Moonstone Arts Center

Virtual Poetry Event: International Haiku Day
2022-04-17 16:00 - 17:00 (America/New_York) | PA
Sunday April 17, 2pm – VIRTUAL – International Haiku Day
Registration Required, Registration link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIqdOCsqzkjGtNEuH75LhkFaTTLV7PkKZyV

The old pond, A frog jumps in, Plop!
Matsuo Basho (1644-1694) – Translated by Allan Watts
The Old Pond may be the most famous of all haiku
“Haiku is an important form of creative expression because it distills language down to the essentials: observation, interpretation, and communication. It asks both the reader and the writer to look and search inward and outward.” Sean Lynch, Program Director of the Nick Virgilio Haiku Association and Writers House in Camden, NJ.
Reading from the contributors to Haiku 2022

Live Poetry Reading: James Feichthaler, M. Elizabeth Hershey, Jonathan Koven
2022-04-20 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Live Poetry Reading: James Feichthaler, M. Elizabeth Hershey, Jonathan Koven
Wednesday April 20, 2022 – 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/tZIsdu6hpjkuHNGjHoEg5OmObWBGmSPWFSi0
James Feichthaler is a poet and essayist whose work has most recently appeared in One Art, Sortes, Schuylkill Valley Journal, and the Mad Poets Society’s Local Lyrics series. His new book The Rise of the COVFEFE, a poetical satire of these divided and uncertain times, was published in late 2020 by Parnilis Media. He is also the host of an open mic reading in Manayunk, PA called The Dead Bards of Philadelphia.

M. Elizabeth Hershey is originally from a Midwest university town in southern Indiana. She graduated from Brown University with a BA in Visual Arts, where she studied much of her art degree at the accompanying Rhode Island School of Design. She works in several mediums, but photography remains her primary passion and profession. Look to the North is her first published chapbook, in which each poem depicts a memoir of a moment in time approaching middle age. She also has a passion for piano, speaking Italian, and finding four-leaf clovers.
Jonathan Koven grew up on Long Island, NY, embraced by tree-speak, tide’s rush, and the love and support of his family. He holds a BA in English and Creative Writing from American University, works as a technical writer, and freelance editor (and formerly head fiction editor of Toho Journal). He lives in Philadelphia with his best friend and future wife Delana, and cats Peanut Butter and Keebler. Jonathan’s debut chapbook Palm Lines, and his award-winning novella Below Torrential Hill are available and the current list of his publications is available at https://linktr.ee/jonathankoven.

Sean Hanrahan Host, Open Reading Follows

Virtual Poetry Reading: Quincy Scott Jones, Marci Blackman, Sarah Gambito, D. Nurkse, Bushra Rehman, Yolanda Wisher
2022-04-21 19:00 - 21:00 | PA
Virtual Poetry Reading: Quincy Scott Jones, Marci Blackman, Sarah Gambito, D. Nurkse, Bushra Rehman, Yolanda Wisher
Thursday April 21, 2022 – 7pm – VIRTUAL
Registration Required – use this link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIlc-usqjwuGteb-36iCgphT76_l9ZkiKT9

Join us for a night celebrating poetry and Quincy Scott Jones’ new-ish book How to Kill Yourself Instead of Your Children, a meditation on racial violence and the prospect of raising Black and Brown children in a world that doesn’t care for Black or Brown (or children).

Quincy Scott Jones is the author of two books of poetry: The T-Bone Series (Whirlwind Press, 2009) and How to KillYourself Instead of Your Children (C&R Press, 2021). His work has appeared in the African American Review, The North American Review, the Bellingham Review, Love Jawns: A Mixtape, and The Feminist Wire. With Nina Sharma he co-curates Blackshop, a column that thinks about allyship between BIPOC artist. His graphic narrative, >BlackNerd<, is in the works.

Marci Blackman is the author of the novels, PO MAN’S CHILD, recipient of the ALA’s Stonewall Award for Best Fiction, and TRADITION, noted in Band of Thebes as one of the Best LGBTQ Books of the year. Blackman’s third novel, ELEPHANT, is forthcoming.

Sarah Gambito is Professor of English / Director of Creative Writing at Fordham University and co-founder of Kundiman, a non-profit organization serving writers and readers of Asian American literature.

