Live Poetry: Michael J. Ivory Jr., Matthew Kosinski, & Mattie Phrances McDonald
2026-07-01 19:00 - 21:00 (America/New_York) | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Live Poetry: Michael J. Ivory Jr., Matthew Kosinski, & Mattie Phrances McDonald
Wednesday July 1, 2026 – 7pm – LIVE
Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street
Michael J. Ivory, Jr. is a Worker of the Word — in other words, a writer. A Miami, FL-native, he currently lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. As the queer son of Pentecostal preachers, Michael lives out his sacred mission to affirm the inherent divinity of all people, but most especially Black queer “outcasts” like himself. He does this through his writing, which can be found on his Substack, as well as in his work with O, Miami Press, Iansá Mag, Duke Magazine, and Oxford American. He is currently working on his debut novel.
Matthew Kosinski is a poet, socialist and occultist from Philadelphia. His books include Alone in the White Marble City (NDR, 2020), Your Human Shape (Broken Sleep Books, 2022) and Year of the Inverted Star (Broken Sleep Books, 2026).
Mattie Phrances McDonald (they/she/bun) is an engineer, musician, and writer. Along with their solo project Betty’s Eyes, she is the guitarist/vocalist in Booklegger, creates art and circuits for Electrofoods, Ultd., and co-founded the queer- and trans-centered sandlot baseball team the Quaker City Cryptids. Bun lives in their adoptive home of Philadelphia with two of her partners and two kitties. Their work can be found at booklegger.bandcamp.com, electrofoods.space, and on instagram at @bettys.eyes and @cryptidsbaseball
Warren Longmire Host – Open Reading Follows

Philly Loves Poetry: Jim Timpane
2026-07-14 18:30 - 19:30
Philly Loves Poetry Interview and Readings Series with Jim Timpane
Moonstone Poetry @ PhillyCAM
Watch on the PhillyCAM website
Or Cable 66/966HD/967 or Verizon FIOS, 29/30 in Philadelphia.
John Timpane was a professor and lecturer in English, first at Rutgers University and later at Lafayette College in Pennsylvania. In 1997 The Philadelphia Inquirer, hired him as Opinion Page Editor, and later the Books Editor and Theater Critic. He retired from The Inquirer in 2019. Since The Inquirer, John has freelanced fulltime. He specializes in ghostwriting autobiographies; arts reviewing, especially in poetry and theater; and writing seminars. He keeps working at the craft of versemaking.
Charles S. Carr, Host

Live Poetry: Jessica Buten, Caroline Furr, Ben Saff, Abby Minor & Amy Thatcher
2026-07-15 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Live Poetry: Jessica Buten, Caroline Furr, Ben Saff, Abby Minor & Amy Thatcher
Wednesday July 15, 2026 – 7pm
Live at Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street
Jessica Buten is a poet from Bucks County.
Caroline Furr has a decades long history in painting, sculpture, interior and surface design, gallery and museum work. At this less distracting time of life she has turned to her accumulation of written work as inspiration for new words.
Ben Saff is a technologist by trade and a creative when the moon comes knocking at his window, asking for a poem. He lives in Philadelphia with his cat, Simba.
Abby Minor lives in the ridges and valleys of central Pennsylvania, where she works on poems, essays, gardens, collages, and projects exploring regional and reproductive politics. Her poems and essays have appeared in Fence, the American Poetry Review, Gulf Coast, Ninth Letter, Bombay Gin, Sixth Finch, Harvard Review, Feminist Studies, and elsewhere.
Amy Thatcher is a native Philadelphian. Her poems have been published in Denver Quarterly, Split LIp, The Journal, Copper Nickel, Salt Hill and other journals. Her first manuscript, Weird Girl, won the 2025 Charles B Wheeler Prize and will be published by the Ohio State University Press in February 2027.
Anne-Adele Wight Host – Open Reading Follows

