Moonstone Arts Center

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

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We want you all: published poets, unpublished poets, academic poets, street poets, poets who write Sonnet, Villanelle, Haiku, Ekphrastic Poems, Concrete Poems, Epitaph, Elegy, Epigram, Limerick, Ballad,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

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We want you all: published poets, unpublished poets, academic poets, street poets, poets who write Sonnet, Villanelle, Haiku, Ekphrastic Poems, Concrete Poems, Epitaph, Elegy, Epigram, Limerick, Ballad,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

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

Poe-sers – The Raven: An Autobiographic Performance
2024-01-18 18:00 - 19:00 | The Free Library of Philadelphia, 1901 Vine Street, 1901 Vine Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, United States
Poe-sers – The Raven
Thursday January 18, 2024 – 6pm
Central Free Library, 1901 Vine Street
In collaboration with The Literature Department of Free Library of Philadelphia
Poe-sers is an autobiographical performance piece. The stories of four personas: child, victim, woman and The Raven – the overseer of them all. They are a keeper of secrets that finds a soulmate in Edgar Allan Poe. The rhythmic counting of OCD keeps them in control of a bit of sanity. Bonding to books and an allegiance to the poems of childhood are the glue which holds the pieces, slightly, together.
Susan DiPronio – the woman – the author of “Poe-sers” (they, she) a queer published writer of poetry, plays, films, essays, an award-winning analog photographer, recipient of ‘The Art for Change Grant’ & ‘The Transformation Award’ from The Leeway Foundation. Their photos, films, plays have been shown worldwide.
Wendie Hetherington – The Raven – Winner of the voice of Poe contest. Her’s is the voice in The Edgar Allan Poe Cottage in New York City and also on their website. She also performed in the Edgar Allan Poe Historic site in Philadelphia.
Gab Fischetti (they/them) is a queer actor who lives in West Philadelphia. They are presently on the artistic team of EgoPo Classic Theater and are happy to be a part of this piece. They look forward to exploring new, artistic avenues.
Carly L. Bodnar (she/they) is a Philadelphia based screen and stage director, teaching artist, coach, and performer. Carly is the Co-Artistic Director and founding member of ReVamp Collective, a feminist artist collective. BA in Theatre from Temple University with a minor in Art History. Carly is an alum of the 2018 Directors Lab West, Directors Gathering Member, and SDC Associate Member www.carlyLbodnar.com.
Elwood (any pronouns) is a performer and choreographer form Bangor, Maine. They received a degree in theater and dance at Oberlin College and continue to create work at the intersection of both of those mediums.

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

Live Poetry: Elliott Levin, Ursula Rucker, and Yolanda Wisher
2024-01-10 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Live Poetry: Elliott Levin, Ursula Rucker, and Yolanda Wisher
Wednesday January 10, 2024 – 7pm
Live at Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street
And on Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcoc-msrDgjGNDxkIxf_eV0ZxVv2dn-IOG61/17/2024
Elliott Levin, author of does it swing and his newest poetry CD A Word by Any Other Name is a Philadelphia jazz legend. Whatever it is jazz performers do when they blow into their horn as Levin does a lot of it, on tenor saxophone and flute. He has a quite active career as a published poet and likes to combine the two aesthetics in his performances, much to the delight of the growing live poetry audience and to the chagrin of hipsters who insist jazz poetry is a form of torture, worse than cold showers. Other listeners might find the entire free jazz experience itself torture, in which case it’s back to the beginning as far as advice regarding Levin: there is nothing watered-down or weak about his performances, no attempt to make the music a bit more accessible to the novices, tender-hearted or just plain wimpy.
Ursula Rucker is an interdisciplinary poet, performer, and recording artist whose work reflects on personal history, family, and place. She characterizes her work as situated “along the edge of the terrains of poetry.” Rucker has released five albums and collaborated with a wide range of artists outside of the field of poetry, including The Roots, musicians and Pew Fellows Jamaaladeen Tacuma and King Britt, and, most recently, Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Clarence Williams III.
“I stand for poetry as a source of profound truth. That truth, for me, is connected to the idea that cities are places that redeem our strivings and leave us longing; the ways family life shapes and shakes us, and brings us back; and the thought that artists safeguard stories and struggles” Ursula Rucker
Yolanda Wisher was named inaugural Poet Laureate of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, third Poet Laureate of Philadelphia, and currently serves as chair of the Philadelphia Poet Laureate Governing Committee. She is the author of Monk Eats an Afro and co-editor of the anthology Peace is a Haiku Song with mentor Sonia Sanchez. Wisher performs a blend of poetry and song with her band Yolanda Wisher & The Afroeaters. She co-founded Germantown Poetry Festival and served as Director of Art Education for Philadelphia Mural Arts from, founded of School of Guerrilla Poetics, a training ground for folks interested in nurturing and mobilizing communities through poetryand with Trapeta B. Mayson she co-founded ConsenSIS, an initiative that seeks to count, gather, and memorialize Black femme poets in the Philadelphia area. A Pew and Cave Canem Fellow, Wisher received the Leeway Foundation’s Transformation Award in 2019 for her commitment to art for social change, and last year, she was named a Philadelphia Cultural Treasures Artist Fellow.
Larry Robin, Host

