Live Poetry Reading
2023-03-01 19:30 - 21:30 (America/New_York) | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Moonstone Poetry Reading
Wednesday March 1, 2023 – 7:30pm
Live at Fergie’s Pub
1214 Sansom Street and on zoom
Registration Required for zoom – use this link:
Zoom Link Here
Pheralyn Dove is author of Paradoxes and Color in Motion, a book of poetry with a foreword by the late legendary drummer Max Roach. She is a poet and visual artist, lives in a state of perpetual gratitude, and is passionate about Cultural Preservation, Global African Liberation and Emotional Healing. Pheralyn states, “After many years of searching, trying to discover my way as a writer and poet, I find myself cultivating a different side of me. Photography, collage, and abstract expressionism dominate in my visual work. Ancestors, Intense Color, Movement, and Nature are also recurring themes. I am a Spiritual Dwelling. Listening to my Intuition. Obeying the Spirit. This is my life as an ever-emerging poet and artist.
g emil reutter lives and writes in Philadelphia. Seventeen collections of his poetry and fiction have been published, most recently Thunder, Lightning and Urban Cowboys a poetry collection and Selected Stories 1990-2022 both from Alien Buddha Press. He is the book review editor and site manager for North of Oxford. His work has been published widely in the small and electronic press. You can visit him at http://gereutter.wordpress.com/

Diane Sahms, a native Philadelphian, is the author of six poetry collections: Images of Being (Stone Garden Publishing, 2011), Lights Battered Edge (Anaphora Literary Press, 2015), and Night Sweat (Red Dashboard Press, 2016), Handheld Mirror of the Mind, (Kelsay Books, 2018); Covid 19 2020 – A Poetic Journal (Moonstone Press, 2021); most recently City of Shadow & Light (Philadelphia) – Alien Buddha Press. Her poems have appeared in a number of online and print publications. Diane is the Poetry Editor at North of Oxford and works as a purchasing agent. You can visit her at http://dianesahmsguarnieri.wordpress.com/ and http://www.dianesahms-guarnieri.com/

Open Reading Follows

Virtual Poetry Interview and Reading
2023-03-07 18:30 - 20:30
Virtual Poetry Interview and Reading
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
Hayden Saunier’s most recent collection, A Cartography of Home, was published by Terrapin Books in 2021. Her work has been awarded the Pablo Neruda Prize, Rattle Poetry Prize, Gell Poetry Award, Keystone Award, and nominated over a dozen times for the Pushcart Prize. Her poems have been published widely in journals such as Beloit Poetry Journal, 32 Poems, Plume, Thrush, Tar River Poetry, and Virginia Quarterly Review. Hayden is an actor with extensive theatre credits as well as appearances in Mindhunter, House of Cards, Outsiders, Do No Harm and as the voice of a broken-down stove for Ikea. She is founder and director of No River Twice (poetry + improvisation) an interactive, audience-driven poetry reading/performance group based in the Philadelphia area. Find more online at www.haydensaunier.com.

Charles S. Carr, Host

Live Poetry Reading
2023-03-08 19:30 - 21:30 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Moonstone Live Poetry Reading
Live at Fergie’s Pub
1214 Sansom Street and on zoom
Registration Required for zoom – use this link:
Zoom Link Here!
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, Odessa Poetry Journal, The Aurealean, Bookends, and others.
Mabel Lee is a native of Philadelphia, where she teaches middle school Spanish and participates in various literary and poetry groups. She is a language, travel, and adventure enthusiast who enjoys backpacking around the world. She believes in the transformative and connective power of poetry within and across communities and language as a bridge towards knowing and helping others. Her work has been published in Aji Magazine, The 5-2 Crime Weekly, Apiary Magazine, Metropolis, and the Sips Poetry Cards series. She is currently an editor for a new poetry and art magazine called Dark Onus Lit.
Hermond Palmer is a poet, author and song writer who has performed his work at spoken-word venues in and around Harlem, Philadelphia, and Washington D.C. He is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania’s College of Arts & Sciences and the Wharton Graduate School of Business. He has published three books of poetry; Echoes from the Quiet that I Keep, Words to Fill the Light in You, and What the Ancestors Told Me and I Decided to Listen.
Open Reading Follows

Live Poetry Reading
2023-03-15 19:30 - 21:30 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Live Poetry Reading
Moonstone Poetry Readings
Live at Fergie’s Pub
1214 Sansom Street and on zoom
Registration Required for zoom – use this link: Zoom Link Here
Adam Gianforcaro is a writer living in Wilmington, Delaware. His most recent collection, Every Living Day, was released in February with Thirty West Publishing House. His work examines queerness, mental health, climate change, and the universe at large, inviting the reader to question whether those things are so different after all. He was a runner-up in The Maine Review’s 2021 Embody Awards and a winner of Button Poetry’s 2018 Short Form Contest
Lindsay Hargrave is a poet, one quarter of the improvised music group Oarsman, the author of a poetry column in the Philly Plain Dealer and a copywriter for Temple University. Proceeds from their debut chapbook ROT (2022) benefit ARC Southeast. Read more at https://linktr.ee/Hargrave or follow @notporkroll on Twitter.
Alison Lubar teaches high school English by day and yoga by night. They are a queer, nonbinary, mixed-race femme whose life work (aside from wordsmithing) has evolved into bringing mindfulness practices, and sometimes even poetry, to young people. Their work has been nominated for both the Pushcart & Best of the Net, and they’re the author four chapbooks: Philosophers Know Nothing About Love, queer feast, sweet euphemism, and it skips a generation. You can find out more at http://www.alisonlubar.com/ or on Twitter @theoriginalison.
Sean Hanrahan Host – Open Reading Follows

Moonstone Arts Center In collaboration with E-Verse Equinox Reading Series
2023-03-22 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Moonstone Arts Center In collaboration with E-Verse Equinox Reading Series
Live at Fergie’s Pub
Register for zoom link here! Zoom Link

Courtney Bambrick is poetry editor at Philadelphia Stories. Poems in or forthcoming in Invisible City, New York Quarterly, Beyond Words, The Fanzine, Philadelphia Poets, Apiary, Schuylkill Valley Journal, Mad Poets Review, Certain Circuits. She teaches writing at Thomas Jefferson University’s East Falls campus in Philadelphia.

