Moonstone Arts Center

Live Poetry: Featured Readers 2023
2024-02-25 14:00 - 16:00 (America/New_York) | 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.
Register for Zoom

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.
Register for zoom

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.
Register for Zoom

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
Register for Zoom

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
Register for Zoom

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.”
Register for Zoom

Live Poetry: Warren C. Longmire, Kirwya Sutherland
2024-04-24 19:00
Join us for Live Poetry at Fergie’s Pub and on Zoom!
Warren C. Longmire, author of Bird/Diz, is an uncle, writer, performer and educator from the bad part of North Philadelphia. He is the host of House Poet: A Spoken Word Dance Party and mix_lit. Kirwyn Sutherland makes poems centering the black experience in America, whose work has been published in American Poetry Review, APIARY Magazine, FOLDER, The Wanderer and elsewhere.
Register for Zoom

Live Poetry: Leeway Foundation Poets
2024-05-01 19:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Live at Fergie’s Pub and on Zoom.
Nzadi Keita’s new poetry collection, Migration Letters, centers her upbringing in Black working-class Philadelphia. Pat McLean-Smith is a female word artist dedicated to the writing, reciting and powerful performance of poetry. Debra Powell-Wright has been a performance poet for the past 25+ years and has been published in numerous anthologies, including a tribute to the legacy of Nina Simone. Nikki Powerhouse uses performance and literary art to create a space for collective healing and transformation within communities.
Link for Zoom:

Moonstone Poetry @ PhillyCam: Ahmad Almallah, Huda Fakhreddine
2024-05-07 18:30
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
Ahmad Almallah is a poet from Palestine and an artist-in-residence at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of Border Wisdom and Bitter.
Huda Fakhreddine’s work focuses on modernist movements or trends in Arabic poetry and their relationship to the Arabic literary tradition.
Charles S. Carr, Host

Book Release - James Feichthaler - Live Poetry
2024-05-08 19:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Live Poetry at Fergie’s Pub and on Zoom
Join us in celebrating the release of poet James Feichthaler’s new book From the Back Porch of a War (Parnilis Media). A short reading will be followed by a book signing.
James Feichthaler is a poet with roots in the Philadelphia-area residing in Trenton, NJ, where he watches the skies for UFOs, sings Irish folk songs on his porch, and drinks beers. From the Back Porch of a War pulls no punches in its assessment of a politically-divided America seemingly at war with itself, searching for moral integrity in a hashtag-hardened, spiritually-bankrupt world.
Link for Zoom

Virtual Poetry - New Voices Spring 2024
2024-05-12 14:00
Virtual Poetry on Zoom
New Voices Spring 2024: 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.
Join us on zoom for emerging poets from around the country

Live Poetry - New Voices Spring 2024
2024-05-14 17:30 | Parkway Central Library, 1901 Vine St
Live Poetry at Parkway Central Library and on Zoom
New Voices Spring 2024: 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.
Join us live at the Central Library for emerging poet from Philadelphia
Zoom Link

Live Poetry - John Amen & Amy Small-McKinney
2024-05-15 19:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Live Poetry at Fergie’s Pub
John Amen is the author of five collections of poetry, including Dark Souvenirs and Illusion of an Overwhelm, recipient of the 2021 Jack Grapes Poetry Prize, he founded and is managing editor of Pedestal Magazine. Amy Small-McKinney was the Montgomery County Poet Laureate. She is author of Walking Toward Cranes (won the Kithara Book Prize) and One Day I Am A Field, was written during COVID and her husband’s death.
Zoom Link

Virtual Poetry - May Day 2024 Anthology
2024-05-19 14:00 - 15:30 | virtual
Sunday May 19, 2024 – 2pm EDT – VIRTUAL
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIvcOiqrTIuGtI4ZR23zt_f1C1FDbB5uk6U
May Day commemorating the historic struggles and gains made by workers and the labour movement, observed in many countries on May 1. In 1889 an international federation of socialist groups and trade unions designated May 1 as a day in support of workers, in commemoration of the Haymarket Riot in Chicago (1886). Five years later, U.S. Pres. Grover Cleveland, uneasy with the socialist origins of Workers’ Day, signed legislation to make Labor Day—already held in some states on the first Monday of September—the official U.S. holiday in honour of workers.
We invited poets to reflect on the history of labor and the recent surges in the movement. You can purchase the anthology collection here.
Not All Poets Will Be Reading – Open Reading Follows
Featured Poets
Mary Anne Abdo
Byron Beynon
AJ Chilson
Craig Czury
Joan Donato
Steven Halpern
Jane Ellen Ibur
Jones Irwin
Nathaniel Krenkel
Mharlyn Merriitt
Leslie Perry
John Potter
Adam Rubin
Jennifer Schneider
Julia Robinson Shimizu
Stephani Twidwell
Gail Wasserman
Kelley White

Live Poetry - Christopher Childers and Ernest Hilbert
2024-05-22 19:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Live Poetry at Fergie’s Pub
Christopher Childers, author of The Penguin Book of Greek and Latin Lyric Verse, a book 14 years in the making. He received an NEA Translators’ Fellowship in 2018, and has published in venues including The Kenyon Review, the Yale Review, Agni, Literary Matters, and Smartish Pace. His translations have been included in several anthologies, including The Penguin Book of Elegy and The Poetry Pharmacy Forever. His poem “Miasma” is forthcoming from Best American Poetry 2023. Ernest Hilbert, author of the Sixty Sonnets, All of You on the Good Earth, Caligulan—selected as winner of the 2017 Poets’ Prize, Last One Out and Storm Swimmer, was selected by Rowan Ricardo Phillips as the winner of the 2022 Vassar Miller Prize. He lives in Philadelphia where he works as a rare book dealer and book critic for The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and Fine Books and Collections. His poem “Mars Ultor” was included in Best American Poetry
Alina Macneal & Jennifer Hook Hosts, Open Reading Follows
Zoom Link