D. Nurkse is the author of twelve poetry collections, most recently A COUNTRY OF STRANGERS, just out from Knopf. A former Brooklyn poet laureate, he taught poetry at Rikers Island and served on the board of Amnesty International-USA. He currently teaches at Sarah Lawrence College.

Bushra Rehman is a writer and cultural activist, author of Corona, a dark comedy about being Muslim and her collection of poems, Marianna’s Beauty Salon. She is creator of the community-based writing workshop Two Truths and a Lie: Writing Memoir and Autobiographical Fiction.

Poet, singer, educator, and curator Yolanda Wisher is author of Monk Eats an Afro and co-editor of the anthology Peace is a Haiku Song. Wisher was named Poet Laureate of Montgomery County and third Poet Laureate of Philadelphia. A Pew and Cave Canem Fellow, Wisher received the Leeway Foundation’s Transformation Award, works as Curator of Spoken Word and Co-Director of Curatorial Programs at Philadelphia Contemporary. She performs a blend of poetry and song with her band Yolanda Wisher & The Afroeaters.

Virtual Poetry Event: Earth Day
2022-04-24 14:00 - 16:00 | PA
Virtual Poetry Event: Earth Day
Sunday April 24, 2022 – 2pm – VIRUAL – Earth Day (April 22, 2022)
Registration Required – use this link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0kceGuqj4rE9BYdBT7P4IXS-2P4v93SRNJ

What world are you inheriting? What world are we passing on?
First held on April 22, 1970, it now includes a wide range of events coordinated globally by EarthDay.org (including 1 billion people in more than 193 countries. The first Earth Day was focused on the United States. In 1990 it went international with events in 141 nations. On Earth Day 2016, the landmark Paris Agreement was signed by the United States, the United Kingdom, China, and 120 other countries. This signing satisfied a key requirement for the entry into force of the historic draft climate protection treaty adopted by consensus of the 195 nations present at the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris.

Live Poetry Reading: Alicia Askenase, Julia Blumenreich
2022-04-27 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Live Poetry Reading: Alicia Askenase, Julia Blumenreich

Live at Fergie’s Pub
1214 Sansom Street and on zoom – Registration Required – Registration Link https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZYudOqpqT8oEt0RnjqPfwJgqoS46VZuKs6W
Alicia Askenase is the author of The Luxury of Pathos (Texture Press) and Shirley Shirley (sonaweb) and a few chaplets. She was a co-founding editor of the literary journal 6ix, and Literary Curator of the Walt Whitman Art Center for many years. Her poetry has appeared in the anthologies: New Work by Philadelphia Poets, Poems for the Writing: Prompts for Poets, Second Edition, Art Through the Eyes of Mad Poets, An Ekphrastic Poetry Collection, and others. Her writing has also appeared in literary journals such as: Chain, editions #2 and #12, Poetry New York, The World, Feminist Studies, and The Journal of Modern Languages. Recent publications include The Manhattanville Review, The Painted Bride Quarterly http://pbqmag.org/issue-100/, with new work forthcoming in spring 2022 from the Paterson Literary Review.
Julia Blumenreich, author of Meeting Tessie, Artificial Memory, Blue Angel of a Day and The What of Underfoot, is a poet who is in her 25th year of teaching 4th grade at Germantown Academy. She is a recipient of a PCA grant and a finalist for the 2016 Brittany Noakes Poetry Award. In 2012, she collaborated with the visual artist, Wendy Osterweil, on ‘Reforesting: An Homage to Gil Ott’ a poetry/ sculptural installation/print show at The Painted Bride Art Center. Four of her poems have been set to music composed by Kyle Smith and were performed as part of “Lyric Fest” in 2014. Her recent work has been published in “The Whirlwind Review, “Philadelphia Stories,” and in “An Anthology of Philadelphia Poets,” edited by Valerie Fox and translated into Romanian by Daniel Dragomirescu.
Alina Macneal & Jennifer Hook, Hosts – Open Reading Follows

Virtual Poetry Event: International Worker's Day
2022-05-01 14:00 - 16:00 | PA
Virtual Poetry Event: International Worker’s Day
Sunday May 1, 2022 – 2 pm -VIRTUAL – International Workers’ Day (Labor Day, May 1)
Registration Required – use this link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMtf–qrT0pGtX7GFWtGu2R5kGRSju8bauy

International Workers’ Day, also known as Labor Day in most countries and often referred to as May Day, is a celebration of laborers and the working classes that is promoted by the international labor movement and occurs every year on May Day (1 May). Though it’s celebrated internationally, Labor Day originated in the United States and has its roots in the rise of trade unions in 19th century Chicago, their hard-fought battle for workers’ rights, and the fight for the eight-hour workday. International Workers’ Day was officially recognized in 1889 at the first International Socialist Congress in Paris to commemorate the Haymarket Affair—a bloody confrontation between striking union workers and Chicago police in 1886.