Moonstone Poetry @ PhillyCAM: Autumn McClintock
2024-01-09 18:30 - 19:30 | PA
Moonstone Poetry @ PhillyCAM: Autumn McClintock
Tuesday January 9, 2023 @ 6:30pm VIRTUAL
Watch for free on the PhillyCAM website
Or Cable 66/966HD/967 or Verizon FIOS, 29/30 in Philadelphia.

Autumn McClintock is a freelance writer and editor living in Germantown. Her newest chapbook, Dirt Bird, was recently published by Alexandria Quarterly Press, and poems of hers have appeared in The Account, Cimarron Review, Denver Quarterly, and The Georgia Review, among others. She is Poetry Editor of Doubleback Review. Find her online at autumnmcclintock.com.

Charles S. Carr, Host

Book Release: Eat This Poem by Charles S. Carr feat. David Kertis
2024-01-03 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Book Release: Eat This Poem by Charles S. Carr
Wednesday January 3, 2023 – 7pm – LIVE at Fergie’s Pub
Registration Required for zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0rcu2spz4sGtRH0yB2BbQ5PnqJd-96A05B
Charles S. Carr from Philadelphia graduated from LaSalle College and has an M.A. in American History from Bryn Mawr College. Charles worked in Social and Community Development services for 45 years. Charles has been a lay missionary for Hands Together raising money to serve the poorest of the poor in Haiti. He has two books of poems paradise, pennsylvania, (Cradle Press, 2009) and Haitian Mudpies and Other Poems, (Moonstone Press, 2013). In 2008, one of Charles’s poems won first place in Mad Poets Review. His poems have been published in local and national print and online poetry journals, For five years Charles hosted the second Tuesday Moonstone Poetry series at Fergie’s Pub. For the past seven years he has been the host of Philly Loves Poetry, a monthly broadcast from Philly CAM. Charles has one son, Evan, and is married to award-winning artist Karen Stabenow. His latest chapbook is Eat This Poem with Moonstone Press.
Proceeds from the sales of the chapbook will go to Ukraine Trust Chain.
David Kertis, author of Word of the Day. was born in 1955 and grew up in northern New Jersey. He attended Oberlin College where he studied creative writing with David Young, and has lived in Philadelphia since 1978. He is married and works as a claims adjuster. In Philadelphia, he has studied with Leonard Gontarek and Eleanor Wilner. He has been published on line in Frigate and Apiary and given a number of readings in the Philadelphia area. His book, Word of the Day, has recently been published.
Leonard Gontarek Host, Open Reading Follows

Poetry Reading: Cydney Brown, Savannah Cooper-Ramsey, & Lawrence Dugan
2023-12-27 19:00 - 20:30 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Wednesday, 12/27 LIVE @ Fergie’s Pub
7PM ET & on Zoom
Zoom Registration: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZEvcOGspzgiG9ISfRlJNdRQj2faXJsWhktf

Cydney Brown is the 2023 Northeast Regional Youth Poet Laureate, 2020-2021 Philadelphia Youth Poet Laureate and author of Daydreaming. She is a Sophomore at Northwestern University and has been writing poetry since she was in 5th grade.
Savannah Cooper-Ramsey’s published an artist book, Not Fit For Print: Forthcoming Titles (Waterhouse Ltd Press, 2018) and poems in publications like the Moonstone anthologies, Whirlwind Magazine, Bomb Magaine, and Cul-de-sac of Blood (forthcoming). She received a PhD in Italian from Columbia University. She works in the service industry and teaches at CCP.
Lawrence Dugan’s new book, The Sea again: Poems, made up of poems that first appeared in magazines and journals such as Daedqlus, Arion, Cyphers, The Gettysburg Review, Nation Review and others. He is retired from The Free Library of Philadelphia where he once ran the Monday Poets Series.

Larry Robi, Host – Open Reading Follows

Bill of Rights Day
2023-12-17 14:00 - 16:00 | Virtual
Sunday, 12/17 @ 2P EDT; VIRTUAL ONLY
Zoom Registration: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZEkfuGpqz4rHdBXineZDgxkf1GHD6__eNeO
December 15, 1791: Ten amendments protect the most basic rights of Americans, known as the Bill of Rights.
The Bill of Rights consists of the first ten amendments made to the United States Constitution, and their purpose is to spell out the personal freedoms and rights of the American people. The Bill of Rights was first written on September 25, 1789, and was later ratified on December 15, 1791, which is why Bill of Rights Day is celebrated on this date.
Join us as poets reflect on our rights.

