Live Poetry: Jonathan Koven, Pat Rodgers, and Robert Zell
2024-01-17 19:00 - 21:00 (America/New_York) | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Jonathan Koven, author of Palm Lines, Below Torrential Hill (EE) a winner of the Electric Eclectic Novella Prize, and Mystic Orchards, Grew up on Long Island, NY. He holds a BA in English and Creative Writing from American University, works as a technical writer, and reads chapbooks for Moonstone Arts. He lives in Philadelphia with his wife Delana, and their cats Peanut Butter and Keebler. He has had both fiction and poetry published, by Assure Press, Animal Heart Press, Thirty West Publishing, and more.
Pat Rodgers is a poet based in West Philadelphia. His published work can be found in Neptune and several Moonstone anthologies. Recall is the title of his first chapbook.
Robert Zell has published two chapbooks: One and Reflections. His work has also appeared in Whirlwind magazine, North of Oxford, and several Moonstone Arts anthologies. He is also the host of the Sunday reading series at the Pen and Pencil Club.
Sean Hanrahan Host, Open Reading Follows

Live Poetry: W.D. Ehrhart and M.L. Liebler
2024-01-24 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Wednesday January 24, 2024 – 7pm
Live at Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street
And on Zoom:
ttps://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIodOmrqz8sEtaWMbfHtRb-xMHXESjVcrpm
W. D. Ehrhart, Poet, Writer, Scholar and Teacher began writing when he was 15 years old and has been writing more or less continuously ever since. His first published work, a poem about Swarthmore College, appeared seven years later in the Chronicle of Higher Education, and the following year eight of his poems were included in Winning Hearts and Minds: War Poems by Vietnam Veterans. Exclusively a poet until he was almost 30, he has since written and published a wide variety of nonfiction prose from 400-word newspaper commentaries to 40-page scholarly essays to 400-page personal narratives. The influence of Ehrhart’s encounter with the Vietnam War can readily be seen in his writing, but though he is known primarily as a “Vietnam War poet,” in fact his subject matter ranges widely.
M. L. Liebler is a internationally known Detroit poet, university professor, literary arts activist and arts organizer. He is the author of 15 books and chapbooks including the Award winning Wide Awake in Someone Else’s Dream, has read and performed his work around the world, taught English, Creative Writing, American Studies, Labor Studies and World Literature at Wayne State University and he is the founding director of both The National Writer’s Voice Project in Detroit and the Springfed Arts: Metro Detroit Writers Literary Arts Organization. He was selected as Best Detroit Poet by The Detroit Free Press & Detroit’s Metro Time, and his groundbreaking anthology Working Words: Punching the Clock & Kicking Out the Jams was given a 2011 Library of Michigan Notable Book Award.

Live Poetry: 27th Annual Poetry Ink
2024-01-28 14:00 - 17:00 | The Rotunda, 14014 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, United States
Sunday January 28, 2024 – 2pm
Live at The Rotunda, 4014 Walnut Street
We want you all: published poets, unpublished poets, academic poets, street poets, poets who write Sonnet, Villanelle, Haiku, Ekphrastic Poems, Concrete Poems, Epitaph, Elegy, Epigram, Limerick, Ballad, Ode, Free Verse.
Join us for our 27th year of presenting 100 poets reading in alphabetical order. We will have the live event at the Rotunda on Sunday and a Virtual event over Zoom on Monday. Last year we presented 50 poets at each event.

Virtual Poetry: 27th Annual Poetry Ink
2024-01-29 14:00 - 16:00
27th Annual Poetry Ink Anthology
Monday, January 29th, 2024 – 2PM
Virtual on Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZYqduytqjwjG9dP-hVrP8szAyz7uxDeUXTe
We want you all: published poets, unpublished poets, academic poets, street poets, poets who write Sonnet, Villanelle, Haiku, Ekphrastic Poems, Concrete Poems, Epitaph, Elegy, Epigram, Limerick, Ballad, Ode, Free Verse. Join us for our 27th year of presenting 100 poets reading in alphabetical order. We will have the live event at the Rotunda on Sunday and a Virtual event on zoom on Monday. Last year we presented 50 poets at each event.

Live Poetry: House Poet @ Fergie's with Lindsay Hargrave and Noah David Roberts
2024-01-31 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Wednesday, January 31st – 7PM
Live at Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street
And over Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZYpd–tpj4uEtTGjg-a2O9NZBvpHqx9GFyw
Welcome to House Poet @ Fergie’s
Since March 2022, House Poet has strived to bring together writers, dancers, DJs and musicians alike. Join us in 2024 as we bring that energy to Moonstone’s Poetry Nights at Fergie’s, featuring an open reading, featured readers, live music and a soundtrack you can bounce to.
Lindsay Hargrave is a poet, editor at Graphic Violence, and a copywriter for Temple University. Read more at https://linktr.ee/Hargrave or follow @notporkroll on Twitter. Noah David Roberts is a non-binary poet, the author of 6 collections, including Mutable Forests. In 2022, Roberts won the Judith Stark poetry contest. They are a 2023 Pushcart nominee. You can learn more on Instagram at @the.apocalypse.poet.
Warren Longmire Host, Open Reading Follows

