – Registration Link
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0uduqqqT4tGdxHPamACb5lmRvm5KxM3fY3

Hal Freedman is the author of Poems of a Classical Musician ($10.00). His opinion is that the line between music and poetry is a thin one, if such a line exists at all. He feels that both music and poetry are the expressions of an inner melody; one that speaks of the human story. Poet and Editor, Rosemary Cappello.

Irving Courtley Jones, aka Karamo Muchuri Sulieman, is an African American poet and author of Sweet Mints ($10.00). He received Honorable Mention in the 1999 Mellon Poetry Contest, for a 100+ page poem entitled Black Roses. He has also published in numerous magazines; journals and anthologies.

Bohdan Pechenyak, author of 9/11 ($10.00) is a bilingual Ukrainian-American author of poetry, prose, and translations. Born in Lviv, Ukraine, lives in Philadelphia, PA, USA. The two decades circumscribed by the subtitle – 2001- 2021 – were defined by multiple struggles: with identity, with mental health difficulties, with generational trauma. Life goes on, and so do the struggles. Nothing is permanent except change.

Louisa Schnaithmann, author of Plague Love ($10.00), work has appeared or is forthcoming in Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Gargoyle, Rogue Agent, Wine Cellar Press, and others. She is the consulting editor for ONE ART: a journal of poetry and lives in Philadelphia.

Alan Toltzis is the author of Mercy ($10.00) which follows the natural arc of the 13 attributes of mercy, a biblical formula for compassion and forgiveness. Each poem explores one attribute of mercy—from the first, being merciful before a person does anything wrong, to the last, washing away sins through pardon.

Virtual Poetry Reading: Celia Bland, Jonathan Blunk, Cindy Savett
2022-01-20 19:00 - 21:00 | PA
Virtual Poetry Reading: Celia Bland, Jonathan Blunk, Cindy Savett
On Zoom – Registration Required – Registration Link
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZYudOquqjgrG9U9z0J2rR2q63R1SxozL8O3

Celia Bland co-edited Jane Cooper: A Radiance of Attention with Martha Collins. Her third collection of poetry, Cherokee Road Kill, received the 2015 Raynes Prize, Madonna Comix, an image and poetry collaboration she created with artist Dianne Kornberg, was exhibited at New York City’s Lesley Heller Gallery. In addition to her books of poetry, she is the author of young adult biographies of the Native American leaders Pontiac, Osceola, and Peter MacDonald. She works at Bard College.

Jonathan Blunk is a poet, essayist, and radio producer. Farrar, Straus, and Giroux published his authorized biography, James Wright: A Life in Poetry, in 2017, a book The New York Times praised as “fine-grained literary biography at its finest.” Blunk also assisted with editing A Wild Perfection, the selected letters of James Wright (FSG 2005). His most recent essays and reviews have appeared in The Georgia Review, and poems in FIELD magazine.

Cindy Savett is the author of Child in the Road (Parlor Press), The Breath (BlazeVOX [books]), and the chapbooks The Story of my Eyes, Battle for the Metal Kiss, Rachel: In the Temporary Mist of Prayer, and Overtures of Survival (forthcoming). Her work is also found in the anthology Challenges for the Delusional. The sudden death of her youngest daughter generated a fierce reckoning in her poems – much of her writing since has focused on grief. She lives with her family on the outskirts of Philadelphia where she leads poetry workshops for psychiatric inpatients at several area hospitals.

Moonstone Poetry Reading: John Wall Barger and Vasiliki Katsarou
2022-01-26 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Moonstone Poetry Reading: John Wall Barger and Vasiliki Katsarou
Live in Fergie’s Pub (1214 Sansom Street) and on Zoom – Registration Required – Registration Link
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZEqf-CrqDkvHtOlOphDch8WLjBafhP0Fgle

John Wall Barger is the author of four books of poetry: Pain-proof Men (2009); Hummingbird (2012), finalist for the Raymond Souster Award; The Book of Festus (2015), finalist for the J.M. Abraham Award; and The Mean Game (2019), finalist for The Phillip H. McMath Book Award. Resurrection Fail (Spuyten Duyvil Press, 2021) is his fifth book. He is a contract editor for Frontenac House, and teaches in the BFA Program for Creative Writing at The University of the Arts in Philadelphia. (johnwallbarger.com)