Paul Muldoon, Courtney Sender, & Patricia Davis-Muffet in Equinox Reading Series
2023-12-13 19:00 - 20:30 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Moonstone Arts Center in Collaboration with E-Verse Equinox Reading Series
Wednesday, 12/13 LIVE @ Fergie’s Pub & on Zoom @ 7PM
Zoom Registration: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcof-6tpjsqG9XjTAb-Gp1JCqHN2E0OkAAr
Paul Muldoon was born in County Armagh in 1951. He now lives in New York. A former radio and television producer for the BBC in Belfast, he taught at Princeton University for thirty-five years. He is the author of fifteen collections of poetry including Joy in Service on Rue Tagore, which will be published by FSG and Faber and Faber in 2024. Among his awards are the 1972 Eric Gregory Award, the 1980 Sir Geoffrey Faber Memorial Award, the 1994 T.S. Eliot Prize, the 1997 Irish Times Poetry Prize, the 2003 Pulitzer Prize, the 2003 Griffin International Prize for Poetry, the 2004 American Ireland Fund Literary Award, the 2004 Shakespeare Prize, the 2006 European Prize for Poetry, the 2015 Pigott Poetry Prize, the 2017 Queens Gold Medal for Poetry, and the 2020 Michael Marks Award. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society for Literature and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Courtney Sender’s essays have appeared in The New York Times’ Modern Love, The Atlantic, and Slate, and her short stories have appeared in Ploughshares, AGNI, The Kenyon Review, American Short Fiction, and many others. Her debut, In Other Lifetimes All I’ve Lost Comes Back to Me (WVU Press 2023), has been called “a stunner from the very first page” by Deesha Philyaw and “literary rock ‘n’ roll” by Aimee Bender. She is currently at work on a debut novel. www.courtneysender.com
Patricia Davis-Muffett holds an MFA from the University of Minnesota. Her chapbook, Alchemy of Yeast and Tears, was published in spring 2023, and her work appears in Atlanta Review, Whale Road Review, Calyx, and About Place. Visit her at www.patriciadavismuffett.com

Poetry Reading: Juliet Gelfman-Randazzo & Alina Pleskova
2023-12-06 19:00 - 20:30 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Wednesday December 6, 2023 – 7PM
Live at Fergie’s Pub & on Zoom
Zoom Registration: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZArceisrj4jGdA8Joyup6aFvmbnFCF3ld1e

Juliet Gelfman-Randazzo is the author of the chapbook “DUH” and her work appears or is forthcoming in The Cleveland Review of Books, Barrelhouse Magazine, Passages North, Annulet: A Journal of Poetics, and The Offing, among others.
Alina Pleskova is author of Toska, a poet, editor, and Moscow-born immigrant turned proud Philadelphian. You can find her work in various places, and her spirit in the astral realm.

Amy Saul-Zerby Host – Open Reading Follows

Philly Loves Poetry Reading Series: Evan Wang
2023-12-05 18:30 - 20:00 | Virtual
Tuesday, December 5 @ 6:30 PM EDT; VIRTUAL ONLY
Can be viewed on the PhillyCAM website, Cable 66/966HD/967
or Verizon FIOS, 29/30 In Philadelphia

王潇/Evan Wang is the first Youth Poet Laureate of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, the 2023 Jacklyn Potter Young Poet, and the current editor-in-chief of Hominum Journal. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Journal, RHINO, Rust + Moth, and more, and has been nominated for Best of the Net. Evan has performed at various venues such as Love Park, the Oval XP, Chinatown Friendship Arch, and The Rotunda at the University of Pennsylvania, and has been featured at and recognized by Button Poetry, TEDx, NPR, the Miami Book Fair, Wawa Welcome America, The Adroit Journal, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, the Philadelphia Chinatown Development Corporation, and more.

Charles S. Carr Hosts.

Remembering Rainer Maria Rilke
2023-12-03 14:00 - 15:30 | Virtual
Sunday, December 3 @ 2PM EDT–VIRTUAL ONLY
Zoom Registration: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0lc-yprD0pGtBXNxHxU9ZE1Z1Zu8CaUbPs
Austrian poet and novelist acclaimed as an idiosyncratic and expressive poet, Rainer Maria Rilke’s work has undertones of mysticism, exploring themes of subjective experience and disbelief. His best-known works include the poetry collections Duino Elegies and Sonnets to Orpheus, Letters to a Young Poet. The Sonnets to Orpheus are a cycle of 55 sonnets.
Join us as poets praise Rilke or present poems inspired by him.