Censorship: A Panel Discussion with Larry Robin, Ernest Hilbert & Keith Kopka
2026-07-18 14:00 - 16:00 | The Free Library of Philadelphia, 1901 Vine Street, 1901 Vine Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, United States
Censorship: A Panel Discussion with Larry Robin, Ernest Hilbert, & Keith Kopka
Sat, July 18, 2026 @ 2:00 P.M.
Rare Book Department at Parkway Central Library
Cost: FREEElkins Library, 3rd FloorA discussion on censorship with Larry Robin, Director of Moonstone Arts Center and former owner of Robin’s Book Store, which was the Philadelphia defendant in the Tropic of Cancer (Henry Miller) pornography case in 1961. Larry will be joined by poet and rare book dealer Ernest Hilbert, and Keith Kopka, Writers Resist and Senior Editor at Narrative Magazine and Poetry Editor at Philadelphia Stories.This program is presented in association with Book Complaints and the Defense of Intellectual Freedom, an exhibition from Special Collections and will take place in the Rare Book Department’s Elkins Library.
The views expressed by the authors and moderators are strictly their own and do not represent the opinions of the Free Library of Philadelphia or its employees.

Live Poetry: Jane-Rebecca Cannarella, Nycir Keen, & Charles O’Hay
2026-07-22 19:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Live Poetry: Jane-Rebecca Cannarella, Nycir Keen, & Charles O’Hay
Wednesday July 22, 2026 – 7pm – LIVE
Live at Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street
Jane-Rebecca Cannarella is the author of Better Bones and Marrow; as well as an editor at HOOT Review, a former genre editor at Lunch Ticket, and a sometimes contributor at SSG Music. She likes: playing toy instruments, the ocean, symbolic use of bathtubs, and hanging out with her cats. Feed her candy and validation to receive her eternal gratitude. She loves Philadelphia
Nycir Keen is a Philly based poet and playwright with roots in slam poetry. A member of the Collective Mic as well as House Poet and a former performer for the Gullah Traveling Theater. Founder of the Day Trolley, a writing circle and yearly open mic in west philly, Nycir has a passion for facilitating creative and safe spaces for writers. In 2024, Nycir wrote and directed his first short screenplay, “Renaissance///Addiction”. Today he is still active in the poetry scene, moving between Beaufort South Carolina and the Philadelphia area to cultivate his own work and find new writers to work with, share with and create with.
Charles O’Hay is a Philly-based poet whose work has appeared in over 250 publications including the New York Quarterly, Mudfish, and Gargoyle. His collections include Far from Luck and Smoking in Elevators. His third collection, The Flame Orchard, is due for release from Rose Violet Publishers in 2026
Anne-Adele Wight Host – Open Reading Follows

House Poet Presents: Juniper Danger & Thalia Geiger
2026-07-29 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
House Poet Presents: Juniper Danger & Thalia Geiger
Wednesday July 29, 2026 – 7pm – LIVE
Live at Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street
Juniper Danger is a Philly based queer poet and science teacher. She loves filling her house with people and those people with soup. You can find her work in Collide Zine and Voicemail Poems, and her Instagram is @androjunous
Thalia Geiger is a poet and fiction writer, author of the chapbook Wild Like a Woman, and her debut poetry collection, Red Death, Purple Dark, is forthcoming from Thirty West Publishing. She is the winner of Black Fox Literary’s 2025 Summer Fox Tales Contest, and her work has been featured in New York Quarterly, Allegory Ridge, Coffin Bell, Grim & Gilded and more. She hails from Philadelphia, where she works in journal publishing. You can find her on Instagram and BlueSky @thalierr, and on Substack at thalierr.substack.com
Warren C. Longmire – Host – Open Reading Follows

Philly Loves Poetry: David Livewell
2026-08-04 18:30 - 19:30 | PhillyCAM, 699 Ranstead Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19106, United States
Philly Loves Poetry Interview and Readings Series with David Livewell
Tuesday, August 4, 2026
6:30pm – Live Broadcast
Watch live on the Phillycam website
Or Cable 66/966HD/967 or Verizon FIOS, 29/30
David Livewell was raised in the Kensington section of North Philadelphia. He won the 2012 T.S. Eliot Poetry Prize for his first book, Shackamaxon. His poems have appeared in The Hudson Review, The Threepenny Review, Dark Horse, Poetry, The Yale Review, American Life in Poetry, The Hopkins Review, and other journals. He received a 2025 fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts and lives with his family just outside Philadelphia. His latest collection, Pass and Stow, is out now from Paul Dry Books.
Charles S. Carr, Host

