Moonstone Arts Center

Moonstone Poetry @ Fergie’s Pub featuring Shevaun Brannigan, Jamie J. Brunson, and Joyce Meyers
2017-10-18 19:00 - 21:00 (America/New_York) | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Shevaun Brannigan is a graduate of the Bennington Writing Seminars, as well as The Jimenez-Porter Writers’ House at The University of Maryland. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in such journals as Best New Poets 2012, Rhino, Washington Square Review, and Crab Orchard Review. Jamie J. Brunson has brought storytelling to the stage within different spheres of the arts and cultural community for over 16 years. She served as managing director of New Freedom Theatre and the Providence Black Repertory Company, an accomplished playwright, Brunson is a four-time Delaware Division of the Arts/NEA grantee for. Joyce Meyers has been to every continent except Antarctica. Many of her travel experiences find their way into her writing. Her numerous publications include Atlanta Review, The Comstock Review, Iodine Poetry Journal, Slant, and Com-mon Ground Review. She has received several poetry prizes from Atlanta Review, including First Prize in the Atlanta Review 2014 International Poetry Competition.
Open Reading Follows, Suzan Jivan Host

Moonstone Poetry @ Toast Café featuring Christopher Bernard and . Luke Stromberg
2017-10-17 19:00 - 21:00 | Toast Café, 1201 Spruce Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Christopher Bernard is author of A Spy in the Ruins, Voyage to a Phantom City, Dangerous Stories for Boys and others. He is co-editor of Caveat Lector and a regular contributor to Synchronized Chaos. Bernard writes fiction, poetry, essays, plays, and criticism.. He lives in San Francisco. Luke Stromberg has published work in Rotary Dial, Victorian Violet Journal, Tower Journal, Shot Glass Journal, Lucid Rhythms, Philadelphia Stories, Think Journal, Mid-America Poetry Review, and on Ernest Hilbert’s blog E-Verse Radio.

Moonstone Poetry @ Fergie’s Pub presenting Nasty Women Poets: An Unapologetic Anthology of Subversive Verse
2017-10-15 14:00 - 17:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Nasty Women Poets: An Unapologetic Anthology of Subversive Verse by Grace Bauer, Editor ($24.00, Lost Horse Press) Poets reading include Grace Bauer, Kim Bridgeford, Emari DiGiorgio, Corie Feiner, Ona Gritz, Harriet Levin, Lynn Levin, Carolina Morales & Nancy Reddy –
Nasty Women Poets: An Unapologetic Anthology of Subversive Verse is an anthology of poems from women who proudly celebrate their own nastiness and that of other women who have served as nasty role models; poems by and about women defying limitations and lady-like expectations; women refusing to be “nice girls;” women embracing their inner bitch when the situation demands it; women being formidable and funny; women speaking to power and singing for the good of their souls; women being strong, sexy, strident, super-smart, and stupendous; women who want to encourage little girls to keep dreaming.
This timely collection of poems speaks not just to the current political climate and the man who is responsible for its title, but to the stereotypes and expectations women have faced dating back to Eve, and to the long history of women resisting those limitations. The nasty women poets included here talk back to the men who created those limitations, honor foremothers who offered models of resistance and survival, rewrite myths, celebrate their own sexuality and bodies, and the girlhoods they survived. They sing, swear, swagger, and celebrate, and stake claim to life and art on their own terms.
Each participant will read her own poem and at least one poem by another contributor not in attendance. Books will be available for purchase.
About the readers/ poets:

