Moonstone Arts Center

Live Reading: Featured Poets 2025
2026-05-16 14:00 - 16:00 (America/New_York) | The Free Library of Philadelphia, 1901 Vine Street, 1901 Vine Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, United States
Saturday, May 16 2026 – 2pm ET
Philadelphia Central Library, Literature Department – 1901 Vine Street
Featured Poets from 2025
Moonstone presents over 100 poetry readings a year, creates a book with some of the presenters poems, and has a live and virtual reading. This is it.
Featured Poets (not all poets will be reading):

Nathalie
Anderson

Peter
Baroth

Grace
Bauer

Nilufer
Bektas

Phoebe
Brown

Christopher
Brown

Sarah
Browning

Sydney
Coffin

Marion
Cohen

Robert
Coles

C.M.
Crockford

CRAIG
CZURY

Eileen
D’Angelo

Bill
Ehrhart

Shannon
Frost Greenstein

Thalia
Geiger

Jenny
Grassl

Julia
Gwiazdowski

Brian
Harper

Faleeha
Hassan

Alison
Hicks

Dennis
Hinrichsen

Ditta Baron
Hoeber

Jones
Irwin

Mackenzie
Lerario

Lynn
Levin

Cameron
MacKenzie

Marjorie
Maddox

Emiliano
Martin

MJ
McGinn

Carol
Metellus

David
Milley

Jane Edna
Mohler

Nader
Rahimi

Sultana
Raza

Don
Riggs

Lynda Gene
Rymond

Amy
Small-McKinney

Karamo Muchuri
Sulieman

Mark
Svenvold

Tara
Tamburello

Elaine
Terranova

Bill
Van Buskirk

BJ
Ward

Bernardine
Watson

Von
Wise

Alexis
Young

Robert
Zaller

Wednesday May 20, 2026 @7pm - LIVE
2026-05-20 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Wednesday May 20, 2026 @7pm – LIVE at Fergie’s
Featuring: Chris Darrah, Olga Livshin, David Milley, Elijah B Pringle, III, and Sean Hanrahan as Host
Chris Darrah – Unwashed heathen wordsmith. Published several times in area zines. Member of the New Hope Beats. “Heretic Vicar” nome de plume.
Olga Livshin grew up in Ukraine and Russia. Her poetry appears in POETRY, The New York Times, Ploughshares and other journals.
David Milley’s recent work appears in 3rd Wednesdya, Bay Windows, RFD Magazine, Neologism Poetry Journal, and Last Syllable. His collection of poems, Tiller and Shears, will appear under the Aldrich Press imprint in fall 2026.
Elijah B Pringle, III has to credit his experience in Radio, TV, Stage and FIlm, has worked as a dancer, choreographer, actor, director, and vocalist. Facilitator for writing and Performance, Mr. Pringle has been published in almost fifty anthologies, journals, and books.
Sean Hanrahan Host – Open Reading Follows

Wednesday May 27, 2026 – 7pm LIVE
2026-05-27 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Wednesday May 27, 2026 – 7pm LIVE @ FERGIES
Featuring: Alexander Khan, Dustin Wright, and Mac Chandler as host
Alexander Khan is a poet, he is also a member of a big family in a small house, and a pharmacy staff for children. His work reflects these places and the different person he becomes in each of them.
Dustin Wright hails from somewhere between the Mississippi River delta and the North Mississippi hill country. He moved to West Philadelphia in 2023, but his poetry can only come from Mississippi.
Mac Chandler Host – Open Reading Follows

Live Poetry: POETRY FOR DUMMIES, Second Edition
2026-06-03 19:00 - 21:00
Live Poetry: Poetry for Dummies with John Timpane & more
Wednesday, June 3rd @ 7pm ET
Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia 19107

Poetry for Dummies, Second Edition, has dropped. It’s not for dummies; it’s for the same everyone poetry is for! John, former editor/writer for The Philadelphia Inquirer and a longtime face in the Philly poetry crowd, celebrates the second edition of a book he first wrote in 2000. How did he get to write two editions of Poetry for Dummies separated by 26 years? He’ll tell the wacky tale. And exactly how has the poetry world changed in between? That’s a great story, too. PFD2 takes readers on a tour of * poetry itself – * reading and interpretation – * the 5500-year history of the art – * the craft of writing poetry, both formal and open-form, along with exercises and examples of revision; and * the communication-age poetry world, including online communities, reading groups, beta-readers, open-mics, slams, and publication. We also learn the ways of the Entrepreneurial Poet (if you want to be one).
We’ll also have readings by Philly-area poets featured in PFD2, including:
Charles Carr, Mark Donowsky, Valerie Fox, Ernest Hilbert, Lynn Levin, Joanne Leva, Donald Riggs, and more! And there will be books on sale.
Come celebrate Poetry for Dummies, the book Lawrence Ferlinghetti called “wonderful” because it “demystifies poetry for all.”
Your host: John Timpane

S(he) 4
2026-06-06 13:00 - 16:00 | The Rotunda, 14014 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, United States
Voices of Women, Trans, & Nonbinary Writers
Coedited by Cassendre Xavier and Tom Daubert
When we launched the first 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 trans people. And, as we predicted, that conflict not only rages on, but has greatly worsened in strength and scope. This fourth edition of S/He speaks comes as the path to full and fair acceptance and equality feels far steeper than it did three years ago. In our view, that makes the expressions of selfhood contained in these writings all the more important and inspiring.

Live Broadcast: Philly Loves Poetry Interview and Readings Series Presents Diane Sahms
2026-06-09 18:30 - 21:30 | Moonstone Arts Center
Diane Sahms is the author of nine poetry collections, most recently,– of an octopus: an archite|x| tural awareness of words. She was awarded first place in Judith Stark’s Poetry Contest; Partisan Press’s Working People’s Poetry Contest; and recieved a poetry grant from AEVentures Foundation. Published in North American Review, Northern Virginia Review, Brushfire Literature & Arts Journal, Valley Voices, Sequestrum Literary Journal, The New Verse News, Ranger Magazine, Amsterdam Review & elsewhere. She’s Poetry Editor at North & Oxford. Charles S. Carr, Host

Live Poetry: Dan Kraines, Amy Saul-Zerby, & Rocky Wilson
2026-06-10 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Live Poetry: Dan Kraines, Amy Saul-Zerby & Rocky Wilson
Wednesday, June 10th @ 7pm
Live at Fergies Pub
Dan Kraines is a queer poet of Viennese, Bolivian, and Ukrainian heritage. Strap is his first full length book. Dan works at the writers residency Hawthornden Brooklyn on weekends, and for the poet Sharon Olds during the week. ” Dan Kraines is one of the most gifted literary minds that I have ever taught… daring, surprising, unconventional, a refreshment because everything he does proceeds from an original relation to his material.”– Frank Bidart, Winner of the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, Half-light: Collected Poems.
Amy Saul-Zerby is the author of Paper Flowers, Imaginary Birds, Deep Camouflage, and Choose Your Own Beginning. Her poems have appeared in The Rumpus, The Chicago Review of Books, American Poetry Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, and elsewhere. She edits Voicemail Poems. Her newest poetry collection, If I Cannot Fly, is available through Serotonin Press in July, 2026.
Rocky Wilson is a poet, performance artist, and teacher who lives near the Delaware River in Camden. Rocky has been interpreting Whitman in schools and libraries, and for historial groups and at the Philly Fringe Festival. Rocky has , for the last 25 years, hosted Pizza and Poetry at A Slice of New York in Camden. It is one of the longest running poetry series in New Jersey.
Sean Lynch Host- Open Reading Follows