Moonstone Poetry @ PhillyCAM: Katie Ford
2022-05-03 18:30 - 20:30 | 699 Ranstead Street, 699 Ranstead Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19106, United States
Moonstone Poetry @ PhillyCAM: Katie Ford
Tuesday May 3, 2022, 6:30pm – VIRTUAL
699 Ranstead Street
Comcast Cable 66/966HD/967 or Verizon FIOS, 29/30 in Philadelphia.
2022 Philly Loves Poetry Interview and Readings Series

Katie Ford is the author of four books of poems: Deposition; Colosseum; Blood Lyrics; and If You Have to Go. Blood Lyrics was a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize and the Rilke Prize. Colosseum was named among the “Best Books of 2008” by Publishers Weekly and the Virginia Quarterly Review and led to a Lannan Literary Fellowship and the Larry Levis Prize. International invitations to read and lecture include festivals in Tunis, Morocco, Oslo, and Stockholm. She has taught poetry and creative writing for nineteen years around the country–at Loyola University New Orleans, Reed College, Franklin & Marshall College, the Iowa Summer Writing Festival, the Community of Writers, and at numerous festivals and residencies. She teaches at the University of California, Riverside. New work, “Estrangement,” will be featured in the May/June issue of Philadelphia’s American Poetry Review. Katie lived in Philadelphia from 2007-2014 and holds it dear as the city in which her daughter was born.

Charles S. Carr, Host

Live Poetry Reading: Jacob L. Camacho, Gina Myers, Ryan Eckes
2022-05-04 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Live Poetry Reading: Jacob L. Camacho, Gina Myers, Ryan Eckes
Wednesday May 4, 2022 – 7pm
Live at Fergie’s Pub
1214 Sansom Street and on zoom – Registration Required – Registration Link https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcrf-uorzosHdZJNPRXR3kPUT25I8ohQknW

Jacob L. Camacho is a CHamoru writer, educator, and activist born and raised in Guahan (Guam), of Islas Marianas. He received his Creative Writing MFA from Rutgers University, Camden. He is an alumni of The University of Guam and UCLA’s Extension Writers Program. Currently, he is a Visiting Assistant Professor at Stockton University, a writer for Philadelphia’s TrailOff and co-founder of the Move Mountains Project 501(c)(3) in San Luis, Colorado. His stories and poems have been featured in University of Guam’s Storyboard, University of Hawai’i’s Indigenous Literatures from Micronesia and Philadelphia’s MadHouse Magazine.

Gina Myers‘ latest book, Some of the Times, was published by Barrelhouse in October 2020. She is the author of two other full-length poetry collections, A Model Year (2009) and Hold It Down (2013), as well as several chapbooks. In addition to poetry, she has published essays, reviews, and articles for a variety of publications, including Hyperallergic, Frontier Psychiatrist, Fanzine, The Rumpus, and The Poetry Project Newsletter. Originally from Saginaw, MI, she lives in Philadelphia, PA, where she co-edits the tiny with Emma Brown Sanders.

Ryan Eckes is a poet from Philadelphia. His most recent books, General Motors, Fine Nothing and Wet Money, are out of print but can be downloaded for free from Internet Archive. His work can also be read in Protean Magazine, Prolit, Wax Nine Journal and elsewhere. He edits Radiator Press.