Live Poetry - C.M. Crockford & Amber Renee
2024-05-29 19:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Live Poetry at Fergie’s Pub
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 Fergies, featuring an open reading, featured readers, live music and a soundtrack you can bounce to.
C.M. Crockford is an autistic/ADHD Philadelphia poet and the author of Birdsongs: Poems 2020-2023, co-hosted The Band: A Podcast About The Shield, published two chapbooks, and his work has been featured in dozens of magazines, journals, and websites. Amber Renee is a chronic writer, author of Thoughts on This Most Recent Episode, a Poetry-Picture book called i feel like i’m nothing, and In memory, energy Nothing / is Forever: a collection of sad & spiritual poems from my 20s. And featuring mixes by Shang, our local DJ highlight.
Warren C. Longmire Host, Open Reading Follows
Zoom Link

Live Poetry: S/He Speaks 2: Voices of Women, Trans & Nonbinary Folx
2024-06-01 13:00 - 15:00 | The Rotunda, 14014 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, United States
Live Poetry: S/He Speaks 2: Voices of Women, Trans & Nonbinary Folx
Hosted at The Rotunda, 4014 Walnut Street in Philadelphia
Also on Zoom:
S/He Speaks 2 is edited by Cassendre Xavier and Tom Daubert.
When we launched the S/He Speaks anthology in 2023, we noted that anyone likely to read it would already be well aware of the ongoing “Cold War” in the United States targeting the rights of women and transgendered people. Once again, this anthology comes in conjunction with an afternoon-long event at The Rotunda at the University of Pennsylvania, where writers who can attend will read from their works and discuss their writing. All the poems and short essays here come from people who take their writing seriously. Many are women. Some are transgendered, both male-to-female and female-to-male. Others define themselves as nonbinary. All have something meaningful and personal to say, inspired by our calls for short writing of this nature, whether about gender and transition issues, health and life experience, relationships — anything personal. We hope readers will find some inspiration here — and possibly as a result, begin their own writings.
Featured Contributors
Ashley Andrews
Philip Avilov
Mikey Bachman
Lainey Bechta
Janice F. Booth
Ariana Chavez
Taffeta Chime
Cathyann Cusimano
F. Daubert
Rebecca Dietrich
V. Eidson
Ellen Gannon
Kate Gardner
Melissa Gibson
Liora Hassan
Rosalie Hendon
Samantha Hollins
Zoe Mae Huot-Link
Erin Jamieson
Isabella Kaufman
Jess Kratzer
Amira Kravitz
Deborah LeFalle
Josephine LoRe
Betsy Merbitz
Mira Mookerjee
Beth S.K. Morris
Carlene Stegman Moskal
Gloria Nixon-John
Sophia Ogden
Emma Paris
Breanna Reyes
Adya Ryan
Yvette Santana
Jen Schneider
Zoe Katherine Shelley
Brian “Brie” Sheridan
Tanjanike “Tan” Shivers
Ellie Smillie
Megha Sood
Makani Speier-Brito
Laura Sweeney
Renée Szostek
Natalia Tola
Suzannah “Su” Van Gelder
Jamie C. Whitlow
Harley Woods
Morgan Wright
Cassendre Xavier
Alexis Young
ZQ

Virtual Poetry: Freedom Anthology
2024-07-14 14:00 - 15:00 | Virtual
Freedom 2024 Anthology Reading
Sunday July 14, 2024
2pm on Zoom
Zoom Meeting ID 829 9128 3645 – Passcode [REDACTED]
Registration Link – https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZYkfuiqpjgsHtFxxxyjfTkHXjIJkgSPg2tA

Freedom
The United States celebrates Independence on July 4
France celebrates Bastille Day on July 14
The struggle for freedom and independence is universal.
What does Freedom mean to you?
It is used as a rallying call across the political spectrum
Our Poets Responded

Not All Poets Will Be Reading

Mary Anne Abdo
M. Tonita Austin
Sarwa Azeez
Susan Baer
Jeff Bien
A.C. Blake
Charles Briggs
Christopher Butters
Francisco Carrasco
AJ Chilson
Shaheen Dil
Elinor Donahue
Anna Dunlap

Sahar Fathi
Francis Flavin
Ana Fores Tamayo
Deborah Fries
William Galasso
Linda Goss
Pamela Haines
Annie Hartford
Kathleen Herrmann
Kayla Howe
Jones Irwin
Ralph La Rosa
Kelly Lynn
Dara Marsh
John Mason
Matt McGarvey
Aurora McKee
Mharlyn Merriitt
Leslie Perry
Claire Petersen
Nader Rahimi
Janet Restino
Linda Romanowski
Robert Eugene Rubino
Carla Schick
Evan Schneider

Jennifer Schneider
Ameerah Shabazz
Woody Shiflett
Miki Simic
Robert Lavett Smith
Karamo Muchuri Sulieman
Laura Sweeney
Eike Waltz
Gail Wasserman
Kelley White
Daniel Williams
Samantha Wright
Daniel Zehner