Live Poetry: Stevie Edwards, Mike Jurkovic and Joe Roarty
2026-08-05 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Live Poetry: Stevie Edwards, Mike Jurkovic and Joe Roarty
Wednesday August 5, 2026 – 7pm – LIVE
Live at Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street
Stevie Edwards is an Assistant Professor at Clemson University and Poetry Editor of The South Carolina Review.
Mike Jurkovic, 2025-2027 Ulster County Poet Laureate. Published globally. President Calling All Poets Series. Co-chair of the Music Fan Film Series.

Joe Roarty – Anyone who has seen local legend, Joe Roarty, perform at Fergie’s Pub or other venues around Philadelphia knows to expect poetry that is original, explosive, humorous, and, literally, percussive.
Aaren Perry – Host – Open Reading Follows

VIRTUAL EVENT - National Book Lovers Day
2026-08-09 14:00 - 16:00 | Virtual
VIRTUAL EVENT – National Book Lovers Day
Book Lovers Day is celebrated on the 9th of August every year. This is an unofficial holiday observed to encourage bibliophiles to celebrate reading and literature. People are advised to put away their smartphones and every possible technological distraction and pick up a book to read. Book Lovers Day is widely recognized on global scale yet its origin and creator remain unknown to date.
Link to Register: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/f7cHnTsGSLGnHbzv4dA2jQ

Recent Publications: Regina Dilgen, Wendell Hawken, Beth Konkoski, & Sophia Pinto Thomas
2026-08-16 14:00 - 16:00 | Virtual
Recent Poetry Books from Moonstone Press: Regina Dilgen, Wendell Hawken, Beth Konkoski, & Sophia Pinto Thomas
Sunday August 16, 2pm ET – VIRTUAL
https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/3i7OYv8sRwqh_OHp-K-cAQ
Regina’s new book is Back from the River, $11.00
Regina Dilgen was born in Brooklyn and grew up in Poughkeepsie, New York. She served as Professor of English and Department Chair at Palm Beach State College in Lake Worth, Florida, and she holds a Ph.D. from Florida Atlantic University. Her poetry has been published in Chameleon Chimera: An Anthology of Florida Poets, Poetry South, Blueline, redrosethorns, Earth’s Daughters, Quartler(ly), The Dewdrop, Persimmon Tree, Passager, and Apollo’s Lute. Regina attended the Breadloaf Writers Conference in Sicily, and she was a featured poet at a Performance Poets of the Palm Beaches reading.
Wendell’s new book is Slinky on the Bottom, $11.00

Wendell Hawken (she/her) earned her MFA from Warren Wilson College’s Program for Writers. Publications include four chapbooks and six full collections. Hawkens was named the inaugural Post Laureate of Millwood VA, an unincorporated quirky village in the northern Shenandoah Valley where she lives.
Beth’s new book is Hold Near the Middle, $11.00
Beth Konkoski is a writer and high school English teacher living in Virginia where she spends as much time as possible listening to the sounds of a pen across the page and water across rocks. Her poetry has been published in journals such as: The American Journal of Poetry, Mid-Atlantic Review, and The Potomac Review. She is the author of A Drawn & Papered Heart, a collection of short and flash fiction that won the 2023 Acacia Prize for Short Fiction and was published by Kallisto Gaia Press in 2024.
Sophia’s new book is Floodings, $11.00
Sophia Pinto Thomas is a poet from Boston, Massachusetts. She enjoys experimenting with the possibilities of rhyme, learning from thetrials of young adulthood, and observing the wonders of the natural world. Sophia is an eco-poet, world-maker, and eternal student. Her first poetry book, “Alchemies, Arrivals”, was published with QuillKeepers press in 2025.