GRACE BAUER’s history of resistance began when a nun told her thatthe greatest thing a girl could grow up to be was a virgin. Having failed at that particular life goal, she became a poet instead. She hates being called Miss, Ma’am, or Little Lady, but these days, takes nasty as a compliment. The idea for this anthology came to her in the shower. Her books include MEAN/TIME, The Women at the Well, Nowhere All At Once, Retreats & Recognitions. Her work has been published in numerous anthologies and journals including Arts & Letters, the Colorado Review, Poetry, Rattle, and the Southern Poetry Review. Her awards include an Academy of American Poets Prize, Individual Artist’s Grants from the Virginia Commission for the Arts and the Nebraska Arts Council, and fellowships from the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center. Bauer is currently a senior book prize reader for Prairie Schooner and teaches at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln.
KIM BRIDGFORD is an award-winning poet, editor, college professor, fiction writer, and critic. She writes primarily in traditional forms, of which the sonnet is her form of choice. She is the director of Poetry by the Sea: A Global Conference. She is editor-in-chief at Mezzo Cammin, a journal of poetry by women and was formerly the editor of Dogwood: A Journal of Poetry and Prose. She received a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship in poetry and a poetry fellowship from the Connecticut Commission on the Arts. Her book In the Extreme: Sonnets about World Records received the 2007 Donald Justice Poetry Award.
EMARI DIGIORGIO is the author of Girl Torpedo (Agape, 2018), the winner of the 2017 Numinous Orison, Luminous Origin Literary Award, and The Things a Body Might Become (Five Oaks Press, 2017). She’s the recipient of the Elinor Benedict Poetry Prize, the Auburn Witness Poetry Prize, and a poetry fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. She’s received residencies from the Vermont Studio Center, Sundress Academy of the Arts, and Rivendell Writers’ Colony. She teaches at Stockton University, is a Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation Poet, and hosts World Above, a monthly reading series in Atlantic City, NJ.
ONA GRITZ is the author of the poetry collections, Geode, (Main Street Rag 2014), and Left Standing, (Finishing Line Press, 2005). Together with her husband Daniel Simpson, she is co-author of Border Songs: A Conversation in Poems (Finishing Line Press, 2017), and co-editor of More Challenges For the Delusional: Prompts, Poetry, and Prose Celebrating 25 Years of Murphy Writing Workshops (forthcoming, Diode Editions). She is also an essayist, memoirist and children’s author. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, Ploughshares, and elsewhere.
COROE FEINER is an award-winning poet, performer, and educator. Called, “wonderful” by
The New York Times, and “stunning,” by Backstage Magazine, she is the author of the
poetry collection, Radishes into Roses, and the children’s book, Who Was Born at Home?
Corie is the former poetry editor of The Washington Square Review, and the esteemed
Bellevue Literary Review. She was the 2011 Poet Laureate of Bucks County, PA..
HARRIET LEVIN is the author of Girl in Cap and Gown, which was a National Poetry Series finalist, and The Christmas Show, which was chosen for the Barnard New Women Poets Prize. She is coeditor of Creativity and Writing Pedagogy: Linking Creative Writers, Researchers and Teachers. Levin’s honors include the Poetry Society of America’s Alice Fay di Catagnola Award, the Ellen La Forge Memorial Poetry Prize, the Pablo Neruda Prize, and a PEW Fellowship in the. She currently teaches and directs the Certificate Program in Writing and Publishing at Drexel University. Her debut novel, How Fast Can You Run is an IPPY and Living Now Awards winner.
LYNN LEVIN is a poet, writer, translator, and the author of six books. Her most recent collection of poems is Miss Plastique, a Next Generation Indie Book Awards finalist in poetry. She is the co-author of Poems for the Writing: Prompts for Poets, a Next Generation Indie Book Awards finalist in education/academic. Levin has received 13 Pushcart Prize nominations, two grants from the Leeway Foundation, and is a Bucks County, Pennsylvania poet laureate. She teaches at Drexel University and the University of Pennsylvania.
CAROLINA MORALES is the author of four chapbooks of poetry, Attack of the Fifty Foot Woman (2015), Dear Monster (2012), In Nancy Drew’s Shadow (2010), Bride of Frankenstein and other poems (2008) each published by Finishing Line Press. Her poems have appeared in the Journal of New Jersey Poets, Nimrod, Paterson Literary Review, Poet Lore, Presence, Spoon River Poetry Review and other journals. Awards include scholarships from the summer program at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA along with honorable mentions for an Allen Ginsberg Award and a Mill Wills Fellowship. Her one-act plays have been produced/staged in California, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
NANCY REDDY is the author of Double Jinx, selected by Alex Lemon for the National Poetry Series and her chapbook Acadiana won the Black River Chapbook. Her poems have appeared in Linebreak, Memorious, Best New Poets, Poetry Daily, Smartish Pace, and elsewhere. She has been awarded a Promise Award from the Sustainable Arts Foundation, a Walter E Dakin Fellowship to the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and a New Jersey Council on the Arts Individual Artist Fellowship. She is Assistant Professor of Writing and First Year Studies at Stockton University in southern New Jersey.

Moonstone @ Communally Presents Kill It to Save It: An Autopsy of Capitalism's Triumph over Democracy
2017-10-13 19:00 - 21:00 | Communally, 1128 Walnut Street, 2nd Floor, Philadelphia, 19107, United States
Kill It to Save It: An Autopsy of Capitalism’s Triumph over Democracy
by Corey Dolgon ($34.95 -University of Chicago Press) Books will be available to purchase and be autographed
“To understand the popularity of Italian Fascism in the ’30s, we needed Antonio Gramsci. To understand the popular malaise among the US middle class in the ’50s, we needed C. Wright Mills. And to understand the popularity of Donald J. Trump and the prevailing logic that turns billionaires into job creators, unions into job destroyers, and climate scientists into godless Communists, we need Corey Dolgon. Clear-eyed and perceptive, Dolgon reveals that the new ‘common sense’ upholding privatization, deregulation, wealth concentration, and the erosion of democracy and civil liberties as the only path to prosperity was not the handiwork of Fox News and wily neocons but the outcome of a deeper ideological and cultural shift. Kill It to Save It is mandatory reading if we are to replace the neoliberal ‘common sense’ with the radical possibilities of ‘good sense.’” Jim Hightower, author, radio commentator, and editor of “The Hightower Lowdown.”

Moonstone Poetry @ Fergie’s Pub featuring Megan Gillespie and Aubrey Rehab
2017-10-11 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Megan Gillespie is a graduate of the University of Virginia and the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. Her work has appeared in The Florida Review, New Delta Review and Cimarron Review. Aubrey Rehab is the founder of South Jersey Poets Collective and hosts ‘World Above: Free Poetry Nights’ at Dante Hall in Atlantic City on a monthly basis. She has most recently been published in the Seneca Review’s Beyond Category. Dave Worrell, host

Moonstone Poetry @ Fergie’s Pub featuring Panio Gianopoulos, Henry Israeli, Eugenia Leigh & Megan Staffel
2017-10-11 08:00 - 17:00 | PA
Panio Gianopoulos is the author of the story collection, How to Get into Our House and Where We Keep the Money and the novella, A Familiar Beast. His fiction, poetry, and essays have appeared in Tin House, Northwest Review, Salon, Chicago Quarterly Review, The Brooklyn Rail, Big Fiction, and elsewhere. A recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship for nonfiction literature, he has been included in the anthologies The Bastard on the Couch, Cooking and Stealing: The Tin House Non-Fiction Reader, and The Encyclopedia of Exes. He lives in New York, where he is the Editorial Director of Heleo.