Virtual Poetry: Moonstone Poetry @ PhillyCAM with g emil reutter
2024-02-06 18:30 - 19:30 | Virtual
Philly Loves Poetry Interview and Readings Series
Featuring – g emil reutter
Tuesday February 6, 2024 – 6:30pm – EST – VIRTUAL
Watch for free on the PhillyCAM website
Or Cable 66/966HD/967 or Verizon FIOS, 29/30 in Philadelphia.

g emil reutter is a writer of poems and stories. 18 collections of his poetry and fiction have been published, most recently, Until Next Time – Selected Poems 1990-2022. A chapbook, Glint- Down the Shore Poems is pending release.
He can be found here: https://gereutter.wordpress.com/about/
Videos: https://gereutter.wordpress.com/videos/
Charles S. Carr, Host

Live Poetry: Emiliano Martín, Diane McManus, Keith Woodrow, & Robert Zaller
2024-02-07 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Wednesday February 7, 2024 – 7pm -LIVE
Live at Fergie’s Pub – 1214 Sansom Street and on zoom
OR on Zoom (Registration Required):
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcvcOigqz4qHtCj5tnSWrCaVRobrdm0Q2HM
Emiliano Martín is Spanish born and an advocate of the spoken word, he is the founder of Philadelphia Poetry Forum for the NE Regional Public Library. Past President of Pennsylvania Poetry Society (PPS, Inc) has also served as the Executive Director of Latin American Guild for the Arts (LAGA) in Philadelphia. Author of more than a dozen books of Poetry, like “Selected Bilingual Poems” (2023), at this time he is proud to introduce… his latest title: “Songs out of the Drawer” (2024). Martín is a longtime resident in the Philadelphia area and his verse keeps moving on.
Diane McManus teaches in the English Department of Community College of Philadelphia as an adjunct, writes, swims (including marathon swims), and reflects on the colors of rivers. Her poetry has appeared in Listening Eye, Philadelphia Poets, Mad Poets Review, and in two Moonstone anthologies: the 26th Anniversary Poetry Ink, as well as The Struggle for Liberty.
Keith Woodrow studied Classics at the University of Southern California, focusing on queer Roman poetry. He has been published in New York Quarterly, Moonstone Arts Center Annual Poetry Ink, and River River Journal. He was also a Brooklyn Poets Yawp Poet of the Month.
Robert Zaller is Distinguished University Professor Emeritus at Drexel University. Poet, critic, and historian, his books of verse include Speaking to Power and The Dresden Zoo, both published by Moonstone Press.
Open Reading Follows

Virtual Poetry: David Eberhardt, Stephen Jones, Marjorie Moorhead, Daniel Williams, & Samantha Wright
2024-02-08 19:00 - 21:00 | Virtual
Thursday February 8, 2024 – 7pm -Virtual
Zoom Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZYrce-spj4pE9Jq0ZszDJHI7vYgFYFf19BY
David Eberhardt, author of Melange, The Tree Calendar, Blue Running Lights, and Poems from the Website, was born in 1941. He retired in 2010 from 33 years of work in the criminal INjustice system at the Baltimore City jail. With Father Phil Berrigan and two others he poured blood on draft files in 1967 to protest the Viet Nam war. For that action, he spent 21 months in Lewisburg Federal Prison. He has completed a peace movement memoir, For All the Saints: A Protest Primer. In 2020 he won the Enoch Pratt Library/ Little Patuxent Review prize for poetry.
Stephen Jones has lived in Detroit for more than forty years, has worked as a journalist, high school English teacher and university history instructor. He is a student of Zen Buddhism, which sparked his interest in such ancient Chinese poets as Han Shan, Su Tung’p’o, Tu Fu, Li Po, and Po Chu-i. Jones’ poems have appeared in Abandon Automobile, an anthology of Detroit poets; Maxis Review; Poet in the House; Buddhist Poetry Review; Third Wednesday, and Temenos.
Marjorie Moorhead lives and writes at the border of NH/VT. She is author of poetry collections Every Small Breeze, What I Ask, and chapbooks Survival: Trees, Tides, Song and Survival Part 2: Trees, Birds, Ocean, Bees. Marjorie’s work appears in journals including Amethyst Review, Tiny Seed Literary, Moist Poetry Journal, Bloodroot Literary, Sheila-Na-Gig, Porter House Review, Poeming Pigeon, Verse-Virtual, What Rough Beast, A River Sings, The Poet’s Touchstone, and others. Her poems are included in anthologies benefitting environmental, women’s, Covid first responder, and refugee aid organizations. She has a poem in The Wonder of Small Things (James Crews, ed. 2023). Marjorie’s local poetry group is 4th Friday Poets.
Daniel Williams has published in many journals and anthologies, he is a long-standing member of Poets’ West, California Federation of Chaparral Poets, Poets & Writers, and the Ina Coolbrith Circle and has poems in Yosemite National Park’s time capsule, a haiku engraved on MAVEN, the Mar’s orbiter, and has been nominated for Pushcart Prize in poetry. His California inspired poems have been featured in Ina Coolbrith Poetry Circle Anthologies, Gathering 14 and Gathering 15.
Samantha Wright, author of Edges Holding Edges and Postcards from the West, lives in the Pacific Northwest. Her poems have appeared in Beyond Words, Prometheus Dreaming, Pontoon Poetry, Minerva Arts, Welter, Cathexis Northwest, among others. Her debut chapbook, Edges Holding Edges, was published by Moonstone Arts in 2022. She currently divides her time between writing and teaching yoga.