The 4th Poet Laureate of Toronto (2012-15) and the 7th Parliamentary/Canadian Poet Laureate (2016-17), George Elliott Clarke was born in Windsor, Nova Scotia, in 1960. A professor of English at the University of Toronto, Clarke has also taught at Duke, McGill, UBC, and Harvard. His recognitions include the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Centre Fellowship, the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Fellows Prize, the Governor-General’s Award for Poetry, the National Magazine Gold Award for Poetry, the Premiul Poesis, the Eric Hoffer Book Award for Poetry, and International Fellow Poet of the Year, Encyclopedic Poetry School [2019]. His acclaimed titles include Whylah Falls, translated into Chinese), Beatrice Chancy, Execution Poems, Blues and Bliss (selected poems), I & I, Illicit Sonnets, Traverse, Canticles II (MMXX), and J’Accuse…! (Poem versus Silence).
Andy Hallman was born in Australia, raised a Mennonite in Lancaster County, educated at Harvard University, Andrew Hallman now lives in Philadelphia where he works in the rare book trade. MIRRENWOOD, the first in a fantasy series, was published in 2022 by Crossroad Press; AMBA, the first in an action-adventure trilogy, was published in 2022 by Rough Edges Press. He is presently finishing the sequel to MIRRENWOOD.
John Wall Barger Host – Open Reading Follows

Featured Poets 2022
2023-04-02 14:00 - 17:00
Featured Poets 2022
Live and Virtual Readings

In 2022, Moonstone featured 235 poets in person and virtually; 113 are in the Featured Poets 2022 Anthology.
We will be hosting two events (Live and Virtual) that includes our Featured Poets.

LIVE Event – Sunday April 2, @ 2pm EST
LIVE at Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom St.
Poets names are listed below:

VIRTUAL Event – Monday April 3, @ 7pm EST
Registration required for Zoom. Use the link below: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZItceGgrDkrG9A7r6it8yWzVOWM6ZwRd8-Y
Poets names are listed below:

Philly Loves Poetry - Liz Chang
2023-04-04 18:30 - 20:30
Philly Loves Poetry
Interview and Reading Series
Moonstone Poetry @ PhillyCAM

Can be viewed on the PhillyCAM website or Cable 66/966HD/967 or Verizon FIOS 29/30 in Philadelphia.
Liz Chang was 2012 Montgomery County Poet Laureate in Pennsylvania. Her poems have appeared in Verse Daily, Exit 7, Rock & Sling, Breakwater Review and Stoneboat Literary Journal, among others. Her fourth collection, a chapbook called Museum of Things, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press in 2023. Her creative nonfiction recently appeared in Oyster River Pages, and her flash fiction has been published internationally. Chang’s translation of Claude de Burine’s work is anthologized in Paris in Our View from l’Association des Amis de Shakespeare & Company. Liz lives en les environs de Philadelphia with her family, dog, cat, and a hive of honeybees. She is the Visiting Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Moravian University.
Charles S. Carr, Host

Live Poetry Reading
2023-04-05 19:00 - 21:00
Live Poetry Reading
Don Riggs, Hannah McDonald, and Aaren Perry

Live at Fergie’s Pub – 1214 Sansom St. and on Zoom.
Registration required. Use this link: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIof-ytrDIiHNH_4_I4bus3BP19d5VhA5Ar
Don Riggs has been teaching mostly first-year composition at Drexel University for the past quarter century. He writes a sonnet, broadly defined, in the bathtub each morning, and has done so for most of this century.

Hannah McDonald is a writer, poet, geek, and generally funny queer woman. Her writing has appeared in Apiary, The Legendary, and Dreamstreets. You might also find her singing karaoke, eating popsicles, baby-talking to her two guinea pigs.

Aaren Perry author of Shipping and Receiving, recently edited a new book of poems by lamont b. Steptoe, co-edited with Dr. James Villarreal, Under Lock and Key: 100 Poems from Death Row, by Anthony Reid. Perry runs Yeatts Perry Consulting, grants and donor management for health equity and social change nonprofits.

Open Reading Follows

Ernest Hilbert's "Storm Swimmer"
2023-04-12 19:00 - 21:00
Live at Fergie’s Pub – 1214 Sansom St. and on Zoom.
Registration required. Use this link: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcocuqsqzkuHdOJFz8Z28iwB70Roo7UdsWx
Join us for the Philadelphia launch of Ernest Hilbert’s new collection of poems.
Storm Swimmer (Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry)
“Ernest Hilbert’s Storm Swimmer is a gleaming cornucopia of dreams, nightmares, tenderness, and grace. It is a book of great feeling and of great technical skill. Everything in it is sacrificed for poetry, which is why everything in this beautiful book lives.”—Rowan Ricardo Phillips, author of Heaven and judge
Copies of the book will be available at a discounted rate of $10. Join us!