Henry Israeli’s books include New Messiahs, Praying to the Black and god’s breath hovering over the waters; and, in translation, Fresco: the Selected Poetry of Luljeta Lleshanaku: Child of Nature, and Haywire: New and Selected Poems. He has been awarded fellowship grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, Canada Council on the Arts, and elsewhere. His poetry and translations have appeared in numerous journals including American Poetry Review, Boston Review, Harvard Review, The Iowa Review, and Tin House, as well as several anthologies. Henry Israeli is also the founder and editor of Saturnalia Books.

Eugenia Leigh is a Korean American poet and the author of Blood, Sparrows and Sparrows, winner of the 2015 Debut-litzer Prize in Poetry and finalist for both the National Poetry Series and the Yale Series of Younger Poets. The recipient of fellowships and awards from Poets & Writers Magazine, Kundiman, The Frost Place, Rattle, and the Asian American Literary Review, Eugenia’s poems and essays have appeared in numerous publications including The Rumpus, North American Review, and the Best New Poets 2010 anthology. She received her MFA from Sarah Lawrence College and serves as the Poetry Editor of Hyphen.

Megan Staffel is an American fiction writer and essayist. She is the author of two novels, The Notebook of Lost Things and She Wanted Something Else, and three story collections, A Length of Wire and Other Stories, Lessons In Another Language and The Exit Coach. Her story collection, Lessons in Another Language, was awarded the 2011 IPPY AWARD for Bronze Medal Winner in the Short Story and the 2011 Foreword Review’s Book of the Year Award for Silver Medal Winner in the Short Story. Her stories have appeared in numerous journals, including Ploughshares and New England Review. Her essays on the craft of fiction appear in A Kite in the Wind, edited by Andrea Barrett and Peter Turchi, and Letters to a F iction Writer, edited by Frederick Busch. She teaches in the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College.

Sean Lynch, host – An open mic will follow the featured readers. The event is free and 21+.

Moonstone Poetry @ Fergie’s Pub Featuring Savannah Cooper-Ramsey, Lillian Dunn, and Gabriel Ojeda-Sague
2017-10-04 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Savannah Cooper-Ramsey, a fitful Philadelphian who likes to make things (often poems), is the author of “The Self, it’s nothing personal”, the first of two chapbook projects forthcoming with Waterhouse Ltd. Her work has also been published in Whirlwind Magazine Lillian Dunn studied community literary projects in Argentina as a Fulbright scholar before moving to Philadelphia and co-founding APIARY and runs the SPACES Artist in Residence Program at the Village of Arts and Humanities. She writes poetry with the Rogue Workshop. Gabriel Ojeda-Sague is a Miami -> Philly, Latino, gay Leo. His first collection, Oil and Candle, is a set of writings on Santería, war, and the precarity of Latino-American lives. He is also the author of 4 chapbooks, most recently Where Everything is in Halves. His work can be found at ojedasague.com. Host: Sean Lynch

PHILLY LOVES HAIKU - Host: Charles S. Carr
2017-10-03 18:30 - 19:00 | PhillyCAM, 699 Ranstead Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19106, United States
2017 Philly Loves Poetry Interview and Readings Series on PhillyCAM, 699 Ranstead Street
Did you know that there are over 50 organizations that promote poetry in the Philadelphia area? They represent every poetry form, every ethnic background, every age, gender and community. This series ll consist of an interview with the directors of these groups followed by a reading by group members. The program will be broadcast live on the first Tuesday of each month. The program is free and open to everyone. Please join us.

Henry Brann is the roving ambassador of the Nick Virgilio Haiku Association, where he has served on the board for twenty five years in various roles including Board President. Robin Pally currently is the Secretary of the board of the Nick Virgilio Haiku Association and is administrator of the Annual Haiku Competition for seventh through twelfth grades. Lamont Steptoe is the author of fourteen collections of poetry while also serving as editor for two books b y the late South African poet, Dennis Brutus. Steptoe is the winner of an American Book Award, a Pew Fellowship in the Arts and is founder of Whirlwind Press.

Moonstone Poetry at Brandywine Workshop and Archive, 728 S. Broad Street
2017-10-02 19:00 - 21:00 | Brandywine Workshop, 728 S. Broad Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19146, United States
Shevaun Brannigan is a graduate of the Bennington Writing Seminars, as well as The Jimenez-Porter Writers’ House. Her poems have appeared in such journals as Best New Poets, Rhino, Washington Square Review, and Crab Orchard Review. Tim Lynch has published with Mead, War, Literature, and the Arts, HEArt Online, Whirlwind, & Radius. He was awarded a 2015 Piper Global Writing Residency in Southeast Asia. Trapeta B. Mayson is a dynamic poet, workshop leader and educator who has received numerous literary awards and fellowships including a Pew Fellowship, PCA Grant and a Leeway Award. Trapeta is a Cave Canem and Callaloo Fellow. Anne-Adele Wight is the author of The Age of Greenhouses, Opera House Arterial, and Sidestep Catapult, her work has appeared in journal including American Writing, Philadelphia Poets, Mad Poets Review, Apiary, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and Bedfellows

