Moonstone Presents:

H. Alonzo Jennings and Dave Worrell
Wednesday, September 27th @ 7PM
Live at Fergie’s Pub @ 1214 Sansom Street

On Zoom (Registration required):

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZEscO-opz4iHdP1mAGNBQfnceJ-5eKT_Olc

Alonzo Jennings is an artist, photographer, poet, jazz aficionado and raconteur. He is a graduate of Montclair State University and the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton. Alonzo has written four volumes of poetry, the latest titled ON ECHO, JOY AND ENCOUNTERS WITH GOD. His poetry addresses themes of love, social consciousness, individual responsibility and the joy of being. Alonzo is author of THIS WAS JAZZ, a book containing 160 of his photographs of legendary jazz musicians, along with his original jazz poems and commentary on music, art and the creative process. He hosts the award-winning Philadelphia based radio program Jazz From An Eclectic Mind on WPPM. Alonzo is available for presentations of his photography and poetry.

Dave Worrell’s verse memoir “Runnemede Boy” was published by Parnilis Media in 2023. His chapbook “We Who Were Bound” was published in August 2012 by Casa de Cinco Hermanas Press. His limited-edition ekphrastic collection “Close to Home” appeared in 2015, featuring paintings by Catherine Kuzma. Dave’s poems have appeared in Slant, Canary, Shot Glass Journal, Painted Bride Quarterly, Schuylkill Valley Journal, U.S. 1 Worksheets, Exit 13 and elsewhere. He has performed his music-backed poems at Chris’ Jazz Café in Philadelphia and The Cornelia Street Café in New York.

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. 

  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 […]

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):

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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.

Jared Harél, Vasiliki Katsarou, and Martin Wiley 
Wednesday October 11, 2023 @ 7pm -LIVE
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

elijah b pringle, III, Jonathan Koven, 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

Jonathan Koven 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. Jonathan’s poetry chapbook Palm Lines (Toho) released in 2020. His fiction debut Below Torrential Hill (EE) released in 2021, a winner of the Electric Eclectic Novella Prize. His forthcoming poetry collection Mystic Orchards releases this fall from Kelsay Books.

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

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.

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 […]

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.

Anna Prader and Jonathan Todd
Wednesday November 8, 2023
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.