Ernest Hilbert is the author of Sixty Sonnets, All of You on the Good Earth, Caligulan, and Last One Out.

Guest reader April Lindner is the author of Skin, and This Bed Our Bodies Shaped.

Guest reader David Hale Sylvester is author of Traveling at the Speed of Life and One Hug at a Time: 99 Stories From the Man Who Embraced the World.

Host John Wall Barger is author of Smog Mother and has appeared in American Poetry Review, Kenyon Review Online, Poetry Ireland Review, and many other journals.

Live Poetry Reading: Celebrating the Publication of 'Storm Swimmer'!
2023-04-12 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Moonstone Poetry Readings
Wednesday April 12, 2023 – 7:00pm – LIVE
Live at Fergie’s Pub
1214 Sansom Street and on zoom
Registration Required for zoom – use this link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcocuqsqzkuHdOJFz8Z28iwB70Roo7UdsWx

Join us for the Philadelphia launch of Ernest Hilbert’s new collection of poems
Storm Swimmer (Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry)
In poems that celebrate survival and renewal, Ernest Hilbert summons the ageless conflict between human affection and the passing of time, recognizing that all we love must eventually disappear. Tender poems of fatherhood weigh against unsettling explorations of natural dangers and intimations of bodily harm. From porn sets to seedy gun ranges and heavy metal tribute nights in crumbling theaters, Hilbert’s eye roves over the desolation and beauty of contemporary America, all the while feeling the irresistible pull of water—what Melville called “the ungraspable phantom of life.”
“Ernest Hilbert’s Storm Swimmer is a gleaming cornucopia of dreams, nightmares, tenderness, and grace. It is a book of great feeling and of great technical skill. Everything in it is sacrificed for poetry, which is why everything in this beautiful book lives.”—Rowan Ricardo Phillips, author of Heaven and judge
Copies of the book will be available at a discounted rate of $10. Join us!
Ernest Hilbert is the author of Sixty Sonnets, All of You on the Good Earth, Caligulan, and Last One Out. He lives in Philadelphia where he works as a rare book dealer. His poem “Mars Ultor” was included in Best American Poetry 2018, and his poems appear in Yale Review, American Poetry Review, BOMB, Harvard Review, Parnassus, Sewanee Review, Hudson Review, Boston Review, The New Republic, American Scholar, and the London Review.
Guest reader April Lindner is the author of Skin, which received the Walt McDonald First Book Prize from Texas Tech University Press, and This Bed Our Bodies Shaped. With Ryan Wilson, she is co-editing an anthology of contemporary Catholic poetry for Paraclete Press, and with R. S. Gwynn, she co-edited Contemporary American Poetry in Longman’s Penguin Pocket Academics series. She has written three Young Adult novels, and is a professor of English at Saint Joseph’s University, she lives in Stockton, New Jersey.
Guest reader David Hale Sylvester chronicles his adventures and achievements in two books, Traveling at the Speed of Life, which appeared in 2011, and One Hug at a Time: 99 Stories From the Man Who Embraced the World, published in 2021. You can learn more about him at www.davidhalesylvester.com.
Host John Wall Barger’s poems and critical writing have appeared in American Poetry Review, Kenyon Review Online, Poetry Ireland Review, Best of the Best Canadian Poetry, and many other journals and anthologies. Smog Mother is his latest book, he teaches Creative Writing at UArts in Philadelphia.

Live Poetry Reading at Finn Mccool's!
2023-04-19 19:00 - 21:00 | Finn Mccools, 118 S 12th St, Philadelphia, PA, 19107, United States
Moonstone Poetry Readings
Wednesday April 19, 2023 – 7:00pm
Live at Finn McCools
Corner of 12th & Sansom Street
Note the change of venue for this event
Jim Cory published his first poem 50 years ago. His most recent publications are Birds & Buildings, Wipers Float In The Neck Of The Reservoir and 25 Short Poems . Recent essays include “ What makes a queen a queen?& rdquo; in the Gay & Lesbian Review, & ldquo; Fascinating Asshole (or) How I Came To Love Frank Sinatra & rdquo; in New Haven Review, and “ Where & rsquo;s the hot boy going tonight?& rdquo; in Chelsea Station. He has been the recipient of fellowships from the Pennsylvania Arts Council, Yaddo and The MacDowell Colony.
Besides receiving awards for journalism and erotic writing, Chris Kaiser has had poems published in Dissident Voice and The Scriblerus, prose poetry in Eastern Iowa Review, and haiku in Better Than Starbucks. His poetry and haiku also appear in several anthologies from Moonstone Press. In addition, his poetry has been featured alongside works of art at the DaVinci Art Alliance.
Deborah Turner’s poetry & writing sustains her and is even helping her transform from a librarian to a realtor. Her works have appeared in Philadelphia Stories, the Lavender Reader, and anthologies including The Body Eclectic (Henry Holt) and Testimony: Young African-Americans on Self-Discovery and Black Identity (Beacon Press). “Juneteenth,” a poem in her chapbook of sports poetry titled SWEATING IT OUT (Finishing Line Press), earned a nomination for a Pushcart Prize.
Monika Wysong is a Philadelphia-based poet, playwright, and psychotherapist. Her chapbook, Poems for the Rest of Us, was published by Moonstone Press in 2021. Her play, Laundromat, was featured in Short Plays on Twelve on Philadelphia’s PBS station, and she has been a semi-finalist in the Louisville Actors’ Theater playwriting competition. Her poems have appeared in American Writing. She holds an MFA from Goddard College.