Moonstone Poetry at Fergie's Pub: Featuring Alicia Askenase, Julia Blumenrich, and Nina Schafer
2017-09-27 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Alicia Askenase is a poet and educator who has taught in Puerto Rico, Spain and the US, is the author of the chapbooks Cover, Suspect, The Luxury of Pathos and Shirley Shirley. Her poems have appeared in literary journals and anthologies including Review Revista Americana, 5trope, sonaweb, texture, Chain, Black and New Works by Philadelphia Poets. She was a founding co-editor of the poetry journal 6ix and Literary Program Director at the Walt Whitman Center.
Julia Blumenreich is a poet, recipient of a PCA grant and a finalist for the 2016 Brittany Noakes Poetry Award. She has read her work in various venues including the University of Pennsylvania, Brown University, and Muse House in Philadelphia. Her recent work has been published in “The Whirlwind Review, and “An Anthology of Philadelphia Poets,” and has published two chapbooks:Meeting Tessie and Artificial Memory.
Nina Schafer is a poet based in Philadelphia and a member of Leonard Gontarek’s Workshop and the 34th Street Poets. She created the Unexpected Poetry Project through which she distributes 12,000 poems a year, one-by-one, to unsuspecting people waiting in grocery store lines, at the gas station, in the elevator, or browsing IKEA on Delaware Avenue. The responses have been unexpected. Open Reading Follows, Jennifer Hook & Alina Macneal Hosts

Moonstone Poetry at Fergie's Pub: Featuring Richard Bank, Ryan Eckes, and Al Tacconelli
2017-09-20 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Richard Bank’s poetry has appeared in numerous small press poetry journals. He has conducted a poetry reading series for the Mad Poets Society in the Philadelphia area. Bank has conducted Continuing Legal Education courses on jury techniques, and serves as an adjunct professor at Villanova Law School.
Ryan Eckes’ narrative-driven poetry is, in his words, “a possible form of history:” a way to document the voices and conditions of urban life. In his latest book, Valu-Plus, Eckes continues his examination of Philadelphia, as he imaginatively makes use of corporate language, workplace correspondence, and other non-poetic texts, “in search of free expression and experience,” he says.
Poet and artist, Al Tacconelli has read at Robin’s Bookstore, The Free Library Of Philadelphia, and Hofstra University. Al’s poems have appeared in The Endicott Review, and Mad Poets Review. His chapbooks are; Two Countries, One Heart, and The Laurenzi Poem. An open mic will follow the featured readers. The event is free and 21+. Suzan Jivan, Host

2017 Philly Loves Poetry Interview and Readings Series on PhillyCAM, 699 Ranstead Street
2017-09-20 18:30 - 2017-10-02 19:00 | PA
Did you know that there are over 50 organizations that promote poetry in the Philadelphia area? They represent every poetry form, every ethnic background, every age, gender and community. This series will consist of an interview with the directors of these groups followed by a reading by group members. The program will be broadcast live on the first Tuesday of each month. The program is free and open to everyone. Please join us.

Moonstone Poetry at Fergie's Pub: Featuring Ona Gritz and Daniel Simpson
2017-09-13 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Border Songs: A Conversation in Poems by Ona Gritz & Daniel Simpson ($14.99, August 2017)
The poems in Border Songs offer more than a conversation between poets: they’re conversant, knowledgeable, informed by eros, loss, delight, curiosity, and intimate wisdom. This collection stays long after you’ve stopped reading to meditate alone about body and soul. –Stephen Kuusisto
Ona Gritz’s first full length poetry collection, Geode, was a finalist for the 2013 Main Street Rag Poetry Book Award. “Ona Gritz’s poems prove the unlikely – that it’s possible to dazzle with simplicity, an eloquent, apparently effortless simplicity that poem after poem registers emotional truths. Many poems in Geode explore what it means to live gracefully with a disability. I love this book.” -Stephen Dunn
Daniel Simpson is a recipient of a Fellowship in Literature from the PCA, has published poems in “Prairie Schooner,” “The Cortland Review,” “Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review,” “Passager,” “Atlanta Review,” among other literary journals. Cinco Puntos Press, published his essay “Line Breaks the Way I See Them” and four of his poems in “Beauty Is A Verb: The New Poetry of Disability,” a 2012 ALA Notable Poetry Book called “unusual and powerful” by “Publisher’s Weekly” in a starred review. An open mic will follow the featured readers. The event is free and 21+. Dave Worrell Host

Moonstone Poetry at Fergie's Pub: Featuring M. Nzadi Keita, Cassie Macdonald, and Lamont B. Steptoe
2017-09-06 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
M. Nzadi Keita is a Philly-born writer, editor, scholar and teacher, author of Brief History of Heaven, She has received grants from the PCA and the Leeway Foundation, is an alumna of Cave Canem and has been a Yaddo fellow. She has also worked on projects with the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation and WHYY.
Cassie MacDonald serves as Hearthkeeper of Brigid’s House in Camden, where facilitates a twice-monthly writing circle, organizes readings, workshops and other writing arts events, and creates neighborhood murals as part of the Poetry Liberation Front.
Lamont B. Steptoe is the author of fourteen collections of poetry (including Beyond the White Stone Lions), and editor for two books by Dennis Brutus, he is the winner of an American Book Award and a Pew Fellowship in the Arts and founder of Whirlwind Press.
An open mic will follow the featured readers. The event is free. Open Reading Follows, Sean Lynch as Host