Live Poetry: Jim Cory, Peter F. Murphy, & Sekai'afua Zankel
2023-11-29 19:00 - 20:30 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Wednesday, November 29 — 7PM LIVE @ Fergie’s Pub & on Zoom
Zoom Registration: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZwrcumpqD4sG9xoEzReApFvVfqvS36PY7KL
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?” in the Gay & Lesbian Review, “ Fascinating Asshole (or) How I Came To Love Frank Sinatra” in New Haven Review, and “Where’s the hotboy going tonight?” in Chelsea Station. He has been the recipient of fellowships from the Pennsylvania Arts Council, Yaddo and The MacDowell Colony.
Peter F. Murphy is author of two poetry books: Maps of Three Continents and Underwater and teaches at Murray State University. His books include Studs, Tools, and the Family Jewels: Metaphors Men Live By, Fictions of Masculinity, and Feminism and Masculinities. His essays and reviews have been published in, among others, The Review of Contemporary Fiction, Twentieth Century Literature, Modern Fiction Studies, College Literature, Signs, and Feminist Studies. His poems have appeared in the Birmingham Poetry Review and New Madrid.
Sekai’afua Zankel, actor, writer, and poet, She is the author of Behind These Eyes/Optical Poems, and a winner of the Leeway Foundation, Art and Change Grant for her Poetry Play, Miss Pearl’s Spirit: In the Mysteries of Mirrors. Her poems have been published In the CAP literary magazine, “Poetry Ink”, several Anthologies, and in “Apiary”, 7 Power Issue. Sekai lives in Philadelphia with her husband, musician Bobby Zankel.

Live Poetry: Savannah Cooper-Ramsey, Pheralyn Dove, & Joseph Farley
2023-11-22 19:00 - 20:30 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Wednesday November 22, 2023 – 7pm Live at Fergie’s Pub
1214 Sansom Street and on zoom Registration Required for zoom – use this link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0pf-qsrDgqHddl-HC4vUoC0r-JRYbaeol6
Savannah Cooper-Ramsey’s published an artist book, Not Fit For Print: Forthcoming Titles (Waterhouse Ltd Press, 2018) and poems in publications like the Moonstone anthologies, Whirlwind Magazine, Bomb Magazine, and Cul-de-sac of Blood (forthcoming). She received a PhD in Italian from Columbia University. She works in the service industry and teaches at CCP.
Pheralyn Dove, a.k.a. Lady Dove, is a writer, jazz poet, photographer, collage artist, and hopelessly optimistic romantic. She lives her life in a state of perpetual gratitude. A graduate of Hampton University, Pheralyn’s aspirations are guided by Spirit. Her intellectual and creative work are informed by The Struggle for the Liberation of all African People throughout The Diaspora, Cultural Preservation, and Emotional Healing. She is the author of PARADOXES: An Illustrated Book of True-Life Stories. www.pheralyndove.com
Joseph Farley edited Axe Factory from 1986 to 2010 and ran Cynic Press from 2000 to 2010. He is the author of 12 poetry collections including Yellow Brick Pilgrim (Alien Buddha Press, 2023), Written In The Sand (Alien Buddha Press, 2023) and Longing For The Mother Tongue (March Street Press, 2010). His fiction books include Labor Day (Peasantry Press), Farts And Daydreams (Dumpster Fire Press), and Once Upon A Time In Whitechapel (Alien Buddha Press).

New Voices Fall 2023: Virtual Reading
2023-11-19 14:00 - 15:30 | PA
Virtual Reading: New Voices Fall 2023
November 19th at 2pm
Via Zoom (registration required): https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZYlcuqpqTwoHt2LdMLO0LIelaovDd0q08NP

Celebrate the release of our Fall 2023 volume of the New Voices anthology for young and emerging poets!

New Voices is series for emerging poets between the ages of 10 and 25. It includes a monthly reading series and a bi-annual publication which strives to bring together younger poets from various communities.

We tend to gather in our own communities. There is nothing wrong with that except we begin to sound alike, look alike, think alike. New Voices is our attempt to expand everyone’s experience, to introduce other ways of everything and to give a platform to the young writers of this generation.

Join us on November 19th at 2pm online to support the next generation of poets and writers.

New Voices Fall 2023: Live Reading
2023-11-16 18:00 - 20:00 | Parkway Central Library, 1901 Vine St
Live Reading: New Voices Fall 2023
November 16th at 6pm
Hosted: Parkway Central Library, 1901 Vine Street
In cooperation with the Literature Department of the Free Library of Philadelphia

Celebrate the release of our Fall 2023 volume of the New Voices anthology for young and emerging poets!

New Voices is series for emerging poets between the ages of 10 and 25. It includes a monthly reading series and a bi-annual publication which strives to bring together younger poets from various communities.