Celebrate the Art of the Haiku at a Virtual Event
2023-04-23 14:00 - 16:00
Moonstone Poetry Readings
Haiku 2023
Sunday April 23, 2023 – 2:00pm – Virtual
Registration Link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMrc-igrjkpHtMxqEEwiBDf-c1PtVQsC-
International Haiku Day
The old pond
A frog jumps in
Plop!
Matsuo Basho (1644-1694)
Translated by Allan Watts

The Old Pond may be the most famous of all haiku
The haiku is a Japanese poetic form that consists of three lines, with five syllables in the first line, seven in the second, and five in the third. The haiku developed from the hokku, the opening three lines of a longer poem known as a tanka. The haiku became a separate form of poetry in the 17th century.
Join us for readings from the contributors to Haiku 2023

Live Poetry Reading!
2023-04-26 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Moonstone Poetry Readings
Wednesday April 26, 2023 – 7:30pm
Live at Fergie’s Pub
1214 Sansom Street and on zoom
Registration Required for zoom – use this link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcsf–urT8rH9Ma3EpIW0N4vf8_f1s99gqJ

Maya Pindyck’s third poetry collection, Impossible Belonging (Anhinga Press, 2023) won the Philip Levine Prize for Poetry and was a finalist for the National Poetry Series. She is also author of Emoticoncert (Four Way Books) and Friend Among Stones (New Rivers Press), winner of the Many Voices Project Award, and co-author of A Poetry Pedagogy for Teachers (Bloomsbury, 2022). Her honors include a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, a Poetry Society of America Chapbook Fellowship, and grants from the Historic House Trust of New York City and Abortion Conversation Projects. She lives in Philadelphia where she is an assistant professor and director of Writing at Moore College of Art & Design
Hila Ratzabi is the author of the poetry collection There Are Still Woods (June Road Press, 2022). Her poetry has been published in Narrative, Linebreak, Alaska Quarterly Review, The Adroit Journal, and other journals, and in The Bloomsbury Anthology of Contemporary Jewish American Poetry and Ghost Fishing: An Eco-Justice Poetry Anthology. She was editor-in-chief and poetry editor of Storyscape (2011–2017) and holds an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College. She is director of virtual content & programs at Ritualwell.org and lives in Oak Park, Illinois

Alina Macneal & Jennifer Hook Hosts, Open Reading Follows

Virtual Poetry Event!
2023-04-30 14:00 - 16:00
Moonstone Poetry Readings
Sunday April 30, 2023 – 2:00pm Virtual
Join us for readings from the contributors to Haiku 2023
Registration link: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMpcuqrpzgjHdNJLzqJT8pr9WFYBSL_gKT0

Ekphrastic Poetry
Ekphrastic poetry explores art. Using a rhetorical device known as ekphrasis, the poet engages with a painting, drawing, sculpture, or other form of visual art. Poetry about music and dance might also be considered a type of ekphrastic writing.
April 8 is the 50th anniversary of the Death of Pablo Picasso, who created 50,000 works of modern art. In honor of his achievement, we are doing an anthology of Ekphrastic Poetry.
Join us as contributors read their Ekphrastic Poems.

Contributing Poets
Michael Abreu
Allison Baldwin
Mark Balobeck
Christine Barbour
Elizabeth Bodien
R. Bremner
Starr Bright
Sarah Browning
Rachel Aviva Burns
Natalie Canavor
Cathy Carlisi
Luanne Castle
Alan Catlin
A.J. Chilson
Greg Colburn
Jim Cory
Jessica Cramer
Christine Davis
Linda Dickman
Joanne Durham
David Eberhardt
Elizabeth Esris
Katherine Falk
Stewart Florsheim
Bryan Franco
Stephen Frank
Michael Franz
Rosemary Freedman
Caroline Furr
Robin Gabbert
Robert Gibbons
Danely Gonzalez
Shotsey Gorman
Linda Goss
Ona Gritz
Beejay Grob
Bruce Grossberg
Hanoch Guy
Anna Halberstadt
Annie Hartford
Sharon Hollingsworth
Ann Huang
Joan Huffman
Jane Ellen Ibur
Judy Ireland
Josh Jacobs
Mike Jurkovic
Philip Kennedy
Kollin Kennedy
Lisa Kosow
Eelka Lampe
Maria Lisella
Josephine LoRe
James Mancinelli
Tawanda Manyati
Karen Marker
Stefanie Maura
Kathleen McGraw
Erika Michael
Robin Michel
Patricia Middleton
Mary Ann Miller
Linda Morales
Beth Morris
Charlene Moskal
Ruth Mota
Angela Muir
Nancy Murray
Gloria Nixon-John
Allayna Nofs
Maureen Sauvain O’Connor
Jennifer O’Neill
Pickering
Hermond Palmer
Faith Paulsen
David Radavich
Cami Rothmuller
Carla Schick
Ameerah Shabazz
John Shea
Miki Simic
Jim Stewart
Jocelyn Stokes
Marya Summers
Chuck Sweetman
Renee Szostek
Karen Paul Topham
Lois Villemaire
Eike Waltz
Gail Wasserman
Shin Watanabe
Kelley White
Daniel Williams
Nellie Wong
David Worrell
Samantha Wright
Raymond Ziemer

Philly Loves Poetry Interview and Readings Series
2023-05-02 18:30 - 20:30
Philly Loves Poetry Interview and Readings Series
Tuesday May 2, 2023 – 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.
Eleventh-grade student, Matilda Bray, is author of When You Wanted Blue, just published by Moonstone Press. Her first book of poetry, Under the Moon as My Sun at the age of twelve. The full-length collection was featured on PhillyCam’s Poetry Interview and Reading Series, and in February of 2023, she was the high-school winner of the Phillip’s Mill Play With Words Youth Playwriting Challenge. Her work has appeared in Rattle, Tipton Poetry Journal, Sad Girls Club, OpenDoor Magazine, Schuylkill Valley Journal, River Poets Journal, and the Moonstone Poets Anthology. Matilda competes regularly at open poetry competitions and is a voracious reader and cross-country runner who resides in a suburb of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with her family and beloved dog, Tuck.