Vasiliki Katsarou grew up Greek American in Jack Kerouac’s hometown of Lowell, Massachusetts. She is the author of a full-length poetry collection, Memento Tsunami, and a chapbook, Three Sea Stones. She is also co-editor of two contemporary poetry anthologies: Eating Her Wedding Dress: A Collection of Clothing Poems and Dark as a Hazel Eye: Coffee & Chocolate Poems. Her poems have been published internationally, including in Japan, the U.K., Australia, Denmark, and in Greek translation. A Geraldine R. Dodge poet, independent curator, and sometime filmmaker, she is a teaching artist at New Jersey’s Hunterdon Art Museum. Her poetry is part of the upcoming art exhibition Invisible at ArtYard, the contemporary art center in Frenchtown, New Jersey.

Virtual Poetry Reading: Serotonin
2022-01-29 02:00 - 16:00 | PA
Virtual Poetry Reading: Serotonin
On Zoom – Registration required – Zoom link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0odOygrD8uE9arkIR60UaKGgOipNOokTO_

Serotonin is partnering with Moonstone Arts Center for a mental illness marathon poetry reading over Zoom. Neurodivergent readers from around the world will share their work on how they live with their mental illnesses. Readers include Sean Lynch, Raye Hendrix, Thomas Nuhfer, Kika Man, Cleo, Lemmy Ya’akova, Jerica Taylor, Alexandra Weiss, James Roach, Erica Abbott, Lexi Locket, Lauren Theresa, Claire Taylor, Maddi Crease, plus an open mic!
Serotonin seeks to be a safe haven for neurodivergent writers and readers. We publish poetry and short poetic prose on mental illness, neurodivergence, and suicide prevention. Due to lack of mental healthcare and general ignorance or discrimination, neurodivergent people are marginalized. We hope to help fight against that marginalization. Serotonin publishes literature by mentally ill people for mentally ill people. Our goal is to survive together.

Moonstone Poetry @ PhillyCAM: Anthony Palma and Brooke Palma
2022-02-01 18:30 - 20:30 | 699 Ranstead Street, 699 Ranstead Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19106, United States
Moonstone Poetry @ PhillyCAM: Anthony Palma and Brooke Palma
2022 Philly Loves Poetry Interview and Readings Series
699 Ranstead Street,Comcast Cable 66/966HD/967 or Verizon FIOS, 29/30 in Philadelphia.

Anthony Palma is the president of the Mad Poets Society and author of flashes of light from the deep. He holds a degree in English from Saint Joseph’s University, and a Masters from Arcadia University. His work attempts to bridge the gap between poetry and other forms. His readings include elements of performance and music as well as traditionally read poems. His work has appeared in Show Us Your Papers, Rue Scribe, Oddball Magazine, and Harbinger Asylum, among others. He teaches writing at several universities in the Greater Philadelphia Area. He resides in West Chester PA with his wife and family.

Brooke Palma is Vice-President, Treasurer and Blog Master of Mad Poets Society and host of Livin’ on Luck Poetry Series. She is author of Conversations Unfinished and has been published in The Mad Poets’ Review, Moonstone Arts, Toho Journal, and E-Verse Radio (online), and Unbearables: A Global Anthology. Brooke focus on the connections between culture and identity and finding beauty in the everyday.

Virtual Poetry Reading: Neal Kosaly-Meyer, John Lavin, Elijah B. Pringle, III, Fióna Bolger
2022-02-02 15:00 - 17:00 | PA
Virtual Poetry Reading: Neal Kosaly-Meyer, John Lavin, Elijah B. Pringle, III, Fióna Bolger

VIRTUAL – Registration Required: Virtual – Registration link: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0kdeGprT8qGNcj0i5hXzXxbHwMGpIttrri

Neal Kosaly-Meyer is a Seattle-based composer and performer. As a member of Moonstone’s aTONEment community, Neal has joined John Lavin to coordinate a Free Jazz performance in Dublin of Finnegans Wake with Jazz players from the United States and Ireland in June 2022. Neal’s performances of Finnegans Wake have been presented to the International James Joyce Foundations Symposia in Belgium (2018) and Mexico City (2019).