We tend to gather in our own communities. There is nothing wrong with that except we begin to sound alike, look alike, think alike. New Voices is our attempt to expand everyone’s experience, to introduce other ways of everything and to give a platform to the young writers of this generation.

Join us on November 16th at 6pm at the Literature Department of the Parkway Central location of the Philadelphia Free Library.

A virtual reading will be held on November 19th as well for poets who are not local to Philadelphia.

Live Poetry: Erica Abbott, Adriann "Justthepen" Toombs Bautista, Kate Carey, Anne-Adele Wight, & John Wojtowicz
2023-11-15 19:00 - 20:30 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Erica Abbott, Adriann “Justthepen” Toombs Bautista, Kate Carey, Anne-Adele Wight, & John Wojtowicz
Wednesday, November 15 @ 7PM
Live @ Fergie’s Pub: 1214 Sansom St. & on Zoom
Zoom Registration: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIucO2gqj0qEtDvbu6-vUf_fJNvAwVhOMaS
Erica Abbott (she/her) is a Philadelphia-based poet and writer whose work has previously appeared or is forthcoming in Stone Circle Review, Shō Poetry Journal, Pirene’s Fountain, Philadelphia Stories, Midway Journal, and other journals. She is the author of Self-Portrait as a Sinking Ship, is a Best of the Net nominee, and is a poetry editor for Variant Literature. She is pursuing her MFA at Randolph College starting this winter. Visit her website at erica-abbott.com.
Adriann “Justthepen” Toombs Bautista, is a native of Philadelphia, Grant Administrator at Moses/Weitzman Health Center located in CT, Poet, Workshop Facilitator, Founder and CEO of Just The Pen, LLC, Founder of Just The Pen Foundation, Founder & Facilitator of The SisterStrength Symposium and Creator and host of “Talks with Just The Pen”. Adriann’s published works include Ballad of a Beautiful Brown King, Sanctuary of Snow, SisterStrength:She/Her/We/Me and in over 15 various anthologies. Adriann has read her life poetry at many venues throughout the Tri-State Area and beyond.
Kate Carey(she/her) is a fat queer polyamorous slut who sometimes spends whole days in bed crying because feelings are hard. Through deeply personal poetry and creative nonfiction, she touches on issues relating to trauma, fat liberation, mental illness and sexuality. December 2022’s Hot Poet in the Bullshit Lit x Olney magazine Hot Poets calendar and producer of Philadelphia’s Slutty Poems Night, you can find more about her & her work at https://www.katemcarey.com/ and on twitter @oldbae_fries
Anne-Adele Wight is the author of An Internet of Containment, The Age of Greenhouses, Opera House Arterial, and Sidestep Catapult, all from BlazeVOX. For four years she curated the multi-genre performance series Jubilant Thicket. Her work has been published internationally in print and online and includes appearances in Poets and Writers, The Adroit Journal, Luna Luna, Apiary, Bedfellows, Oz Burp, Have Your Chill, and Read On 2. She lives and writes in Philadelphia.
John Wojtowicz is author of Roadside Attractions: a Poetic Guide to American Oddities. He teaches social work at Stockton University, been featured on Rowan University’s Writer’s Roundtable, his poems were in Princeton University’s 2021 Unique Minds: Creative Voices art exhibition. He has also published in Rattle, Split Rock Review, Soundings East, Ekphrastic Review South Florida Poetry Journal and others.
Sean Hanrahan Hosts.

Michael Miller @ PhillyCAM
2023-11-14 18:30 - 20:00 | Virtual
Philly Loves Poetry Interview and Readings Series
Tuesday, November 14, 6:30 PM EDT
VIRTUAL: Can be viewed on the PhillyCAM website
or Cable 66/966HD/967 or Verizon FIOS, 29/30 in Philadelphia
Michael Miller is a Spoken Word Artist/Poet who has served 8 years in the Maine Corps and 7 years in the Army/ Army National Guard. He served in Afghanistan amongst other military installations. His new mission in life is to bridge the gap of understanding in civilians about the military experience and the aftermath of serving.

Live Poetry: Anna Prader, Jonathan Todd, & Leonard Gontarek
2023-11-08 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Anna Prader, Jonathan Todd, & Leonard Gontarek
Wednesday November 8, 2023 @ 7PM
Live at Fergie’s Pub @1214 Sansom St.
1214 Sansom Street and on Zoom
On Zoom (Registration required):
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZApcuuuqjosGN2LvQ3zzR2f-PsJwKGmqmve
Anna Prader lives and writes in Philadelphia with her three children. She believes in poetry that betrays codes of social decency and tells the truth instead. She works in harm reduction and peer support, and she would like to take a nap.
Jonathan Todd is a poet/musician/Buddhist/anarchist and generally confused individual. His poems attempt to find moments between and within labor, fusing ideas about emptiness, collectivity, and absurdity. His work has been featured in Prolit and Protean Magazine among others.
Leonard Gontarek is the author of The Long Way Home; Take Your Hand Out of My Pocket, Shiva; and The Paris Poems of Jim Morrison. His poems have appeared in Joyful Noise: An Anthology of American Spiritual Poetry and The Best American Poetry. His poem, 37 Photos From The Bridge, selected by Alice Quinn, was a Poetry winner for the Big Bridges MotionPoems project and the basis for the award-winning film sponsored by the Weisman Art Museum in Minneapolis.
Thirty-Seven Photos from the Bridge by Leonard Gontarek