Open Reading Follows

Live Poetry: Joshua Barnes, Sarah Browning, Eileen M. D’Angelo, & Juniper Sweeney
2024-02-14 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Moonstone Poetry Readings
Wednesday February 14, 2024 – 7pm
Live at Fergie’s Pub – 1214 Sansom Street
OR Join Us on Zoom (Registration Required):
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZYqc-GrqzwrHNS3jAMLOupFHyUci7eweq4_
Joshua Barnes lives in Philadelphia with his husband. His poetry has previously appeared in &Change, Olney Magazine, Impossible Archetype, Philadelphia Stories, and Moonstone Press. When not writing, he can be found reading poetry, horror fiction, and comic books, and perfecting his handstands. He can be found on Instagram @ jsb1800.
Sarah Browning is the author of Killing Summer and Whiskey in the Garden of Eden. She is co-founder and was Executive Director of Split This Rock: Poetry of Provocation & Witness for 10 years. She is an Associate Fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies. Browning is a recipient of fellowships from the DC Commission on the Arts & Humanities, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Yaddo, Mesa Refuge, and the Adirondack Center for Writing. She has been guest editor or co-edited special issues of Beltway Poetry Quarterly, The Delaware Poetry Review, and three issues of POETRY magazine.
Eileen M. D’Angelo, twice nominated for a Pennsylvania Governor’s Award in the Arts, she received two Pushcart Prize / Best of the Small Press nominations from Verse Magazine and Schuylkill Valley Journal. Her poetry, essays and book reviews have been published in The Philadelphia Inquirer, the News of Delaware County, Rattle: Poetry for the 21st Century, Manhattan Poetry Review, Paterson Literary Review, Drexel Online Journal, Wild River Review, Philadelphia Stories, Philadelphia Poets, The Independent Review, Negative Capability, One Trick Pony, and others.
Juniper Sweeney is a nonbinary trans poet, queer community contributor, and outdoorsthem. She helped expand the Philadelphia Voices of Pride as part of their board and is excited to start sharing her own developing creative voice. She also helps organize Phlash, Philadelphia’s gay climbing community, and especially loves climbing outdoors and connecting new climbers to a practice that brings her joy and embodiment. This is their first time being featured and she’s deeply excited to be a new member of the Philadelphia poetry community
Sean Hanrahan Host – Open Reading Follows

Virtual Poetry - Fatal Force: Poetic Justice
2024-02-17 19:00 - 21:00 | Virtual
Fatal Force: Poetic Justice
Saturday February 17, 2024 – 7pm EST Virtual
Join us on Zoom (Registration Required): https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIsduGuqTgjEtIm1XVEz94i3LTtCLb8iG5D
As of December 4, 2023, 1085 people have been killed by police in the United States (Mapping Police Violence 2023).
Police officer, Mark Dial shot and killed Eddie Irizarry on August 14, 2023. On August 15th, Philadelphia police changed their story, stating that Irizarry was actually in the car when he was shot six times. Philadelphia Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw stated that officers’ body-worn camera footage “made it very clear that what we initially reported was not actually what happened.” Read more about the details and legal proceedings here:
(The Killing of Eddie Irizarry).
Martín Espada recently wrote a poem entitled, “Officer Mark Dial, Who Shot Eddie Irizarry, Will Be Fired for Insubordination” to elegize the innocent young man whose alleged murder this past August is an outrage.
Fatal Force : Poetic Justice contributors, featuring Martín Espada, will read their work virtually on February 17th to honor poet/activist, Julia de Burgos’ birthday. She was the foremother for the Nuyorican Poetry Movement in New York who advocated for anti-imperialism and social justice. Fatal Force: Poetic Justice commemorates her ideals.
Presented by Taller Puertorriqueño, Casa de Duende, and Moonstone

Although not everyone will be reading, we have poems by these poets

Mary Anne Abdo
Sonia Aggarwal
Austin Alexis
Star Anderson
Naomi Ayala
Diane Bier
Steve Bloom
Christopher Butters
Cameron Carvalho
Raheem Curry
Martin Espada
Steven Halpern
Zita Holbourne
Ace Howlen
Jane Ellen Ibur
Irving Jones
Ron Kolm
Donald Krieger
Mindy Kronenberg
D Lang
Jeffrey lee
Kostya Malukhin
Aurora McKee
Samuel Miranda
David Mook
Deeci Murphy
Jane Muschenetz
Maureen Nolan
George Northrup
Tauwan Patterson
Alex Phuong
Rescue Poetix
Susana Praver-Perez
David Radavich
Alexis Raymond
Sultana Raza
Janet Restino
Joe Roarty
Jake Rogers
Mykyta Ryzhykh
India Shank
Calvin Shaw
Larissa Shmailo
Megha Sood
Rowan Tate
Alyssa Velazquez
Eike Waltz
Bruce Whitacre
Martin Wiley
Glenn Wright
Samantha Wright

Virtual Poetry: Remembering Audre Lorde
2024-02-18 14:00 - 16:00 | Virtual
Remembering Audre Lorde (1934-1992)