John Lavin is a jazz percussionist, has taught English in Philadelphia public high schools and is an adjunct English professor at Saint Joseph’s University. He has taught the novels of James Joyce since living and working in Dublin, and he has performed in Jazz ensembles with Jo Jones at Chuck’s Composite in New York and with both Sonny Stitt and Eric Kloss during the 1970s. Currently Lavin is distilling his teaching and jazz improvisation experience into Blues Pedagogy: Educational Tales from the Teaching Life, a study of diverse learning styles in urban 21st Century contexts. He is co-facilitating the Finnegans Wake & Jazz project with Neal Kosaly-Meyer, anticipating a concert and panel in June 2022 in Dublin.

Elijah B. Pringle, III is a Philadelphia poet, lyric baritone, composer, actor, and artivist. Published globally he has appeared on Radio, Television & Dramatic Stage. He credits his true education to five generations of teachers. Mr. Pringle has recently worked with several jazz bands, sharing his trademark sound in Blues, Brazilian, and Reggae renditions of the standard American Jazz Book. He will join in recitation, composition, and improvisation of James Joyce’s innovative classic Finnegans Wake in June 2022.

Fióna Bolger is lending her voice to the Finnegans Wake Jazz revival by way of recitation and composition. Her first poetry collection, a compound of words was launched in 2019 by Yoda Press. Love in the Original Language is due out from Salmon Poetry in June 2022. She lives between Ireland and India. More at www.fionabolgerpoetry.com.

Moonstone Poetry Readings: Lake Angela and DJ
2022-02-02 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Moonstone Poetry Readings: Lake Angela and DJ

Live at Fergie’s Pub (1214 Sansom Street) and on Zoom – Registration Required for Zoom – use this link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0qdOuppj8jE9NfdGxgpX-dGOEHn2Ahgh0d

Lake Angela is a poet, author of Organblooms and Words for the Dead, choreographer, and dancer from Lake Erie who constantly studies and develops her methods of dance as language. She works with psychiatric patients on discovering the transformative properties of dance as a therapeutic and accessible nonverbal language. Lake Angela studied choreography, modern dance, ballet and flamenco and rumba flamenca. In Barcelona, she continued her professional training in contemporary, release, improv, ballet, kung fu, and capoeira. Lake Angela’s special interests involve the poetry and dance of medieval women mystics, the possibilities in and kinds of darknesses and silences, and expressions of colors, waters, and suffering, which she often explores in her poems and choreography.

DJ is relatively new to Philadelphia and a lifelong writer. Their poetry is straight forward with a confessional style and touches on a variety of topics ranging from Queer identity to spirituality. She started to dabble in performance poetry in 2016 and quickly fell in love with the sense community at open mic nights and poetry slams. DJ is currently working on their first chapbook and looks forward to becoming a published author. When not writing, you can find her hiking at Wissahickon, frequenting their favorite South Philly dive bars, or waxing philosophical about the state of the world.

Virtual Poetry Reading: Lynda V. E. Crawford, Hiram Larew, Yi Wei
2022-02-05 14:00 - 16:00 | PA
Virtual Poetry Reading: Lynda V. E. Crawford, Hiram Larew, Yi Wei

Registration Required, Link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZYkceuvrD0pHd1jEUSaAmpY03rRs76cqEjf

Lynda V. E. Crawford has lived in the US longer than her childhood home Barbados. Both ‘homes’ sway and punctuate her writing. She writes to sneak behind eyes, blow through ears, stretch voices like others dance words. Her work has appeared in The Galway Review, The Halcyone Literary Journal, The Bookends Review, and in anthologies by Spectrum Publishing, Los Angeles Poet Society, and Moonstone Arts Center. She also has work forthcoming in The Caribbean Writer in April 2022.