Live at Fergie's Pub: No River Twice Poetry Reading
2023-11-01 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
No River Twice: An interactive poetry reading with Chad Frame, Joanne Leva and Hayden Saunier, with special guests Charles Carr, Ona Gritz, and Shawn R. Jones
Wednesday, November 1 @ 7PM
Live at Fergie’s Pub @ 1214 Sansom St. and on Zoom
On Zoom (Registration required):
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIpd-uhrD8iE9bkoCmSXYzn-GnHqhrzqlrM

No River Twice creates interactive poetry readings where audiences and a group of poets actively determine the direction of the reading, poem by poem, beginning to end, creating readings that are never the same twice. And then we make a poem of it. Jump in! More information about us at www.norivertwice.org

Chad Frame is the author of Little Black Book, Director of the Montgomery County Poet Laureate Program, a Poet Laureate Emeritus of Montgomery County, PA, Poetry Editor of Ovunque Siamo, and founder of the Caesura Poetry Festival and Retreat. His work has appeared in Rattle, Pedestal, Barrelhouse, Rust+Moth, and elsewhere, including on iTunes from the Library of Congress, and was sent to the moon as part of the Lunar Codex Project.

Joanne Leva, an advocate for creative writing and community service, is the founder and executive director of the Montgomery County Poet Laureate Program (MCPL) and author of the poetry collections Eve Would Know and Eve Heads Back.

Hayden Saunier is the author of five books of poetry and her most recent is A Cartography of Home. Her work has won a Pushcart Prize, Rattle Poetry Prize, and Pablo Neruda Award and has been published in journals such as Plume, 32 Poems, Beloit Poetry Journal, Pedestal, Thrush, and Virginia Quarterly Review. She is the founder and director of No River Twice.

Special Guests:

Charles Carr of Philadelphia has two published books of poems, paradise,pennsylvania and Haitian Mudpies & Other Poems. Charles has been active in the Philadelphia poetry community for 20 years and he hosted a Moonstone Arts Center Poetry series at Fergie’s Pub for 5 years and is currently the host of a live monthly broadcast Philly Loves Poetry now in its seventh season. Eat This Poem, a Chapbook of Charles’s poems published by Moonstone Arts, will be released in November. Proceeds from the sales of the chapbook will go to Ukraine Trust Chain.

Ona Gritz’s poems have appeared in Ploughshares, Bellevue Literary Review, River Teeth, Catamaran Literary Reader, One Art, and have been widely anthologized. Her poetry collection Geode was a finalist for the Main Street Rag Poetry Book Award. Everywhere I Look, Ona’s memoir, will be on March 12, 2024. She also has two verse novels for teens forthcoming. Recent honors include two Notable mentions in The Best American Essays, a Best Life Story in Salon, and a winning entry in The Poetry Archive Now: Wordview 2020 project.

Shawn R. Jones was born in Hartford, Connecticut and grew up in Atlantic City, New Jersey. She is a 2023 Civitella Ranieri Fellow, and her poetry collection, Date of Birth, has won the 2022 Lexi Rudnitsky First Book Prize in Poetry. She is also the author of two poetry chapbooks, Womb Rain (2008) and A Hole to Breathe (2015). Her work has appeared in Tri-Quarterly, New Ohio Review, Cider Review, Passengers Journal, Rattle, Essence, and elsewhere.

Remembering Sylvia Plath on the 80th Anniversary of Her Death, VIRTUAL
2023-10-29 14:00 - 15:30 | Virtual
Sylvia Plath is credited with advancing the genre of confessional poetry and is best known for The Colossus and Other Poems (1960) and Ariel (1965), as well as The Bell Jar, a semi-autobiographical novel published shortly before her death. The Collected Poems was published in 1981, and was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in Poetry in 1982, making her the fourth to receive this honor posthumously.
Join us as poets remember and praise her.
Zoom Registration Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUqfumoqj0tHdaENGdEFTMOKcVXcP-utDIH