Moonstone Live Poetry Reading
2023-05-03 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Live Poetry Reading
Wednesday May 3, 2023 – 7pm
Live at Fergie’s Pub – 1214 Sansom Street and on zoom – Registration Link
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIpce6vrzsjGd0lKdmttrpxCM9RPs8seGAo
Eleventh-grade student, Matilda Bray, is author of When You Wanted Blue, just published by Moonstone Press. Her first book of poetry, Under the Moon as My Sun at the age of twelve. The full-length collection was featured on PhillyCam’s Poetry Interview and Reading Series, and in February of 2023, she was the high-school winner of the Phillip’s Mill Play With Words Youth Playwriting Challenge. Her work has appeared in Rattle, Tipton Poetry Journal, Sad Girls Club, OpenDoor Magazine, Schuylkill Valley Journal, River Poets Journal, and the Moonstone Poets Anthology. Matilda competes regularly at open poetry competitions and is a voracious reader and cross-country runner who resides in a suburb of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with her family and beloved dog, Tuck.
Matthew Thorburn’s new book of poems is String (LSU Press, 2023). He’s also the author of seven previous collections of poetry, including The Grace of Distance, a finalist for the Paterson Poetry Prize, and Dear Almost, which received the Lascaux Prize. His work has been recognized with a Witter Bynner Fellowship from the Library of Congress, as well as fellowships from the Bronx and New Jersey arts councils. Originally from Michigan and for many years a New Yorker, he lives with his family just up the road in Kingston, New Jersey.
Kimmika Williams-Witherspoon – PhD (Cultural Anthropology), MA (Anthropology), MFA (Theater), Graduate Certificate) Women’s Studies, BA (Journalism); is an Associate Professor of Urban Theater and Community Engagement. Recipient of a 2003 Provost’s Arts Commission Grant; a 2001 Independence Foundation Theater Communications Group Grant, the 2000 winner of the PEW Charitable Trust fellowship in scriptwriting, and the 1999, winner of the DaimlerChrysler “Spirit of the Word” National Poetry Competition. Author of Through Smiles and Tears: The History of African American Theater (From Kemet to the Americas); The Secret Messages in African American Theater: Hidden Meaning Embedded in Public Discourse. She has had over twenty-three of her plays produced. Her stage credits include thirteen productions and she is a contributing poet to twenty-six poetry anthologies.
Larry Robin Host, Open Reading Follows

Moonstone Virtual Event: New Voices Spring 2023
2023-05-06 14:00 - 16:00
Moonstone Poetry Readings
Saturday May 6, 2023 – 2:00pm
Virtual
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZwsdOuuqT4oGd1uFFtWkFEVA6VJfLSaRQC
New Voices: Spring 2023
New Voices: 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 as contributors read their work

Moonstone Virtual Event: Poems From Your Psyche
2023-05-07 14:00 - 16:00
Moonstone Poetry Readings
Sunday May 7, 2023 – 2:00pm
Virtual
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZAodOmrrDsjHtd4OlL4eORzQZETeuwo5oB9
Poems From Your Psyche
is a type of poetic expression which addresses the multiple psychological aspects of the human existence. April 24 is the 100th anniversary of The Ego and the Id by Sigmund Freud, an analytical study of the human psyche outlining Freud’s theories. It develops a groundwork for explaining various psychological conditions which result from powerful internal tensions. In honored of this by inviting poets to write a poem illustrating these tensions.

Join us as poets explore their Psyche

Live Poetry Reading!
2023-05-10 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Moonstone Arts Center’s Poetry Reading
Wednesday May 10, 2023 – 7pm
Live at Fergie’s Pub – 1214 Sansom Street and on zoom – Registration Link
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZAqduygpjMuHd0HPcfGrZY8yNfOp-0L4ixR
Courtney LeBlanc is the author of the full length collections Her Whole Bright Life (winner of the Jack McCarthy Book Prize); Exquisite Bloody, Beating Heart; and Beautiful & Full of Monsters. She loves nail polish, tattoos and a soy latte each morning. Find her online at www.courtneyleblanc.com Her Whole Bright Life is a collection of poems that weave together the trauma and exhaustion of a life lived with disordered eating and the loss and grief of the death of the poet’s father. Love and hunger intertwine and become inseparable as the poet grapples to find, and listen, to both. With a distinct and feminist voice, this collection delves into a life now lived without a beloved parent, while trying to survive a pandemic, and battling demons that have lived inside her for most of her life. With both fierceness and tenderness, we see a woman trying to find her place within her own body and within an ever-changing world. This collection of poems is both an elegy and an anthem – praising both those who’ve been lost and those who remain.

Lauren Ray is a Junior Creative writing major with an Art history minor at the University of the arts. She writes poetry and stories from the lens of the black woman experience. She is excited to share her work to an audience for the first time in a couple of years.