Open Reading Follows

Remembering Thomas Kinsella
2022-05-08 14:00 - 16:00 | PA
Remembering Thomas Kinsella
Sunday May 8, 2022 – 2pm
Registration Required – use this link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZApf-GpqTwpE9QBzsJ92os8X53FdKo3E0zv

Thomas Kinsella (4 May 1928 – 22 December 2021) was an Irish poet, translator, editor, and publisher.
He began publishing poetry in the early 1950s and, around the same time, translated early Irish poetry into English. In the 1960s, he moved to the United States to teach English at universities including Temple University, where he started Temple’s Irish studies program.
His sensitive lyrics deal with primal aspects of the human experience, often in a specifically Irish context. He began serving in the Irish civil service in 1946, and in the early 1950s he met Liam Miller, the founder of the Doleman Press, which published much of Kinsella’s poetry beginning in 1952. In 1965 he left the Irish civil service and took a position as a writer in residence at Southern Illinois University in 1965 and at Temple University in Philadelphia in 1970.
Kinsella founded his own publishing company, the Peppercanister Press, in Dublin in 1972, which allowed him to publish pamphlets and individual poems in limited editions without relying on submissions to journals or magazines. Kinsella’s first poem to be published through his press was Butcher’s Dozen about Bloody Sunday, in which 13 demonstrators were killed by British troops in Londonderry (Derry), Northern Ireland, and the ensuing tribunal. Numerous collections of Kinsella’s poems were released, including Collected Poems, 1956–2000), Selected Poems, Fat Master, and Late Poems; the latter was published by Carcanet Press, which released several of his works in the early 21st century.

Live Poetry Reading: Terence Culleton, Emiliano Martin, Anne-Adele Wight
2022-05-11 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Live Poetry Reading: Terence Culleton, Emiliano Martin, Anne-Adele Wight
Wednesday May 11, 2022 – 7pm
Live at Fergie’s Pub
1214 Sansom Street and on zoom – Registration Required – Registration Link
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUvdO6tqD4qGNGb2JxU8ATv4mRIoTmU3fFu

Terence Culleton has published several collections of formally crafted narrative and lyric poems, including A Communion of Saints and Eternal Life. His most recent book, A Tree and Gone is a collection of formal English sonnets, many of which have appeared in journals and anthologies and/or been short-listed in sonnet contests. A Tree and Gone was recently included in the New York Review of Books Small Press Releases. A two-time Pushcart nominee, Mr. Culleton has had work featured on NPR, and he reads widely throughout the Philadelphia and New York areas. Several of his poems have been set to music by Vermont composer Don Jamison, as well as jazz clarinetist Darryl Harper and his ensemble Onus.

Emiliano Martin, Spanish born and long time resident of Bucks County, PA., is the founder and former director of Philadelphia Poetry Forum and past president of the Latin American Guild for the Arts. Currently and since 2018, he is president of Pennsylvania Poetry Society. He has authored over a dozen titles of poetry (and prose), besides having been published in Mad Poets Review, Philadelphia Poets, The Lite Fuuse, S.V. Journal, US 1, The Swarthmorean, and other Spanish language publications in Spain, such as Mizares and Marejadas. Author of “Footprints of Spain in Philadelphia” (2020), his latest book of poems is “Caught Between Layers.”

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 Luna Luna, Apiary, Bedfellows, Oz Burp, Have Your Chill, and Read On 2. She lives and writes in Philadelphia.

Open Reading Follows

Jazz and Finnegans Wake: Jam Session
2022-05-15 17:00 - 19:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Jazz and Finnegans Wake: Jam Session
Sunday May 15, 2022 – 5 pm
Live at Fergie’s Pub & Online
1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia and on zoom – Registration Required – Registration Link https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZYqceusqj8jHNTEJbA47-4Q57xV7jsy66bq

Come witness the Jazz Experiment of the Ages!
Horns and Drums and Arms and Lungs will be Jamming the Lyrical, Witty, Rollicking novel by James Joyce into an Open Jazz Rendition in the style of Cecil Taylor.
Featuring: Neal Kosaly-Meyer (Composer-Performer); Lilia Federico (Vocalist); Fiona Bolger (Poet via Satellite); Justin Deutsch (Bass); Elijah B. Pringle, III (Poet); and John Lavin (Percussion) and Special Guests.
“O tell me all about Anna Livia! I want to hear all about Anna Livia. Well, you know Anna Livia? Yes, of course, we all know Anna Livia. Tell me all . . .” – James Joyce
This performance will also be staged at the International James Joyce Festival in Dublin in June 2022
Come Join the Chorus!