Philly Loves Poetry Interview and Readings Series on PhillyCAM: Featuring Lillian Dunn, Peter Krok, Paul Siegell
2017-09-05 18:30 - 20:30 | PhillyCAM, 699 Ranstead Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19106, United States
There are there are over 50 organizations that promote poetry in the Philadelphia area. They represent every poetry form, ethnic background, age, gender and community. This series consists of a panel of guest poets and artists discussing the opportunities which their group or organization provides for poets in Philly as well as the themes that influence them. The program is broadcast live on the first Tuesday of each month. The program is free and open to everyone, please join us!
The program will focus on three leading poetry reviews in Philly: Apiary Magazine, Schuylkill Valley Journal, and Painted Bride Quarterly.
Lillian Dunn is Program Manager of SPACES, an artist-in-residence program at The Village of Arts and Humanities, she co-founded APIARY, a free local literary magazine which has a circulation of 30,000. She writes poetry with the Rogue Workshop.
Peter Krok is the Humanities director of the Manayunk Roxborough Art Center and editor-in-chief of the Schuylkill Valley Journal (SVJ, now in its 27th year,) and the SVJ Online at svjlit.com. Writers in the SVJ are featured in readings at the Manayunk Roxborough Art Center.
Paul Siegell is the author of three books of poetry: wild life rifle fire, jambandbootleg and Poemergency Room. He has contributed to American Poetry Review, Black Warrior Review, Coconut, Rattle, and many other fine journals. Paul is a copywriter by day and a senior editor at Painted Bride Quarterly by choice. – Host: Charles S. Carr

Moonstone Poetry at Fergie's Pub: Featuring Ryan Eckes, Melissa DeGezelle, and Sean Lynch
2017-08-30 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Ryan Eckes is a poet who lives in South Philadelphia and recently finished writing a book called General Motors about labor and the influence of public and private transportation on city life.
Melissa DeGezelle has worked as an adjunct in the Intellectual Heritage Program since 2010. Beyond teaching, she is a poet, a birth doula, an activist, and a mother.
Sean Lynch is a poet and editor who lives in South Philly. Lynch focuses his writing on working class issues, and played a minor role in Occupy Philly. Open Reading Follows, Larry Robin Host

Devin Cohen & Marion Deutsche Cohen
2017-08-23 19:00 - 21:30 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Alien Architect/Cohen Asher/Devin A. Cohen is a multidisciplinary artist, working with music, visual arts, and poetry. He has published the experimental hip hop album Arteriaand and All Praises, the first part of his seven part book journey entitled Remnants, which chronicles his words from his records, poems, and else wheres

Marion Deutsche Cohen’s latest of her 27 books are Truth and Beauty, Closer to Dying, and What I’m Wearing Today. Her non-fiction includes two controversial memoirs on spousal chronic illness, and Crossing the Equal Sign, about her passion for math..

“HOME”
2017-08-16 19:00 - 21:30 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
RuNett Nia Ebo, Poet of Purpose, has been writing poetry since age 10 and she is five decades past that now. Best known for her signature poems, What Did You Make Roaches Fo,’ raps called Look What We Did, Part 1 and 2 and the infamous Lord Why Did You Make Me Black.

Mary Brucker has been writing poetry for the past twelve years. She has performed by reading poetry, singing, and playing guitar at several open mics throughout the Philadelphia area. Krisann Janowitz while at St. Joes she was Editor-in-Chief The Avenue. Her poems have been published in The Avenue, SJU Indie Press, streetcake, and Cliterature Journal.

Krisann Janowitz while at St. Joes she was Editor-in-Chief The Avenue. Her poems have been published in The Avenue, SJU Indie Press, and Cliterature Journal.

Victoria Huggins Peurifoy, is a Christian, who is an Author, Poet, Spoken word artist, Storyteller, Writer, Ghost Writer, Photographer, Narrator, Consultant, Facilitator, Voice Talent, and Public Speaker. Host: Suzan Jivan

Moonstone Poetry @ Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street
2017-07-26 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Lenora Magee is an educator and poet from Minneapolis, MN. She has been performing since she was 16 and was active in the arts and poetry in Minnesota serving as President of student based arts coalition Voices Merging and running the largest open mic of the Twin Cities. She received her BA in Mathematics and African-American studies from University of Minnesota and came to Philadelphia as a Teach for America while receiving her master's in education from the University of Pennsylvania. As a poet, she also shared the stage with Amanda Diva, Trey Songz and Dead Prez and performed as a featured artist in Minneapolis, Chicago, Maryland, New York, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. She currently hosts the Orisun Sister Circle, a safe space that uses conversation, connection and creative expression as tools of healing for women. Her first book is expected to be released soon, until then enjoy her poetry and essays at www.lenoramagee.com
Krisann Janowitz began writing poetry at an early age (elementary school– if you count all the song lyrics about bubblegum). Her love for music and words has further driven her passion for poetry. This passion has led her to graduate with an MA in Writing Studies from St. Joseph’s University in 2017. While there, she enjoyed being the Editor-in- Chief at her program's literary magazine, The Avenue. Her poems have been published in The Avenue, SJU Indie Press, and Cliterature Journal. Currently, she is working on finalizing a collection of poems that explore the interconnections between home and homelessness. In her free time, she enjoys romping about (and taking photos) in parks with her burly husband and spunky Shih Tzu.
The event is free and 21+.