Ruth Rouff is a freelance educational writer living in Collingswood, NJ. Her poetry and prose have been published in various literary journals, including Parhelion, New World Writing, the International Quarterly, Philadelphia Poets, and Philadelphia Stories. In 2016, Bedazzled Ink published her collection of poetry and prose entitled Pagan Heaven. Her novel Lone Star, which is based on the life of famed athlete, Babe Didrikson Zaharias, was published by Bedazzled Ink in 2022 and is available on Amazon.com, BN.com, and BedazzledInk.com.
Larry Robin Host, Open Reading Follows

Live Poetry Reading!
2023-05-17 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Moonstone Arts Center’s Poetry Reading
Wednesday May 17, 2023 – 7pm
Live at Fergie’s Pub – 1214 Sansom Street and on zoom – Registration Link
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZckdu-trjIvGd2Q9NK9mK9MtZzQ3PmYhVIt
dev kiyota is an editor; they got an MFA in Creative Writing from Temple University.

Lynda Gene Rymond author of The Village of Basketeers and Oscar and the Mooncats, attended Bucks County Community College, received a B.F.A. from the California College of Arts and Crafts, and was a member of Dr. Chris Bursk’s Master Poetry Workshop. A runner-up or finalist for Bucks County Poet Laureate for the past four years, her poems and short stories have been published in multiple journals and the anthology, Carry Us to the Next Well. She lives on Goblin Farm in Applebachsville, Pa, where she and her husband tend goats, chickens, honeybees, cats, and an enormous fruit and vegetable garden.
Cleveland Wall is a poet, teaching artist, and librarian. She is the author of Let X=X and many homemade chapbooks and zines. She performs with interactive poetry troupe No River Twice & with musical combo The Starry Eyes and hosts an experiential poetry series called Poetry Lab at the Ice House in Bethlehem, PA. She is falling deeply in love with antiproductivity. More info at clevelandwall.com.
Lauren Yates is a writer, visual artist, & burlesque performer from Philadelphia by way of San Diego. Lauren has represented Philly at the National Poetry Slam and the Women of the World Poetry Slam. Her work has been featured in bedfellows, Voicemail Poems, GLITTERBRAIN, Bettering American Poetry, and more. Lauren is also a teaching artist and is currently developing a workshop that marries poetry and burlesque.
Sean Hanahan Host, Open Reading Follows

VIRTUAL Poetry Reading: World Laughter Day
2023-05-21 14:00 - 16:00
Moonstone Poetry Readings
Sunday May 21, 2023 – 2:00pm
Virtual
Register for the event HERE:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0rd-yuqj4oGdQ1vLBDn31qkpzuQMtjqjM9
World Laughter Day
(May 7) is an annual event celebrated is a celebration that raises awareness about all the benefits of laughing and promotes world peace through laughter.
It raises awareness about laughter and its many healing benefits, as well as about thousands of community groups around the world who regularly practice comedy that promote wellness.
After dealing with Freud and your internal conflict, write something we can laugh at.

Live Poetry Reading!
2023-05-24 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Moonstone Poetry Readings
Wednesday May 24, 2023 – 7:00pm
Live at Fergie’s Pub
1214 Sansom Street and on zoom
Registration Required for zoom – use this link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIscO6rrj8iHtb48QlmLMmqMWfM5uAm1lHv
Kelly McQuain is a painter and poet, and the author of Scrape the Velvet from Your Antlers (2023), a collection chosen by Texas Review Press for the Southern Breakthrough Award. He has also authored two chapbooks, and his prose, poetry and illustrations have appeared in Best American Poetry Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Rattle and Superstition Review, as well as such anthologies as: Best New Poets 2020; LGBTQ Fiction and Poetry from Appalachia; and Let Me Say This: A Dolly Parton Poetry Anthology. A native of WV, he now lives in Philadelphia and teaches at Community College of Philadelphia.
Lucy Bell Sellers, a retired drama teacher, is a longtime resident of Germantown. Her book of poems. Don’t Drop Me God, came out last summer.

Alina Macneal & Jennifer Hook Hosts, Open Reading Follows

Tribute to Nikki Givanni
2023-05-25 08:00 - 17:00
Sunday June 11, 2pm – virtual – tribute to Nikki Givanni – VIRTUAL
Register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0tc-qprzIjHNCsP-cfEzOvjos_1TSiCYRw
Yolande Cornelia “Nikki” Giovanni Jr (born June 7, 1943) is an American poet, writer, commentator, activist, and educator. One of the world’s most well-known African-American poets, her work includes poetry anthologies, poetry recordings, and nonfiction essays, and covers topics ranging from race and social issues to children’s literature. She has won numerous awards, including the Langston Hughes Medal and the NAACP Image Award. She has been nominated for a Grammy Award for her poetry album, The Nikki Giovanni Poetry Collection. Additionally, she has been named as one of Oprah Winfrey’s 25 “Living Legends”.

2023-05-28 14:00 - 16:00
Moonstone Poetry Readings
Sunday May 28, 2023 – 2:00pm
Virtual
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0vcu6hrT4oG9fNr0Fk5e7nRIYG54JD0wA9
Mother’s Day (May 14)
This is not a program about your mother but about motherhood in its many forms. We want poems that embrace the bare and grotesque nature of motherhood. For, in a time like ours, mothers have no room to be sentimental. Inspired by Julia Kilchinsky Dasbach books 40 Weeks and The Many Names for Mother.