Live Poetry Event: Tonita Austin, Sibelan Forrester, Alison Lubar
2022-05-18 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Live Poetry Event: Tonita Austin, Sibelan Forrester, Alison Lubar
Wednesday May 18, 2022 – 7pm
Live at Fergie’s Pub
1214 Sansom Street and on zoom – Registration Required – Registration Link https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcudOCrpjovE9JWt5KotUx73STwYpTOT0og

Tonita Austin also known as “Toni Love” is a gifted poet, singer, activist, and writer born in West Philadelphia. While attending Columbia University, Tonita was a student of Amiri Baraka and performed in Ntozake Shange’s “For Colored Girls” as the Lady in Orange. Her writing is influenced by both experiences. She is a contributor to the anthology The Black Body and featured poet in the 2018 and 2020 Winter/Fall edition of the Philadelphia Arts and Urban Literary magazine. The Restoration EP is her first published recording; Toni’s Room is her first published book. Toni currently resides in Media, PA with her two children James and Janai.

Sibelan Forrester is a poet and translator who grew up in Colorado but now lives in the Philadelphia suburbs. She has published translations of fiction, poetry and scholarly prose from Croatian, Russian and Serbian, and of poetry from Ukrainian, and her book of poetry SECOND HAND FATE was published in 2016 by Parnilis Media. She is the host of the Mad Poets Society’s First Wednesday reading series. In her day job she teaches at Swarthmore College.

Alison Lubar teaches high school English by day and yoga by night. They are a queer, nonbinary femme of color whose life work (aside from wordsmithing) has evolved into bringing mindfulness practices, and sometimes even poetry, to young people. Their debut chapbook, Philosophers Know Nothing About Love, is forthcoming with Thirty
West Publishing in May 2022. Most recently, their work has been published by or is forthcoming with Moonstone Press, New York Quarterly, and Sinister Wisdom.

Virtual Poetry Reading: New Voices Spring 2022
2022-05-21 14:00 - 16:00 | PA
Virtual Poetry Reading: New Voices Spring 2022
Saturday May 21, 2022– 2pm EST
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0pcuitqTooGdwfpzt7nCg8xrIqo7F7spOJ

New Voices: Philadelphia’s Emerging Poets is a program designed for emerging poets under the age of 25. It aims to create a platform for younger poets by welcoming them into the larger Philadelphia poetry community and giving them the opportunity to share their work with a wider audience.
Us humans tend to narrow our audience and present to others in our schools or poetry groups. Moonstone’s objective is to expand your audience, introduce you to others who share your interest in poetry but live in different communities and go to different schools. Each month we present three poets from different communities followed by an open reading. We are still virtual on zoom. In addition to monthly readings we publish a New Voices anthology twice a year, once in spring and once in fall, and have a reading from the anthology. This is an on-going project so please send us your poems.

Virtual Poetry Event: Omowole Jesse N. Alexander, Bro. Yao (Hoke S. Glover III), Shakeema Smalls
2022-05-22 14:00 - 16:00 | PA
Virtual Poetry Event: Omowole Jesse N. Alexander, Shakeema Smalls
Sunday May 22, 2022 – 2pm
Registration Required – use this link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0tf-2trT4vGN0OaXwq5nWShZLwqTdgLBnJ
Omowole Jesse N. Alexander is a son of Jesse, patriarch of the Alexander clan, leader, organizer, Raceman, and Maude Anna, Griot, visionary artist, poet, muse, teacher, Ancestor. He lives on Piscataway land in Maryland. “We are a stolen but thriving people, living on stolen land.” His poetry has won second place in the First Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) Zero Hunger in the First World Food Day 2018 Contest, and placed as a finalist in the 1999 Paterson Literary Review’s Allen Ginsberg Poetry Contest. He has been featured at Grace Cavalieri’s The Poet and the Poem 2020-21 Series, Words out Loud Virtual Reading, Evil Grin, the Davies Memorial Unitarian Universalist Church’s Annual Poetry Service, The Knitting Factory, Groove Drops, and the Sumei Multidisciplinary Center. His work has appeared in Remembering Amiri Baraka, Free Black Space: Content and Code for those Living in the Black, Obsidian III: Literature in the African Diaspora, Sojourners Magazine, The Drumming Between Us: Black Love & Erotic Poetry, and Drumvoices Revue: A Confluence of Literary, Cultural & Vision Arts.

Bro. Yao (Hoke S. Glover III) is a poet and non-fiction writer, author of One Shoe Marching Towards Heaven, published in Crab Orchard Review, African-American Review, Ploughshares, Beltway Quarterly, and other journals. He teaches at Bowie State University.