Moonstone Poetry @ Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street
2017-07-19 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
“Jim Cory writes stories, as well as poems, and his work has appeared in many venues over the course of the last 35 years. His poems most recently appeared in the zine Elephant, out of New London, Connecticut., the on-line political journal Counterpunch.org and …like this, out of North Attleboro, Mass. He has published seven chapbooks of poems and been a recipient of fellowships from the Pennsylvania Arts Council and Yaddo. He lives in Center City, Philadelphia, and can be reached at coryjim@earthlink.net.”

Mary Ann Domanska
Mary Ann Domanska is the author of Unraveled, has published several poems in the Philly Poetry Anthology, performs locally at the Stagecrafters Theatre, is on the board of MAAG (Mt. Airy Art Garage) and founded/hosted The Swerve, an open mic poetry event held monthly (2014-2015). She is a 2nd-grade teacher at Springside Chestnut Hill Academy, where she has taught for the past fourteen years. She studied with the notable Latino poet, Martín Espada, and with Kristin Linklater, author of Freeing the Natural Voice.

Susan Holck is a retired physician who lived in Switzerland for 30 years before relocating to Philadelphia. After decades of scientific writing, she began writing poetry. Her poetry has been published in Cecile’s Writers Magazine, By&By Poetry, The Ocotillo Review, and Bluestem Magazine. Holck’s writing is deeply informed by the deaths of her husband and son, and her daughter’s severe mental illness.

Lisa Naomi Konigsberg has been writing poems since the age of five. She is a tenure-track instructor at West Chester University in the English Department. Her writing has appeared in Whirlwind Press, Rockford Review, Word River Journal, Poetry INK, and her chapbook, Invisible Histories, was published in 2015, by Spruce Alley Press. Her poems explore the historical when it works to reveal the personal.
Host: Suzan Jivan, An open mic will follow the featured readers. The event is free and 21+.

Moonstone Poetry @ Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street
2017-07-12 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Mike Cohen hosts Poetry Aloud and Alive at Philadelphia’s Big Blue Marble Book Store. His articles on sculpture appear in the Schuylkill Valley Journal in which he is a contributing editor. He also played Editor Whedon in a Laurel Hill Cemetery production of Spoon River Anthology for the Philly Fringe Festival. Mike has memorized a good deal of his poetry in case a power failure during a reading leaves him in the dark. Mike’s wry writing has appeared in the Mad Poets Review, Fox Chase Review, and other journals. His poetic presentations feature humor and drama against a philosophical backdrop. Mike’s poetry can be found at http://mikecohensays.com/ and in his book BETWEEN THE I’S

Kevin Varrone received his M.A. in poetry in 1997. He is the author of the chapbook g-point Almanac (6/21-9/21) (ixnay press, 2000), id est (g-point Almanac 9/22-12- 20) (Instance Press, 2007), and Eephus (Ugly Duckling Presse, X). In collaboration with poetry and programmer Vlad Zykov, he created Box Score: An Autobiography, an app for iPad and iPhone that features poems from Eephus paired with collages. His poems have appeared in Mass Ave, The Baltimore Review, American Poetry Review’s Philly Edition, and Pavement Saw. He is co-founder of Beautiful Swimmer Press. He teaches at Temple University.
Host: Dave Worrell, An open mic will follow the featured readers. The event is free and 21+.

Moonstone Poetry @ PhillyCAm - Sanctuary Poets Part II
2017-07-11 14:00 - 17:00 | PhillyCAM, 699 Ranstead Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19106, United States
2017 Philly Loves Poetry Interview and Readings Series on PhillyCAM
Regarding Poetry in Philly someone wrote: “If Philadelphia and environs were a garden of poetry, it would be quite a garden. It’d be huge. This is a poetry town which is lush and fertile.” There are there are over 50 organizations that promote poetry in the Philadelphia area-poetry readings, workshops; special events, as well as publish poetry journals and books of poems. They represent every poetry form, every ethnic background, every age, gender and community. This series consists of a panel of guest poets and artists that discuss the opportunities which their group or organization provides for poetry and poets in Philly. The program also focuses on the wide variety of themes and issues which influence the creation of poetry in Philly. The program is broadcasted live on the first Tuesday of each month. The program is free and open to everyone. Please join us in the studio for this live broadcast.
Tuesday July 11, 2017 -6:30pm – Sanctuary Poets Part 2
This workshop explored questions of belonging, safety and identity for (im)migrants in the aftermath of election 2016 and the resurgence of racist, misogynist, and xenophobic forces in the United States. Participants studied poetry arising from migrant traditions, with an emphasis on poets of color and poets from the Global South. Participants wrote their own original poems, were supported through feedback and revision, and shared their work with the public at a culminating event.
Catalina Rios holds a B.A in Latin American Studies from Wesleyan University and a M.A in Spanish from Middlebury College. She is a recipient of a Leeway Foundation Harmony Grant and has attended the Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference. Catalina is a trained S.E.E.D facilitator (Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity) who is deeply committed to social justice, cultural awareness and respect for diversity in community. She currently teaches Spanish to Preschool through 6th graders at The School in Rose Valley.

Raha Rafii is a Ph.D. student in Islamic history at the University of Pennsylvania. Her home is the Farsi-accented “para decir algo” and “schmeckt gut” her parents still randomly say in conversation.

Maria Sotomayor moved to the US at age 10 from Loja Ecuador. Maria grew up undocumented, learning to navigate invisible systems from an early age. She is now an immigrant rights community organizer. Maria loves to paint, design, write and create as a way to feed her soul.