S/He Speaks: Voices of Women and Trans Folx
2023-06-03 14:00 - 16:00 | The Rotunda, 14014 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, United States
S/He Speaks: Voices of Women and Trans Folx
Poetry Reading and Book Launch
Saturday, June 3, 2023 – 2:00pm
Live @ The Rotunda 4014 Walnut Street in Philadelphia
From the people who bring you the annual Black Women’s Arts Festival comes an exciting joint and literary event. We are seeking contributions of writing from life experience. Topics could include: Family (of origin/choice, parenting, etc.), Self-Actualization (personal growth, transitioning, etc.), Career & Education, Health Matters (self-care, illness, etc.), Love & Romance (dating, finding/maintaining relationships), And more…
The event is also the launch of the accompanying anthology, edited by Cassendre Xavier and T. F. Daubert, featuring over 50 poets.

Live Poetry: Debora Kuan & Jeffrey McDaniel
2023-07-26 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Live Poetry Reading: Debora Kuan & Jeffrey McDaniel
Wednesday, July 26 @ 7:oopm ET

Live at Fergie’s Pub – 1214 Sansom Street
And on Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZEsfuysqj8sGdfVuBztAiNMRw-_Z7J809Xm
Debora Kuan is the author of three poetry collections XING (Saturnalia Books), Lunch Portraits (Brooklyn Arts Press), and the forthcoming Women on the Moon (The Word Works). She has been awarded a U.S. Fulbright creative writing fellowship (Taiwan), University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop Graduate Merit Fellowship, Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference work-study scholarship, multiple Pushcart Prize nominations, the NELLE Three Sisters Award, and residencies at Yaddo, Macdowell, and the Santa Fe Art Institute. Her work has appeared in Poetry, The New Republic, Kenyon Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Boston Review, The Baffler, Fence, The Iowa Review, ZYZZYVA, and other publications. Currently, she lives in Wallingford, CT, where she is poet laureate and works remotely for the MIT Press.

Jeffrey McDaniel is the author of seven books of poetry, most recently Thin Ice Olympics (Write Bloody, 2022) Other books include: Holiday in the Islands of Grief (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2020), Chapel of Inadvertent Joy (Pittsburgh, 2013), The Endarkenment (Pittsburgh, 2008), The Splinter Factory (Manic D Press, 2002), The Forgiveness Parade (Manic D, 1998), and Alibi School (Manic D, 1995). McDaniel’s poems have appeared in numerous places, including The New Yorker, American Poetry Review, The New York Times, and Best American Poetry 1994, 2010, and 2019. Recipient of an NEA fellowship, he teaches at Sarah Lawrence College.
Alina Macneal & Jennifer Hook, Hosts
Open Reading Follows

Remembering Woody Guthrie
2023-07-30 14:00 - 15:00 | virtual
Remembering Woody Guthrie
A Moonstone Anthology Reading
Sunday, July 30 @ 2pm ET
Register at this link: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZwtde2tqTwtEtUjpGY7ROT771gcvgkLZGrU
In celebration of our Remember Woody Guthrie anthology, featuring over 25 poets writing for his memory.
Woody Guthrie was an American singer-songwriter, one of the most significant figures in American folk music whose work focused on themes of American socialism and anti-fascism. He has inspired generations both politically and musically with songs such as “This Land Is Your Land”, written in response to the American exceptionalist song “God Bless America”. Woody’s empathy allowed him to insert himself into the stories of others, and he shared those narratives through music, prose, and artwork. We feel his presence and see his influence when people everywhere speak out for those who need a voice and shine a light on injustice in our world. Join us as poets reflect Woody’s vision.

“Wherever little children are hungry and cry
Wherever people ain’t free
Wherever men are fightin’ for their rights
That’s where I’m a-gonna be, Ma
That’s where I’m a-gonna be”
(from Tom Joad by Woody Guthrie)

List of Featured Poets to be announced.

Winners of the 2022 Moonstone Chapbook Contest: Live Reading
2023-08-02 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Winners of the 2022 Moonstone Chapbook Contest
A Live Reading at Fergies Pub (1214 Sansom Street)
Wednesday, August 2 @ 7pm
And on Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMvdOiopz0tH9LYVHwca2qO0XFFp9l3kwuZ
Chad Frame (winning chapbook Smoking Shelter) is the author of Little Black Book (2022, nominated for the Lambda Literary Award, and a chapbook, Cryptid. He is Director of the Montgomery County Poet Laureate Program and Poet Laureate Emeritus of Montgomery County, PA, the Poetry Editor of Ovunque Siamo, a founding member of the No River Twice poetry/improv performance troupe, and Founder of the Caesura Poetry Festival and Retreat. His work appears in Rattle, Pedestal, Barrelhouse, Rust+Moth, and elsewhere, on iTunes from the Library of Congress, and was sent to the moon as part of the Lunar Codex Project.
Leonard Kress (winning chapbook Poppy Seeds) author of Living in the Candy Store and Other Poems, Walk Like Bo Diddley, The Orpheus Complex, Sappho’s Apples Thirteens, Braids & Other Sestinas, and The Centralia Mine Fire. His poetry, fiction, non-fiction, reviews, and translations have appeared in Missouri Review, Massachusetts Review, Iowa Review, American Poetry Review, and Harvard Review. He has received grants in playwriting and poetry from the Ohio Arts Council and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, studied religion at Temple University, Poetry at Columbia University, and Polish at Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland, He currently teaches religion, philosophy, and English at Owens Community College.
Alina Macneal (winning chapbook After a War) is a Philadelphia-based educator/writer/poet/translator/architect and co-host of the Fourth Wednesday Moonstone poetry series at Fergie’s. Her poems have appeared in Apiary, Poems for the Writing, The World to Come, and Poetry 24. In 2015 she was a finalist for the Raynes poetry prize. She has been a member of the faculty at Drexel University for over 20 years. Since the last presidential election Alina has been translating the 1930’s political poems of the Polish poet, Julian Tuwim. As Mark Twain said, History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.
John Timpane (winning chapbook Buck in the Piano Room) is former Commentary Page Editor (1997-2008) and Books Editor (2014-2020) for The Philadelphia Inquirer and Philly.com. His work has appeared in Sequoia, The Fox Chase Review, Apiary, Cleaver, Painted Bride Quarterly, The Rathalla Review, Per Contra, Schuylkill Valley Journal, Vocabula Review, Wild River Review, and elsewhere. Among his books is a chapbook, Burning Bush (Judith Fitzgerald/Cranberry Tree, 2010). He is the spouse of Maria-Christina Keller. They live in New Jersey.