The Poet's Story: House Party
2023-10-25 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
The Poet’s Story: House Party, with Ernest Hill and poet Lynn Levin
Wednesday October 25, 2023 @ 7pm
Live at Fergie’s Pub @ 1214 Sansom St. and on Zoom
On Zoom (Registration required):
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0rduuvpzIoH9BGVWgfaei8XDxUJdsqmt27
The Poet’s Story: Ernest Hilbert in conversation with poet Lynn Levin about her debut collection of short stories, House Parties
What’s it like to turn from writing poems to writing short stories? Poet and critic Ernest Hilbert speaks with poet Lynn Levin about her debut collection of short stories House Parties ($20.00, Spuyten Duyvil, 2023), named one of the best books of summer by Philadelphia Magazine. How is the fiction writing process different from the poetry writing process? What new themes and moods emerge in the House Parties stories? A Q&A and book signing will follow the conversation.
Called one of the most “poignantly witty voices of our time” (Bucks County Community College), Lynn Levin is a poet, writer, longtime professor of English at Drexel University, and, for many years, was a lecturer in creative writing at the University of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia Magazine’s June 2023 issue named Levin’s debut collection of short stories House Parties one of the best books of summer, calling the stories “vivid, funny, and quietly powerful…House Parties may break your heart, but it’ll never do it the same way twice.” Levin is the author of five previous collections of poems. Her website is lynnlevinpoet.com.
Ernest Hilbert is the author Sixty Sonnets, All of You on the Good Earth, Caligulan (selected as winner of the 2017 Poets’ Prize) and Last One Out. Storm Swimmer, was selected by Rowan Ricardo Phillips as the winner of the 2022 Vassar Miller Prize. 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 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. In 2023 he was awarded the Meringoff Writing Award for Poetry from the Association of Literary Scholars, Critics, and Writers. Visit him at www.ernesthilbert.com

Live Poetry: elijah b pringle, III, joe roarty, and George Schaefer
2023-10-18 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
elijah b pringle, III, joe roarty, and George Schaefer
Wednesday October 18, 2023 @ 7pm
Live at Fergie’s Pub @1214 Sansom St.
1214 Sansom Street and on zoom
On Zoom (Registration required):
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZckdumqpjMsEt3XU14E0f2jxu84yhbF5pW9
elijah b pringle, III is an internationally published American poet from Philadelphia, PA. His works appears in several international anthology: Compagnia de’ Colombari’s Whitman on Walls, 99 Poets for the 99 Percent, Selfhood, Moonstone Poetry Ink 25th Anniversary Anthology, and Aquarius Press critical acclaimed anthology on the continuation of the Black Arts Movement – Black Fire This Time. Overall, he has appeared in nearly 40 anthologies and journals since the turn of this century. Constantly evolving and exploring, he has maintained a voice that consistently reveals his keen insight into the “human experiment”, as he would say
joe roarty written & read poetry in Chgo, New York & Philadelphia-he has 2 chapbooks including MORITAT published by Moonstone Press-this year his first full length collection SHOWTUNES was brought out by Iniquity/Vendetta Press
George Schaefer is a Philly born poet, philosopher and prankster, He started writing poetry in high school in a ill fated attempt to impress girls. It didn’t work so he kept writing and trying to hone the craft. Over 4 decades later, he’s still writing and trying to make sense of the world
Sean Hanrahan Hosts, Open Reading Follows

Live Poetry: Jared Harél, Vasiliki Katsarou, and Martin Wiley
2023-10-11 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Jared Harél, Vasiliki Katsarou, and Martin Wiley
Wednesday October 11, 2023 @ 7pm
Live at Fergie’s Pub @ 1214 Sansom Street
On Zoom (Registration required):
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIocOutqzwqE9w5cBXchawlmvcizTnhmYqD
Jared Harél is the author of Let Our Bodies Change the Subject, winner of the 2022 Raz/Shumaker Prairie Schooner Book Prize in and Go Because I Love You. He’s been awarded the ‘Stanley Kunitz Memorial Prize’ from American Poetry Review, as well as the ‘William Matthews Poetry Prize’ from Asheville Poetry Review. Harél’s poems have recently appeared in such journals as 32 Poems, Beloit Poetry Journal, Electric Literature, Ploughshares, Poem-a-Day, The Southern Review and The Sun. He teaches writing, plays drums, and lives in Westchester, NY with his wife and two kids.

Vasiliki Katsarou is a Greek and American poet, editor, independent curator, and sometime filmmaker. She is the author of Memento Tsunami, Three Sea Stones, and The Second Home. Her award-winning 35mm short film Fruitlands 1843 was screened at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the Harvard Film Archive, and the Drama International Film Festival in Greece. She is a Teaching Artist at Hunterdon Art Museum and has collaborated with many arts organizations in New Jersey including the Dodge Poetry Festival, Hopewell Theater, ArtYard, Panoply Books, Ellarslie Museum, and the Princeton Humanities Council.