Hiram Larew constantly prowls for poems that surprise by dint of leaps, yelps, and pokes. His poems have appeared widely in journals, on the radio, in anthologies and newspapers, on public posters and in galleries. Author of three collections, organizer of The Poetry Poster Project, recipient of artist grants and purveyor of Poetry x Hunger, he facilitates diversity in poetry communities while serving on Poetry Boards and as Courtesy Faculty at four research universities. What Hiram Larew offers in this fifth collection is a grateful glisten of poems. Many were written as outdoor rambles during the 2020-21 pandemic. Others look back over a shoulder at what seems long ago. And some are simply puddles of ponder. But above and beyond all of that, with eyes that love sound and hearts that gleam, Larew’s Mud Ajar is an opening that’s not meant to end.
Yi Wei is a first-generation Chinese writer with a BA in Asian American Studies and English from Swarthmore College. She currently serves as the Assistant Flash Fiction Editor at the Asian American Writers’ Workshop. Yi has been awarded the Lois Morrell Poetry Prize and is the third-place winner for the 2021 Sappho Prize for Women Poets. Her work can be found in Palette Poetry, Lantern Review, and Crosswinds. She’s currently a Writer in the Public Schools fellow at NYU’s MFA in poetry.

New Chapbooks from Moonstone Press: RuNett Ebo, Nina Gadson, David Lawton, Charles Rammelkamp, Louisa Schnaithmann
2022-02-06 14:00 - 16:00 | PA
New Chapbooks from Moonstone Press

VIRTUAL – Registration Required:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIlc-6oqTgvHNRG34IB6Bx8gkC-PKeD1n5H
RuNett Ebo, author of Expressing Myself on Purpose, has performed all over the country, is contributing writer for Kwee, a Liberian magazine.

Nina Gadson, author of When I Was 16, realized that poetry is a part of her purpose, she collected these poems when she was 16, it is a time capsule into that period of her life.

David Lawton is the author of Inspirative – “rootedness in the accomplishments and frustrations of actors, musicians, poets and artists whose brushes with fame were as real and as raw as own anonymous struggles in life…” George Wallace.

Charles Rammelkamp author of Sparring Partners puts us in the ring with Fred, Flanagan, and a crowd of emotions, struggles, and complexities that most people must spar with at one time or another.

Louisa Schnaithmann, author of Plague Love, is the consulting editor for ONE ART: a journal of poetry. Her work has appeared in various journals.

Virtual Poetry Reading: Rose-Marie Athiley, Edythe Rodriguez, Basia Wilson
2022-02-08 19:00 - 20:00 | PA
Virtual Poetry Reading: Rose-Marie Athiley, Edythe Rodriguez, Basia Wilson
Tuesday February 8, 2022 – 7pm – VIRTUAL
Registration Required – use this link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIpdeCtpjotHtfBklvFsozr3X6BLxZdJvtv

Rose-Marie Athiley, is a published poet and essayist, a recent graduate of Hamline with a degree in English, moved to the U.S. in 2006 and found the art of pen and word through learning her third language, English.

Edythe Rodriguez is a Philly-based Afrikan Renaissance poet who studied Creative Writing and Africology at Temple University. She is a copywriter / poet / semi-evolved virgo / bustelo drinker / violent Scrabble player / non-violent Beyhive member / bears / beets / battlestar galactica

Basia Wilson holds a BA in English with a concentration in creative writing from Temple University, where she took courses such as Ecofeminist Poetics. She studied the intersection of psychogeography and poetry, culminating in a manuscript about her local Wegmans that forever altered how she understands store-brand crème brûlée ice cream and Yelp reviews. Open Reading follows

Moonstone Poetry Reading: Gabrielle Martin, Scott Sigl, Jonathon Todd
2022-02-09 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Virtual Poetry Reading: Gabrielle Martin, Scott Sigl, Jonathon Todd
Wednesday February 9, 2022 – 7pm – LIVE – Proof of Vaccination Required
Live at Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street and on zoom
Registration Required for zoom – use this link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZEqduqgpzIpGNOTTLgVvjw_TLnRMl3boAtS

Gabrielle Martin is the author of Gritty City, a poet living and working in West Philly, where they are currently attempting (maybe successfully) to grow tomatoes on their windowsill.