Sunday February 18, 2024 – 2pm – VIRTUAL
Join us on Zoom (Registration Required): https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZAvdeipqTsoHdwqmC1q3s_Nx34bh3KSabHn
The Black feminist, lesbian, poet, mother, warrior Audre Lorde was a native New Yorker and daughter of immigrants. Both her activism and her published work speak to the importance of struggle for liberation among oppressed peoples and of organizing in coalition across differences of race, gender, sexual orientation, class, age and ability. An internationally recognized activist and artist, Audre Lorde was the recipient of many honors and awards, including the Walt Whitman Citation of Merit, which conferred the mantle of New York State poet for 1991-93. In designating her New York State’s Poet Laureate, Governor Mario Cuomo observed: “Her imagination is charged by a sharp sense of racial injustice and cruelty, of sexual prejudice…She cries out against it as the voice of indignant humanity. Audre Lorde is the voice of the eloquent outsider who speaks in a language that can reach and touch people everywhere.” Join us as poets remember.

Live Poetry: Chris Bullard, L.M. Camiolo, & Noah David Roberts
2024-02-21 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Wednesday February 21, 2024 – 7pm
Live at Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street and on zoom
Use this link: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZYvcO2pqTMrHNbspqMc34fEumC-hinMXbUp
Chris Bullard is a retired judge who lives in Philadelphia, PA. He attended the University of Pennsylvania and received a MFA from Wilkes University. He has had thirteen books published, including poetry, short fiction and monologues. In 2022, Main Street Rag published his poetry chapbook, Florida Man, and Moonstone Press published his poetry chapbook, The Rainclouds of y. His poetry has appeared recently in Canary, Devil, Stonecrop, Wrath-Bearing Tree, Waccamaw and other publications. He was nominated this year for the Pushcart Prize.

L.M. Camiolo is co-founder of Impostor, a poetry journal, and is a former poetry editor for Toho Journal. Her work can be found in Troublemaker Firestarter, The Minison Zine, The Daily Drunk, Bullshit Lit, and elsewhere. Originally from New York, she currently lives and writes in Philadelphia.

Noah David Roberts (they/them) is a non-binary poet and artist attending University of the Arts. Roberts is the author of 6 poetry collections, including What I Do in the Dark and Mutable Forests. Roberts has poems published in Anti-Heroin Chic, Tribes Magazine, Horror Sleaze Trash, and more. Their Instagram handle is @the.apocalypse.poet.

Sean Hanrahan Host, Open Reading Follows

Live Poetry: Featured Readers 2023
2024-02-25 14:00 - 16:00 | The Rotunda, 14014 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, United States
Live Poetry: Featured Readers 2023
Live at The Rotunda, 4014 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104
In 2023, Moonstone Arts Center hosted over 100 events with almost 300 poets and an audience of close to 3000. Join us for a reading with our featured poets of 2023.
Featured Poets (not all will read):
David Acosta
Nathalie Anderson
Catherine Bancroft
Peter Baroth
Elliott batTzedek
Beth Bayley
Matilda Bray
Cydney Brown
Steve Burke
Charles Carr
Jefferson Carter
Mac Chandler
Liz Chang
George Elliott Clarke
Marion Deutsche Cohen
Cathleen Cohen
Savannah Cooper-Ramsey
Jim Cory
C. M. Crockford
Gregory Crosby
Terence Culleton
Pheralyn Dove
Lawrence Dugan
W. D. Ehrhart
Joseph Farley
James Feichthaler
Doris Ferleger
Sibelan Forrester
Adam Gianforcaro
Leonard Gontarek
Marjorie Gowdy
Sean Hanrahan
Jared Harél
Betti E. Kahn
Vasiliki Katsarou
Dev Kiyota
Leonard Kress
Mabel Lee
Joanne Leva
Elliott Levin
Lynn Levin
Alison Lubar
Terri Lyons
Joseph Thomas Makoviecki
Emiliano Martín
Paige Menton
Sharnita Midgett
Karin Molde
Steve Nolan
Hermond Palmer
Faith Paulsen
g emil reutter
Don Riggs
Ruth A. Rouff
Lynda Gene Rymond
Diane Sahms
George Schaefer
Daniel Simpson
Heather H. Thomas
Matthew Thorburn
John Timpane
Cleveland Wall
Evan Wang
Arlene Weiner
Sharon White
Daniel Williams
David Worrell
Monika Wysong
Sekai’afua Zankel

Live Poetry: Liz Abrams-Morley & Amy Small-Mckinney
2024-02-28 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Wednesday February 28, 2024 – 7pm
Live at Fergie’s Pub,1214 Sansom Street and on zoom
Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcucOqgpj4tGN3csD4gaXLwnIJKTVj80_Qr
Liz Abrams-Morley is the author of the forthcoming Because Time, as well as of Beholder, Inventory, and Necessary Turns, which won an Eric Hoffer Award for Excellence in Small Press Publishing. In 2020 she was named the Passager Poet of the year in Passager Journal’s annual contest. Liz’s poems and short stories have been published in a variety of nationally distributed anthologies, journals and ezines, and have been read on NPR. A semi-retired faculty member in the Rosemont College MFA program, she is co-founder of Around the Block Writers’ Collaborative. A poet, professor, gramma and activist, Liz wades knee deep in the flow of everyday life from which she draws inspiration and, occasionally, exasperation.