Martin Wiley author of Just/More and When Did We Stop Being Cute?, grew up confronting and embracing a world as mixed and confused as he was, surrounded by beautiful words one minute and screamed at with hate the next. A long- time activist, spoken-word artist, and slam poet, he had begun to see himself as a “recovering poet” but his children’s growing love of words dragged him, mostly happily, off the wagon. His work has appeared in journals like Apiary, Philadelphia Stories, The Northern Virginia Review, The Northridge Review, Conspire, and others.
Larry Robin Hosts, Open Reading Follows

Live Poetry: Lisa Grunberger, Diane Sahms, Dr Patrick James Errington, and Joseph Thomas Makoviecki
2023-10-04 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Lisa Grunberger, Diane Sahms, Dr Patrick James Errington, and Joseph Thomas Makoviecki
Wednesday October 4 @ 7pm
Live at Fergie’s Pub @ 1214 Sansom Street
On Zoom (Registration required):
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZEpc-ivqTovGdfkOKx4qhufU6xfFHUmLv_p
Lisa Grunberger has published two books – a collection of poetry, Born Knowing and Yiddish Yoga: Ruthie’s Adventures in Love, Loss and the Lotus Position, which she is adapting as a stage performance called Yiddish Yoga: The Musical. She is a widely published poet in such journals as Mudfish, The Drunken Boat, Bridges, Philadelphia Poets, Paroles des Jours, and Dialogi. Her poems have also been translated into Russian and Yiddish. Her one-woman show, A Prayer Collector, premiered at the Makor Center for the Arts/92 St Y.
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.
Dr Patrick James Errington is a poet, translator, critic, editor, and academic from the prairies of Alberta, Canada. He is the author of two poetry chapbooks Glean (ignitionpress, 2018) and Field Studies (Clutag Press, 2019) and the poetry collection the swailing (McGill-Queens University Press). He is a Lecturer in the School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures at the University of Edinburgh, where he teaches literature and creative writing and is also the primary and co-investigator on several interdisciplinary research projects.
Joseph Thomas Makoviecki is a poet and the singer-songwriter in the indie folk band Jackson Pines. Born in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey, Joseph has lived in New York City and Philadelphia while traveling America, the UK, and Ireland performing as a musician. hornpipe & other poems was written as a recipient of the 2021 Tory Dent Research Scholarship at New York University. His work has appeared in The Rational Creature, Soupcan Magazine, Oddball Magazine, and more.

Moonstone Poetry @ PhillyCAM
2023-10-03 18:30 - 19:30 | Virtual
Philly Loves Poetry Interview and Readings Series Featuring Doris Ferleger, PhD
Tuesday October 3, 2023 – 6:30pm VIRTUAL
Can be viewed on the Phillycam website or Cable 66/966HD/967 or Verizon FIOS, 29/30 in Philadelphia.

Doris Ferleger, PhD, is the author of Big Silences in a Year of Rain, As the Moon Has Breath, Leavened, and When You Become Snow. Among many accolades about Ferleger’s work, Aliki Barnestone writes: These memorable poems keep singing with their insistent beauty. Her work has been published in numerous journals including Cimarron Review, L.A. Review, and South Carolina Review, and she is a former Poet Laureate of Montgomery County, PA.
Ferleger has attended esteemed writers conferences nationally and internationally including Bread Loaf Writers Conference in Vermont and Sicily, Colrain Poetry Manuscript Conference, Summer Literary Seminars in Lithuania, Polish Poetry Conference in Krakow, Poland, and Vermont College of Fine Arts Poetry Manuscript Conference. She holds an MFA in Poetry and a PhD in psychology and maintains a mindfulness based therapy practice in Wyncote PA. Ferleger uses poetry and mindfulness approaches in her practice as a way to help clients feel a sense of belonging, acceptance and compassion for all challenges.
Charles S. Carr, Host

Remembering Pablo Neruda On the 50th Anniversary of His Death
2023-10-01 14:00 - 16:00 | Virtual
Remembering Pablo Neruda On the 50th Anniversary of His Death
Virtually on Sunday October 1, 2023 – 2pm – EDT
Registration Required
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcrdOqvrD8vEtIQEWRBwuRPNJom-LEUtNnh
Pablo Neruda (12 July 1904 – 23 September 1973) was a Chilean poet-diplomat and politician who won the 1971 Nobel Prize in Literature. Neruda became known as a poet when he was 13 years old, and wrote in a variety of styles, including surrealist poems, historical epics, political manifestos, a prose autobiography, and passionate love poems such as the ones in his collection Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair. Neruda occupied many diplomatic positions in various countries during his lifetime and served a term as a Senator for the Chilean Communist Party. He was a close advisor to Chile’s socialist President Salvador Allende, and, when he got back to Chile after accepting his Nobel Prize in Stockholm, Allende invited him to read at the Estadio Nacional before 70,000 people. Join us as poets remember and praise him.