Caroline Park Kim is a queer writer and reluctant Leo somewhere (and nowhere) between Korean and American. She’s particularly interested in QTIPOC mental health and care modalities. She crash-landed in Los Angeles, and is currently based in Philly

Rosie Glade is a barista and poet currently living and working in Philly. Her interests are dancing and herbalism, and her current writing project is an exploration of paganism, feminism, and sex work.

Sheila Quintana is an immigrant from Acapulco, Mexico who spends her time in Philly as a political organizer with various migrant justice groups. She aspires to grow into an excellent cook, a Mexican traditional healer, and a filmmaker.

Host: Charles S. Carr – Author of paradise, Pennsylvania and Haitian Mud Pies And Other Poems and his work has been published the Painted Bride Review, Apiary, Fox Chase Review, The Schuylkill Valley Journal, Mad Poets, Philadelphia Stories, Moonstone Poetry Anthology, The Blue Collar Review and Generations of Poetry. Charles is former host of the Moonstone Poetry series at Fergie’s Pub.

Moonstone Poetry @ Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street
2017-07-05 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Anthony Palma’s work has appeared in publications such as The Mad Poet’s Review, Italiana Americana, and Harbinger Asylum. Recently, he has taken a renewed interest in the connections between poetry and other forms of expression such as performance and visual a…rt. He teaches composition at Rowan University and also teaches classes at Saint Joseph’s University. He lives in West Chester, and when not teaching or writing, he enjoys martial arts, painting, music, and spending time with family and friends. Brooke Palma grew up in Philadelphia and transplanted to West Chester 10 years ago. A legal receptionist and administrator by day and poet by night, she studied English, Italian, and Ceramics at Saint Joseph’s University.
Brooke Palma grew up in Philadelphia and transplanted to West Chester 10 years ago. A legal receptionist and administrator by day and poet by night, she studied English, Italian, and Ceramics at Saint Joseph’s University. She has been published in The Mad Poet’s Review and has been reading her poems in and around the city. As the child of an immigrant, many of her poems focus on the connections between culture and identity. In her free time, she also enjoys reading, cooking, and shopping.
Charlie O’Hay’s poems have appeared in over 100 journals, including Mudfish, West Branch, Painted Bride Quarterly, Cortland Review, Gargoyle and The New York Quarterly. He is the recipient of a 1995 Fellowship in Poetry from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. “Far from Luck” is his first collection of poems and photographs. His second book is “Smoking In Elevators.” Since 2010, Charlie’s ongoing photo series “Everyone Has a Name” has shared images and stories of the homeless in Center City Philadelphia to promote understanding, dignity, and an end to homelessness in America.
Host: Sean Lynch, An open mic will follow the featured readers. The event is free and 21+.

Moonstone Poetry @ Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street
2017-06-28 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Fran Baird received the Judson Jerome Poetry Scholarship, his poem “Neshaminy” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He currently conducts a poetry workshop with inmates at Graterford Prison.

Cassie MacDonald serves as Hearthkeeper of Brigid’s House in Camden where she facilitates a writing circle and creates neighborhood murals as part of the Poetry Liberation Front (“Poetry to the People!”)

Moonstone Poetry @ Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street
2017-06-21 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Laura Spagnoli (& Baby) is a poet and fiction writer inspired by the Broad Street subway line, direct mail advertising, constellations you can see from the city, and parrots. Her poems have appeared in the Apiary, E. Pluribus Unum, and one of her stories was published in the 2010 collection Philadelphia Noir.

Ernest Hilbert’s (& Ian) debut collection, Sixty Sonnets establishes a variation the sonnet form. Hilbert’s second collection, All of You on the Good Earth, returns to his idiosyncratic, highly inventive sonnet form. His spoken word album, Elegies & Laments, includes tracks of Hilbert’s poems backed by his band.

David Moolten (& Shira) is a poet and a filmmaker. His most recent book, Primitive Mood, won the T.S. Eliot Prize from Truman State University Press. He is also the author of Plums & Ashes, which won the Samuel French Morse Poetry Prize. His honors include a Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Fellowship and a Pushcart Prize.

Moonstone Poetry @ Fergie’s Pub 1214 Sansom Street Wednesday June 14, 2017 – 7pm
2017-06-14 19:00 - 20:30 | PA
Grace Bauer’s most recent book of poems is MEAN/TIME, just published by the University of New Mexico Press. A 20th anniversary re-issue of her ground-breaking collection The Women At The Well was published in 2016 by SFASU Press. Other books include: Nowhere All At Once (winner of the Society of Midland Authors Book of the Year Award for 2015), Retreats & Recognitions and Beholding Eye, as well as several chapbooks. She is also co-editor (with Julie Kane) of the anthology, Umpteen Ways of Looking at a Possum: Critical & Creative Responses to Everette Maddox and is currently co-editing another anthology, Nasty Women Poets: An Unapologetic Anthology of Subversive Verse, forthcoming from Lost Horse Press this fall.