Amy Small-McKinney, Montgomery County Poet Laureate Emeritus, is the author of the forthcoming book of poems, & You Think It Ends, as well as, Walking Toward Cranes, winner of the 2016 Kithara Book Prize, and One Day I Am A Field, written during COVID and her husband’s illness and death. For the 2020 virtual AWP, she co-moderated an interactive discussion, Writing Through Grief & Loss: The Intersection of Social and Personal Grief During COVID. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals, including American Poetry Review, Banyan Review, Comstock Review, One Art, Pedestal Magazine, Persimmon Tree, Philadelphia Stories, SWWIM, Tiferet, Verse Daily, and Vox Populi, among others, and have been translated into Korean and Romanian.
Alina Macneal & Jennifer Hook Hosts, Open Reading Follows

Traitor/Patriot: Reflections on January 6th
2024-03-03 14:00 - 16:00 | Virtual
Sunday, March 3, 2024
Virtual -2pm EST
Join us on Zoom – Use this link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUtcOmqrjIqHt38oY_EumWA2yjSHpfugrTn
Traitor / Patriot: A Reflection on January 6, 2021
Moonstone is dedicated to communication. One of our missions is to create discourse by giving voice to poets, especially on controversial issues. I received a poem from g e Reutter called Traitor (you can read the poem on our website) on the January 6 insurrection which made me realize that this was an issue we have not responded to yet.
More than 2,000 rioters entered the Capitol building on January 6, 2021, many of whom vandalized and looted the building. Rioters assaulted Capitol Police officers and reporters and attempted to locate lawmakers to capture and harm. A gallows was erected west of the Capitol. Some rioters chanted “Hang Mike Pence” after he rejected false claims by Trump and others that the vice president could overturn the election results. Five people died, more people were injured, including 174 police officers. As of July 7, 2022, monetary damages caused by attackers exceeded $2.7 million. More than 1,230 people have been charged over the course of three years, with many trials still pending. Join us as poets reflect.

Moonstone Poetry @ PhillyCAM
2024-03-05 18:30 - 20:30 | Virtual
Tuesday MARCH 5, 2024
6:30pm – VIRTUAL
Moonstone Poetry @ PhillyCAM
Can be viewed on the PhillyCAM website
Or Cable 66/966HD/967 or Verizon FIOS, 29/30 in Philadelphia.
Philly Loves Poetry Interview and Readings Series
Elliott batTzedek is author of the enkindled coal of my tongue, the recipient of a Leeway Foundation Art and Change Award for her translations, and a residency at Norcroft: A Writing Retreat for Women. Her poems, essays, and translations have been published in the journals including American Poetry Review, Massachusetts Review, Sakura Review, Apiary, Cahoodaloodaling, Naugatuck River Review, Poemeleon, Poetica, Philadelphia Stories, Sinister Wisdom, Trivia, The Lesbian Review of Books, Lambda Literary Online, Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, Reconstructionism Today, DoubleSpeak, Menacing Hedge. Her work has also appeared in the anthologies: Beside Still Waters, Who by Plague: High Holy Days Sermons from COVID19 Times, Passageways: The 2012 Two Lines Translation Anthology, Overplay/Underdone, Women Write Resistance: Poets Resist Gender Violence, the English edition of the 2013 Hebrew anthology Israeli Women’s Protest Poetry ed. by Dorit Weisman, and the Oxford University Press textbook Gender Through the Prism of Difference.

For her day jobs, Elliott works multiple roles within the bookselling industry: as an event manager at a bookstore, as the Member Manager for a Regional Indie Bookstore Trade Association; as the administrator for the Professional Booksellers School; and as the dean of that school’s course in Event Management. Photo Credit: Darla Himeles
Charles S. Carr, Host

LIVE Poetry: Jessica Cuello, Airea D. Matthews, and Artress Bethany White
2024-03-06 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Wednesday March 6, 2024 – 7pm
Live at Fergie’s Pub,1214 Sansom Street and on zoom – Use this link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0kdeGrrTgiHNJ7uriRBEe6MkL9clKCpLu1
Jessica Cuello author of Yours, Creature, Liar, selected by Dorianne Laux for The 2020 Barrow Street Book Prize, was honored with The Eugene Nassar Prize, The CNY Book Award. Cuello is also the author of Hunt and Pricking. Cuello has been awarded The 2022 Nina Riggs Poetry Prize, two CNY Book Awards, The 2016 Washington Prize, The New Letters Poetry Prize, a Saltonstall Fellowship, and The New Ohio Review Poetry Prize. In addition, Cuello has published three chapbooks: My Father’s Bargain (2015), By Fire (2013), and Curie (2011). She is poetry editor at Tahoma Literary Review and teaches French in CNY.
Airea D. Matthews is the author of Bread and Circus and Simulacra, winner of the 2016 Yale Series of Younger Poets Prize. New Yorker critic Dan Chiasson describes Matthews’s experimental forms in Simulacra as “Fugues, text messages to the dead, imagined outtakes from Wittgenstein, tart mini-operas, fairy tales: Matthews is virtuosic, frantic, and darkly, very darkly, funny.” Matthews’s work has appeared in Callaloo, Best American Poets 2015, Harvard Review, and elsewhere. She was awarded a 2016 Rona Jaffe Writer’s Foundation Award, the 2016 Louis Untermeyer Scholarship from Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, a 2015 Kresge Literary Arts award, fellowships from Cave Canem, Callaloo, and the James Merrill House. She associate professor at Bryn Mawr College and was Philadelphia’s sixth poet laureate.
Artress Bethany White is a poet, essayist, and literary critic, author of My Afmerica, Survivor’s Guilt: Essays on Race and American. Her prose and poetry have appeared in such journals as Pleiades, Solstice, Poet Lore, Ecotone, Birmingham Poetry Review, Tupelo Quarterly, and the Hopkins Review. White has received the Mary Hambidge Distinguished Fellowship from the Hambidge Center for Creative Arts for her nonfiction, the Mona Van Duyn Scholarship in Poetry from the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and writing residencies at the Writer’s Hotel and the Tupelo Press/MASS MoCA studios. She is associate professor of English at East Stroudsburg University and teaches poetry and nonfiction workshops for Rosemont College Summer Writer’s Retreat in Pennsylvania.