Scott Sigl is a musician, poet, and teacher in the Philadelphia/South Jersey area. He has represented the city of Philadelphia at the National Poetry Slam and Rowan University at the College National Slam.

Jonathon Todd is the author of Over/time, a poet, musician, and recovery specialist living in South Philadelphia. His work deals with observations mainly written between breaks, trying to find humanity outside of and within labor. Open Reading Follows

2021 Moonstone Chapbook Contest Winners: Charles Malone, Kristen Holt-Browning, Heather Lanier
2022-02-13 14:00 - 16:00 | PA
2021 Moonstone Chapbook Contest Winners
Sunday February 13, 2022 – 2pm – VIRTUAL
Registration Required – Registration Link
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUucuyupjwvH9CGPXzKDk9CvNgFd9FZND-w

First Place: Charles Malone, author of After an Eclipse of Moths: the Crewdson Poems
Charles Malone is the author of Working Hypothesis, Questions About Circulation and he edited the collection A Poetic Inventory of Rocky Mountain National Park.

Honorable Mention: Kristen Holt-Browning author of The Only Animal Awake in the House
Kristen Holt-Browning is a freelance editor and writer. Her poems have been published in Sheila-na-Gig, Juxtaprose, Frontier Poetry, and Barrow Street’s 4×2 Project, among other publications.

Honorable Mention: Heather Lanier author of Erasing the Book of Pregnancy
Heather Lanier is the author of the memoir, Raising a Rare Girl, a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, as well as two award-winning poetry chapbooks. Her poems have been published in journals including The Cincinnati Review, The Sun, and Mid-American Review.

Virtual Poetry Event: Deborah Fries, Peter F. Murphy, Alan Toltzis
2022-02-15 19:00 - 21:00 | PA
Tuesday February 15, 2022 – 7pm -VIRTUAL
Registration Required – use this link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcuf-ugrD8iE9wZ_FJEF6q-hEEi1MohfLyw
Deborah Fries is a Philadelphia writer and printmaker whose chapbook, Having Visions Again, was the 2021 Keystone selection from Seven Kitchens Press. Her two full-length books of poetry, Various Modes of Departure, selected by Carolyn Forche, and The Bright Field of Everything, were published by Kore Press.

Peter F. Murphy is author of two poetry books: Maps of Three Continents and Underwater; his critical work includes three books on men and masculinity: Studs, Tools, and the Family Jewels: Metaphors Men Live By; Fictions of Masculinity; and Feminism and Masculinities. His essays and reviews have been published in various journals.

Alan Toltzis is the author of Mercy, Nature Lessons, 49 Aspects of Human Emotion, and The Last Commandment. His poems have appeared in numerous print and online publications including, Plainsong, Grey Sparrow, The Wax Paper, Black Bough Poetry, and Anthropocene Poetry. Open Reading Follows.

Readings from the Penn & Pencil Club
2022-02-16 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Readings from the Penn & Pencil Club
Wednesday February 16, 2022 – 7pm – LIVE – Proof of Vaccination Required
Live at Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street and on zoom
Registration Required: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZAqdOmrqj0sG9I2URaQHbuEETjN8d-gIOhM

Sponsored by University of Pennsylvania’s Kelly Writers House, Penn & Pencil Club is a creative writing workshop for faculty and staff. From a variety of backgrounds, participants are writers of fiction, literary non-fiction, and poetry. We have among us several published writers, and the balance are hopeful. In our bi-monthly meetings, we are encouraging, but not shy, in our criticism and very supportive of one another’s writing. In addition to our critiquing sessions, we hold annual readings at the Writers House, take part in “Live at the Luellen Fletcher, Amy Miller, Holman Massey, Alexander O’Donnell, John Shea, Sam Smith, Susan Staggs, Wendy Washburn, and Linda White”