Live Poetry: Jonah Frankel, "Jasper Jonosky," John Wojtowicz, Woody Woodger & Daniel Zehner
2026-08-19 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Live Poetry: Jonah Frankel, “Jasper Jonosky,” John Wojtowicz, Woody Woodger & Daniel Zehner
Wednesday August 19, 2026 – 7pm ET
Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street
Jonah Frankel: “Jonah would say he lives through art. He thinks his writing is beautiful even when it is not. Sometimes it is. His use of form and flow in his pieces is always inspired by music. His poems are informed by real life experience. To keep art inspired he has to take in more bullshit than he pumps out. The world is gross, the summer is hot and the winter is cold. Either way the good stuff is outside.”
“Jasper Jonosky “Jasper Jonosky is a rat bastard who lied and cheated his way here.” (Jonah thinks Jasper is super good [and beautiful] – modern beatnik type shit)
John Wojtowicz grew up working on his family’s azalea and rhododendron nursery and still lives in the backwoods of South Jersey. Publications include: Rattle, New Ohio Review, Waxing & Waning, Gigantic Sequins, and Driftwood. His chapbook, No Lightsabers in the Kitchen, was selected as a winner of the 2025 Poetry Box Chapbook contest. When not writing poetry, he enjoys monitoring bluebird boxes, flipping horseshoe crabs, and rolling around in the yard. Find out more at: www.johnwojtowicz.com
Woody Woodger is a trans femme profesional slut anarcho-commie dorkazoid who’s too terrified to heat treat her hair and hopes the cat ears distract from that.Her poems have appeared in WMN Zine, DIAGRAM, RFD, and peculiar, and have been nominated for Best of the Net and Pushcart prizes. She has two chapbooks, postcards from glasshouse drive and Puberty 2. She currently lives on Lenni-Lenape and Poutaxat land and you can find her on Instagram @lovlyno1.
Daniel Zehner has had poems and haiku published in Paterson Literary Review, Schuylkill Valley Journal, The Main Street Rag, Lips, the Aurorean, New Jersey Bards Poetry Review, US 1 Worksheets, Frogpond, several Haiku Society of America Members’ Anthologies, and many Moonstone Arts Center anthologies. He recently received an Honorable Mention in the 2025 Allen Ginsberg Poetry Awards sponsored by the Poetry Center at Passaic County Community College and has had a poem included in Speaking For Everyone, An Anthology of “We” Poems edited by Eric Greinke. He has had a collection of poems accepted for publication by Finishing Line Press due for release in October 2026. He is a retired trial lawyer living in New Jersey.
Sean Hanrahan Host – Open Reading Follows

Live Poetry: Matt Hilton & Jules Hostetters
2026-08-26 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Live Poetry: Matt Hilton & Jules Hostetters
Wednesday, August 26th, 7pm ET
Fergies Pub, 1214 Sansom Street
Matt Hilton – Songwriter, Singer, Multi Instrumentalist, Producer, Writer Creating experiences both through creativity and music. Currently living in Philadelphia.
Jules Hostetters is a passionate Creative Writing graduate with a specialization in poetry from the University of the Arts. My academic journey honed my communication, storytelling, and editing skills, while nurturing my eye for art and design. During my time at university, I proudly served as an editor for ‘Underground Pool,’ our literary magazine, where I meticulously reviewed and curated submissions, offered valuable feedback to writers, and played a role in designing the publication.
Mac Chandler Host – Open Reading Follows

Freedom Rhythms
2026-09-12 14:00 - 17:00
Freedom Rhythms
Saturday September 12 – 2PM to 5PM
Commodore Barry Arts & Cultural Center’s Program
6815 Emlen Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19119 • 215-843-8051
“THESE are the times that try men’s souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: It is dearness only that gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to set a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed, if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated….”
Thomas Paine THE AMERICAN CRISIS, No. 1, 1776 Dec. 19, 1776 — America’s Forgotten Founding Father
Freedom 250 Years After America’s Revolution
What do poets have to say about this?
We’re hosting this event in collaboration with Commodore Barry Arts & Cultural Center’s Program, including a reading from our Freedom 250? anthology and readings from Philadelphia Poet Laureate and Montgomery County Poets laureates
Dr. Raina J. Leon
David Gines & Chad Frame
Free & Open to the Public