Virtual Poetry: International Women's Day
2024-03-10 14:00 - 15:00 | Virtual
Sunday March 10, 2024
2pm EST – VIRIUAL
Join us on Zoom – Use this link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcpd-mgpzovG9bdKnadMSczNTW-YMqGyTKa
International Women’s Day is celebrated in many countries around the world. It is a day when women are recognized for their achievements without regard to divisions, whether national, ethnic, linguistic, cultural, economic or political.
In 1848, indignant over women being barred from speaking at an anti-slavery convention, Americans Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott congregated a few hundred people at their nation’s first women’s rights convention in New York. Together they demand civil, social, political and religious rights for women in a Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions.
The first National Woman’s Day was observed in the United States on 28 February. The Socialist Party of America designated this day in honour of the 1908 garment workers’ strike in New York, where women protested against working conditions
Officially recognized by the United Nations in 1977, International Women’s Day first emerged from the activities of labour movements at the turn of the twentieth century in North America and across Europe. Join us as poets reflect

LIVE Poetry: Timothy Donnelly, Airea D. Matthews, Matthew Buckley Smith
2024-03-13 19:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Moonstone Arts Center in collaboration with E-Verse Equinox Reading Series
Wednesday March 13, 2024 – 7pm
1214 Sansom Street and on zoom Registration Required for zoom – use this link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0vdumppzwuHNYs4KmAVk04T1mXGlGaMbh5
Timothy Donnelly’s most recent book, Chariot, was published in 2023 by Wave Books. His previous books include The Problem of the Many, winner of the inaugural Big Other Poetry Prize, and The Cloud Corporation, winner of the 2012 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. A Guggenheim Fellow, he teaches at Columbia University and lives in Brooklyn with his family.

Airea D. Matthews’ first collection of poems is the critically acclaimed Simulacra, which received the prestigious 2016 Yale Series of Younger Poets Award. Matthews is also the author of Bread and Circus, a memoir-in-verse that combines poetry, prose, and imagery to explore the realities of economic necessity, marginal poverty, and commodification, through a personal lens. Matthews received a 2020 Pew Fellowship, a 2016 Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award, and was awarded the Louis Untermeyer Scholarship in Poetry
from the 2016 Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. From 2022-2023 she served as Philadelphia’s Poet Laureate. She is an assistant professor at Bryn Mawr College where she directs the poetry program.
Matthew Buckley Smith is the author of Midlife, winner of the 2021 Richard Wilbur Award, and Dirge for an Imaginary World, winner of the 2011 Able Muse Book Award. His poems have been featured in American Life in Poetry, Best American Poetry, Poetry Daily, and elsewhere. He is the Associate Editor of Literary Matters, and he hosts the poetry podcast SLEERICKETS.

Open mic hosted by Luke Stromberg

Virtual Poetry: World Poetry Day
2024-03-17 14:00 - 15:00 | Virtual
Sunday March 17, 2024
2pm EST – VIRITUAL
Join us on Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0vdumppzwuHNYs4KmAVk04T1mXGlGaMbh5
“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.” — Writer Elizabeth Barrett Browning dedicated this iconic poem to her husband Robert Browning but her famous sonnet could just as easily declare love for poetry itself. We can all do that on World Poetry Day, on March 21. The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) founded this day in 1999. Poetry uses rhythms and imagery to elicit emotion and the imagination of the reader. Poetry can rhyme, using what are called meters of long and short syllables. Some poetry, written in what’s called ‘free verse,’ doesn’t employ rhyme or meters. Poems are broken into stanzas, which are like paragraphs, and can be up to 12 lines long. We believe the first known poem appeared 4,000 years ago in Babylon. Today, countless types of poems are available to enjoy, including haikus, limericks, sonnets, and ballads.

Virtual Poetry Reading: Remembering Robert Frost
2024-03-24 14:00
Join us on Zoom for a poetry reading honoring Robert Frost!
Robert Lee Frost (March 26, 1874 – January 29, 1963) was an American poet. His work was initially published in England before it was published in the United States. Known for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American colloquial speech, Frost frequently wrote about settings from rural life in New England in the early 20th century, using them to examine complex social and philosophical themes. Frequently honored during his lifetime, Frost is the only poet to receive four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry. He became one of America’s rare “public literary figures, almost an artistic institution”. He was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in 1960 for his poetic works. Frost was 86 when he performed a reading at the inauguration of John F. Kennedy on January 20, 1961. On July 22, 1961, Frost was named poet laureate of Vermont.