Nathalie Anderson, Judge of the 2022 Moonstone Chapbook Contest, is author of Following Fred Astaire, Crawlers, Quiver, Stain, Held and Firmly Bound. Her new book, Rough, is forthcoming in 2024. Anderson’s poems have appeared in such journals as Atlanta Review, DoubleTake, Natural Bridge, The New Yorker, Nimrod, and Plume. She manages the list-serv Lit-Philly, was Pew Fellow, she has recently retired from Swarthmore College, where she taught for 39 years, and served as Director of the Program in Creative Writing.
Karin Molde (author of Self-Portrait with Sheep Skull), also a winner in the 2022 contest, will read during our second, virtual event on August 27th.
Reading hosted by the chapbook contest’s annual judge, Nathalie Anderson.
Their prize-winning chapbooks are all available for purchase on our website.

Philly Loves Poetry Interview and Reading: Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach
2023-08-08 18:30 - 19:30 | PhillyCAM, 699 Ranstead Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19106, United States
Philly Loves Poetry Interview and Reading: Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach
Tuesday, August 8, 2023 @ 6:30pm
Virtual via PhillyCAM website, Cable 66/966HD/967 or Verizon FIOS, 29/30
Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach is the author of three poetry collections: 40 WEEKS (YesYes Books, 2023), Don’t Touch the Bones (Lost Horse Press, 2020), winner of the 2019 Idaho Poetry Prize, and The Many Names for Mother, winner the Wick Poetry Prize (Kent State University Press, 2019) 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. Julia holds an M.F.A. in Poetry from the University of Oregon and a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature and Literary Theory from the University of Pennsylvania. She is an Assistant Professor of English/Creative Writing at Denison University.
Julia also worked with Moonstone on our recent anthology, The Weight of Motherhood, as inspiration for our poets.
Charles S. Carr, Host

Poetry From the Ukraine: Live Reading
2023-08-09 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Poetry from the Ukraine: Live Poetry Reading
Wednesday, August 9 @ 7pm ET
Featuring: David Acosta, Sibelan Forrester, Sean Hanrahan, Olga Livshin, Lynn Levin, and Warren C. Longmire
Live at Fergies Pub – 1214 Sansom Street
And on Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUrfuuoqjgjGNM2meg9Y-c3Zh8hI-tcRU5M
Moonstone is selling book bundles for the featured Ukrainian poets on our website. All profits will be donated to Ukraine TrustChain. Books are sold online and at the event.
Today is a Different War by Lyudmyla Khersonska
Translated by Olga Livshin, Andrew Janco, Maya Chhabra, and Lev Fridman – $18.00, Arrowsmith Press – A portrayal of life from inside war-torn Ukraine. No other volume of poems captures the duality of fear and bravery, anger and love, despair and hope, as well as the numbness and deep feeling of what it means to be Ukrainian in these unthinkable times. If you want to know what’s in the heart of the Ukrainian people, look no further than this stunning volume of poems. Lyudmyla Khersonska is a poet and translator from Odesa, Ukraine. She is the author of four poetry collections in Russian. Khersonska was recently included in the list, “33 International Women Writers Who are Bold for Change.” Olga Livshin is the author of A Life Replaced: Poems with Translations from Anna Akhmatova and Vladimir Gandelsman and her poems appear in various journals.

In the Hour of War: Poetry from Ukraine – Edited by Carolyn Forché & Ilya Kaminsky $22.00, Arrowsmith – “… Indeed, we have heard the barrage on the 6 o’clock news, but now we engage the war’s most apt witnesses who command the human heart through images and rhythms of language. These poems written primarily in Ukrainian, and then translated into English, refuse to glorify gore, but instead render reflection. Have we grown numb to body counts? Poets of the Ukraine deliver a reckoning, and the souls of a people are laid bare. … Such surrealism bears not only blinding terror, but also moments of natural beauty. … some fight even with their hands tied behind their backs.” -Yusef Komunyakaa, Pulitzer Prize winning poet

“We act like children with our dead,” Halyna Kruk writes as she struggles to come to terms with the horror unfolding around her: “confused,/ as if none of us knew until now/ how easy it is to die.” In poem after devastating poem, Kruk confronts what we would prefer not to see: “a person runs toward a bullet/ with a wooden shield and a warm heart…” Translated with the utmost of care by Amelia Glaser and Yulia Ilchuk, A Crash Course in Molotov Cocktails is a guidebook to the emotional combat in Ukraine.