Lynn Levin is a poet, writer, translator, and teacher. She holds a BA in comparative literature from Northwestern University and an MFA in writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She teaches at Drexel University and the University of Pennsylvania. She is the author of six books, most recently: Birds on the Kiswar Tree (2Leaf Press, 2014), a translation from the Spanish of a collection of poems by the Peruvian Andean poet Odi Gonzales; Miss Plastique (Ragged Sky Press, 2013), a 2014 Next Generation Indie Book Awards finalist in poetry; and, as co-author, Poems for the Writing: Prompts for Poets (Texture Press, 2013), a 2014 Next Generation Indie Book Awards finalist in education/academic books. Her previous books include a 2010 Next Generation Indie Book Awards finalist in poetry; Imaginarium (Loonfeather Press, 2005), a finalist for ForeWord Magazine’s 2005 Book of the Year Award; A Few Questions about Paradise (Loonfeather Press, 2000); and a chapbook, The Forest: Poems by Besnik Mustafaj (PM Chapbooks, 2001), a translation from the French. Lynn Levin’s poems, creative nonfiction, short fiction, and translations have appeared in Ploughshares, Boulevard, The Hopkins Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Southwest Review, Cleaver, Wild River River, Painted Bride Quarterly, on Garrison Keillor’s The Writer’s Almanac, Verse Daily, and other places. She has received thirteen Pushcart Prize nominations, two grants from the Leeway Foundation, and is a Bucks County, Pennsylvania poet laureate.
Dave Worrell, host
An open mic will follow the featured readers. The event is free and 21+.

A Tribute to Leonard Gontarek
2017-06-11 14:00 - 17:00 | Brandywine Workshop, 728 S. Broad Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19146, United States
For some strange reason, we tend to wait until someone dies before we express our gratitude for what they have done. Why Wait? Join us in honoring Leonard Gontarek through a reading of praise poems as well as his own work.
50 Poets have responded with poems and comments to honor Leonard Gontarek
20 of them will be reading at the event on Sunday
A Chapbook with the 50 poems will be available for purchase ($10, The Moonstone Press)
Leonard Gontarek is the author of Take Your Hand Out of My Pocket, Shiva (2016) and He Looked Beyond My Faults and Saw My Needs (2013), both published by Hanging Loose Press. His poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Poet Lore, Verse, Blackbird, The Awl, Spinning Jenny, and The Best American Poetry, among others. He teaches workshops throughout the Philadelphia area, including the Philadelphia Arts in Education Partnership, and a weekly Saturday workshop from his home in West Philadelphia. He has been Mad Poet-in-Residence since 2008. He coordinates Peace/Works, Philly Poetry Day, The Philadelphia Poetry Festival, and hosts The Green Line Reading & Interview Series. Gontarek has received Poetry fellowships from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, the Philadelphia Writers Conference Community Service Award, and was a Literary Death Match Champion. His poem, 37 Photos From The Bridge, was a Poetry winner for the Big Bridges MotionPoems project and the basis for the award-winning film by Lori Ersolmaz sponsored by the Weisman Art Museum in Minneapolis: http://movingpoems.com/poet/leonard-gontarek/

Moonstone Poetry @ Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street
2017-06-07 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Andrew Keller has been active in the DIY music scene since 2007. He has toured with the bands Hermit Thrushes, Snow Caps, Jonagold, Folklore, Evil Sword, and Glover. Keller also spent around ten years as Senior Editor of local lit mag Painted Bride Quarterly before leaving last year.

Harmon Butcher was born in rural East Virginia to mother and father. After a strange problem and accident, Butcher set out traveling the great America West on foot in search of truth and innocence.

Sanctuary Poets - Part 1
2017-06-06 18:30 - 20:00 | PhillyCAM, 699 Ranstead Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19106, United States
Participants of the Asian Arts Initiative workshopped on belonging, safety, and identity for (im)migrants in the aftermath of election 2016 and the resurgence of racist, misogynist, and xenophobic forces in the United
States.

Cynthia Dewi Oka is a poet, immigrant, and author of Nomad of Salt and Hard Water (Thread Makes Blanket, 2016). A two-time Pushcart Prize nominee, her poetry has appeared in publications such as Guernica, Dusie, Black Renaissance Noire, The Blueshift Journal, Kweli, Apogee, As Us, Painted Bride Quarterly, and others. She has received the Fifth Wednesday Journal Editor’s Prize in Poetry, scholarships from the Vermont Studio Center and Voices of Our Nations (VONA), and the Leeway Foundation Art and Change Grant. Her next book of poems, Salvage, is forthcoming in 2017 from Northwestern University Press.

Katherine Sarwopeni Antarikso was born in Jakarta, Indonesia, moved to Pennsylvania, which motivated her to explore ideas of home and identity for displaced people.

Rommy Driks, although better known as a math and science nerd, has always loved words and been fascinated by the art of crafting them.

Meera Jayaraman is a queer South Asian femme dedicated to living in radically vulnerable ways. She writes because she reads, and reading has shaped her into being.

Karla Maria is an afrolatiñx writer from the south. She pulls from all of her lives and emotions to make poetry pour out.

Quinha is a mixed kid living in South Philly who likes to dance and play soccer. She also works in the ER and is a member of Put People First!

Moonstone Poetry @ Toast Café, 1201 Spruce Street
2017-06-01 19:00 - 21:00 | Toast Café, 1201 Spruce Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Mike Cohen hosts Poetry Aloud and Alive at Philadelphia’s Big Blue Marble Book Store.

Eileen D’Angelo has been nominated for a Pennsylvania Governor’s Award in the Arts and twice for the Pushcart Prize, judged Philadelphia-area poets for Def Poetry Jam.

Hiram Larew’s work has appeared in several journals and books
including the Washington review, Rhino, Rue Bella, The Cosmos Club Journal, Frantic Egg, Not Just Air, and Echoes. Nominated for a 2006 Pushcart Prize, his poems have been recognized for awards by, among others, Louisiana Literature, Verve, the Allen Ginsberg Awards, and S. S. Calliope.
An open mic will follow the featured readers. The event is free.