Live Poetry: Nathalie Anderson, Steve Burke, Cassie MacDonald
2024-03-27 19:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Join us for Live Poetry at Fergie’s Pub and on Zoom!
Nathalie Anderson, author of Rough, Following Fred Astaire, Crawlers, Quiver, Stain, and Held and Firmly Bound, collaborated in with artist Susan Hagen and poet Lisa Sewell on Birds of North America. Anderson’s poems have appeared in many journals, manages the list-serv Lit-Philly. Steve Burke lives in the Mount Airy section of Philadelphia; worked for many years as a labor & delivery nurse. He’s read in many venues around the Philly area; has two Moonstone-published chapbooks – After the Harvest & For Now – plus another, Small Answers, forthcoming. Cassie MacDonald served as Hearthkeeper of Brigid’s House, where she welcomed writers and other artists with wide-open creative space and loving encouragement. Cassie was also a founder and the first Director of Camden FireWorks, an arts destination serving the community with gallery space, studios, and workshops. Alina Macneal & Jennifer Hook Hosts, Open Reading Follows.
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Hearing Women's Voices: Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach, Michelle Myers, & Kimmika L.H Williams-Witherspoon
2024-03-28 18:00 - 20:00 | Barnes and Noble 1708 Chesnut St., 1708 Chesnut Street., Phildelphia, PA, 19122, United States
Join us for Live Poetry at Barnes and Noble!
Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach is the author of three poetry collections: 40 WEEKS, Don’t Touch the Bones, winner of the 2019 Idaho Poetry Prize, and The Many Names for Mother, winner the Wick Poetry Prize and finalist for the Jewish Book Award. She is currently working on a poetry collection as well as a book of linked lyric essays, both of which grapple with raising a neurodiverse child with a disabled partner under the shadow of the war in Ukraine, Julia’s birthplace. Her poems have appeared in POETRY, Ploughshares, American Poetry Review, The Nation, and AGNI, among others. She is an Assistant Professor of English/Creative Writing at Denison University. Michelle Myers is an award-winning poet and educator. Appearing on HBO’s Def Poetry Jam as a founding member of Yellow Rage, Michelle harnesses her experiences as a biracial Korean American woman to create work that raises awareness and builds community. Her writing has been published in Apiary, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Title Magazine, Brevity, and USA Today. Michelle received a 2024 Fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, awards from the Leeway Foundation, Loft Literary Center, Asian Arts Initiative, Japanese American National Museum, and Dodge Poetry Program. Michelle’s CCPTV show Drop the Mic has been nominated for six Emmys. Michelle’s poetry was featured in Rise: A Pop History of Asian America from the Nineties to Now as well as My Life: Growing Up Asian in America. Michelle’s TEDx Talk Let Hearts Love. Let Hearts Live (TEDx YouTube Channel, December 2023) and she hosts a podcast called Mind Your Margins, which is produced by her daughter, Myong. Kimmika L.H. Williams-Witherspoon has been a force in the spoken word/poetry scene for decades. This new release (You Gotta Have Game) from Boyer College of Music and Dance is Williams-Witherspoon at her best. The poet tells us: “I am the crack of morning, Light in the shadow of dark” – In this beautiful collection of poetic text with instrumental accompaniment Williams-Witherspoon brings us through the struggle of life, always the light in the shadow of dark. No matter how hard the journey, no matter the roadblocks placed, Williams-Witherspoon offers hope in endurance. The poem” By g emil reutter. “Life is a journey—not just a trip with destinations and an expiration date! Traveling is an action AND a process. These are the pieces that fill my heart and remind me to greet each day glad to be alive.” —Kimmika L. H. Williams-Witherspoon

Poetry Reading: Montgomery County Youth Poet Laureate Finalists
2024-04-02 17:00 | The Free Library of Philadelphia, 1901 Vine Street, 1901 Vine Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, United States
Moonstone Arts Center and the Literature Department of The Free Liberty of Philadelphia Present: Montgomery County Youth Poet Laureate Finalists
The Montgomery County Youth Poet Laureate Program is designed to award a young poet (14-18) the title of Youth Poet Laureate who is well versed in poetic expression, exemplifies a deep understanding of poetic language, exhibits uniqueness and newness, and shows appreciation for all art forms.
Featuring Sofia Bagarazzi, Maya Brothers, Sophia Hall, Emi Maeda, Samrithaa H.V.
Sofia Bagarazzi is a sophomore at Friends’ Central School. She plays a multitude of sports and is involved with BSA and Girl Scouts. She loves to read, write, cook, and play with her dog and cats! Maya Brothers is a sophomore at Friends’ Central School, captain of the Debate Tea, a competitive cyclist and she loves to weightlift. In her free time, she writes poetry, draws & paints, and participates in mock trial.Sophia Hall lives a double life: eighteen-year-old poet by day, secret agent by night. Her writing has been recognized by the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, the Library of Congress, and Button Poetry. Emi Maeda is a Junior at The Baldwin School. Her work has appeared in the NY Seikatsu Newspaper, The Rising Phoenix Review, The Kenyon Young Writer’s Anthology, and more, and she is the first-place winner of the Charlotte Miller Poetry Contest. Samrithaa H.V. is a freshman at Methacton Senior High School, currently a writer and editor for Element, a superior Literary Arts Magazine and certified staff writer for her school newspaper, The Windy Hill.
王潇/Evan Wang is the first Youth Poet Laureate of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania and is judge and host of this reading

Virtual Poetry: Moonstone Poetry @ PhillyCAM with Brain Tierney
2024-04-02 18:30
Moonstone Poetry @ PhillyCAM
Can be viewed on the Phillycam website Or Cable 6/966HD/967 or Verizon FIOS, 29/30 In Philadelphia.
Philly Loves Poetry Interview and Readings Series
Brian Tierney is the author of Rise and Float, winner of the 20-2021 Jake Adam York Prize. His poetry and prose have appeared in such journals as Paris Review, Kenyon Review, AGNI, NER, The Adroit Journal, and others. A former Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, and a graduate of the Bennington College MFA Writing Seminars, he was named among Narrative Magazine’s 2013 “30 Below 30” emerging writers, and is winner of the 2018 George Bogin Memorial Award from The Poetry Society of America. Raised in Philadelphia, he lives in Oakland, Ca., where he teaches poetry at The Writing Salon.
Charles S. Carr, Host

Live Poetry: Anuradha Bhowmik, Diane Sahms-Guarnieri, Jess Yuan
2024-04-03 19:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Join us for a poetry reading, live at Fergie’s Pub and on Zoom!
Anuradha Bhowmik is a Bangladeshi-American poet and writer from South Jersey, winner of the Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize for her first collection Brown Girl Chromatography, a Kundiman Fellow and a 2018 AWP Intro Journals Project Winner in Poetry. Diane Sahms-Guarnieri, a native Philadelphian, is the author 8 books, the latest of which is Blues, Prayers, & Pagan Chant. She has been published in The Philadelphia Inquirer, Pennsylvania Literary Journal, Many Mountains Moving, Philadelphia Stories. Jess Yuan is a poet, educator, and architect, author of the Slow Render, winner of the Airlie Prize, and Threshold Amnesia, winner of the Yemassee Chapbook Contest, her poems appear in Best New Poets, Tupelo Quarterly Review, jubilat, and elsewhere.
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Live Poetry: Ona Gritz, Alina Macneal, Zack Rogow
2024-04-09 17:30 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Join us for Live Poetry at Fergie’s Pub and on Zoom!
Ona Gritz writes memoir, essays, and poetry for adults, verse novels for teens, and fiction for children, her poetry collection Geode was a finalist for the Main Street Rag Poetry Book Award. Zack Rogow is an American poet, playwright, translator, and critic. He is the author of nine books of poetry, including Irreverent Litanies; Talking with the Radio: poems inspired by jazz and popular music, and My Mother and the Ceiling Dancers. He has taught in several MFA creative writing programs and serves as a contributing editor of Catamaran Literary Reader. Daniel Simpson has appeared in Prairie Schooner, the Cortland review, and many other journals, and works as a technical support specialist for the Library of Congress’s braille and audio book download service for the print-impaired.
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Live Poetry: zach blackwood, Faye Chevalier, Violet Gehringer
2024-04-10 19:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Join us for Live Poetry at Fergie’s Pub and on Zoom!
zach blackwood is a poet and culture writer in philadelphia, author of ultra-fine and the apocryphal chapbook sexy unique hollow point. Faye Chevalier is a Philadelphia-based creatur, lurking. She is the author of futur.txt and flesh_wound, her poetry has been featured in bedfellows, The Wanderer, Peach Mag, Yes Poetry, the tiny, & elsewhere, & she serves as a editor for Voicemail Poems. Violet Gehringer’s work has appeared in Vice, them., Barrelhouse, and elsewhere. Her first book of poems, i love you it looks like rain, was published by Be About It in 2017. She lives in Philadelphia with her cat, Noodle.
Amy Saul-Zerby, Host – open reading follows
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Live Poetry: Matt Lake, Jon Lawrence, Hannah McDonald
2024-04-17 19:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Join us for Live Poetry at Fergie’s Pub and on Zoom!
Matt Lake is frankly baffled, he began writing and editing books about folklore, monsters, and dark history–including his best-known book Weird Pennsylvania. Jon Lawrence poetry and reviews have been published in Newfound, American Writers Review, The Bangalore Review, and others. Hannah McDonald is a writer, poet, geek, and generally funny queer woman. Her writing has appeared in Apiary, The Legendary, and Dreamstreets. Hannah writes fan-fiction, if you’re into that sort of thing.
Sean Hanrahan, Host – Open Reading Follows
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Virtual Poetry: International Haiku Day
2024-04-21 14:00 - 17:00
International Haiku Poetry Day (April 17) was started in 2007 and later taken on by The Haiku Foundation in celebration of National Poetry Month.
According to The Haiku Foundation, the haiku is an ancient and undefinable-in-English form of Japanese poetry. At its most basic, it is three lines, the first with five syllables, the second with seven and the third with five. Write us a Haiku.
“Haiku are short imagistic poems about things that make the reader feel connected to nature.”
— William J. Higginson (1938-2008), in his essay “Guidelines for Writing Haiku in English.”
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