Shakeema Smalls is from Georgetown, South Carolina. Her work has been published in a variety of outlets including Blackberry: A Magazine, Tidal Basin Review, The Fem, Radius Lit, Free Black Space, The Pittsburgh Poetry Review, Vinyl Poetry and Prose, and Rigorous, among others.

Live Poetry Reading: Grady Chambers, Lynne Shapiro
2022-05-25 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Live Poetry Reading: Grady Chambers, Lynne Shapiro
Wednesday May 25, 2022 – 7pm
Live at Fergie’s Pub
1214 Sansom Street and on zoom – Registration Required – Registration Link https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIqdeuopjMiGdy_NWWqt0nufO2NwbPVx
Grady Chambers is the author of North American Stadiums (Milkweed Editions, 2018). His poems have recently appeared in The Paris Review, American Poetry Review, Ploughshares, The Sun, and elsewhere. He lives in Philadelphia, and his writing can be found online at gradychambers.com

Lynne Shapiro is a poet and essayist living in Hoboken, New Jersey. Originally from Ozone Park, Queens, Lynne grew up in Culver City, California. She studied Comparative Literature at San Diego State and earned an MA from Brandeis University. She has been on the faculty of Parsons School of Design/The New School and Hudson County Community College in New Jersey and worked for over a decade at The Whitney Museum of American Art. She is the author of two poetry collections, To Set Right (WordTech Editions) and Gala (Solitude Hill Press). https://www.lynneshapiropoet.com

Alina Macneal & Jennifer Hook Hosts,
Open Reading Follows

Live Author Reading: Shannon Frost Greenstein and Michael McCarthy with Sean Lynch
2022-06-01 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Live Author Reading: Shannon Frost Greenstein and Michael McCarthy with Sean Lynch
Registration Required for zoom – use this link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81186651710?pwd=[REDACTED]
Shannon Frost Greenstein is the author of These Are a Few of My Least Favorite Things and An Oral History of One Day in Guyana. Her work has appeared in McSweeney’sInternet Tendency, Pithead Chapel, Bending Genres, andelsewhere. She lives in Philadelphia, and her writing can be found online at https://shannonfrostgreenstein.com/

Michael McCarthy’s work has appeared in Cleaver, The Adroit Journal, and Prairie Schooner, among others. He works as the Book Reviews Editor for Catalyst, an online magazine focusing on social justice and international travel. Sean Lynch, Host – Open Reading

Virtual Poetry Reading: Iain Haley Pollock with Charles S. Carr
2022-06-07 18:30 - 20:30 | 699 Ranstead Street, 699 Ranstead Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19106, United States
Moonstone Poetry @ PhillyCAM
2022 Philly Loves Poetry Interview and Readings Series
699 Ranstead Street,Comcast Cable 66/966HD/967 or Verizon FIOS, 29/30 in Phila.
Iain Haley Pollock is the author of Ghost, Like a Place and Spit Back a Boy, winner of the 2010 Cave Canem Poetry Prize. Individual poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, The Baffler, and The New York Times Magazine. Pollock is the incoming director of the Creative Writing MFA Program at Manhattanville College in Purchase, NY. He also serves on the editorial advisory board of Slapering Hol Press. Charles S. Carr, Host

Live Poetry Reading: Mark Danowsky, Jonathan Koven, Louisa Schnaithmann
2022-06-08 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Live Poetry Reading: Mark Danowsky, Jonathan Koven, Louisa Schnaithmann
Wednesday June 8, 2022 – 7pm
Live at Fergie’s Pub
1214 Sansom Street and on zoom – Registration Required – Registration Link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcrceihqz0jH9YoLTUs0yvwj-U4FPFu1a0w

Mark Danowsky is Editor-in-Chief of ONE ART: a journal of poetry. Mark is Poetry Craft Essays Editor for Cleaver Magazine. His photography occasionally appears in Versification. He is the author of As Falls Trees (NightBallet Press) and JAWN (Moonstone Press).

Jonathan Koven grew up on Long Island, NY, embraced by tree-speak, tide’s rush, and the love and support of his family. He works as a technical writer, and freelance editor (and formerly head fiction editor of Toho Journal). He lives in Philadelphia with his wife Delana, and cats Peanut Butter and Keebler. Jonathan is author of Palm Lines and Below Torrential Hill.

Louisa Schnaithmann is the author of Plague Love (Moonstone Press, 2021). Her poems have received Pushcart and Best of the Net nominations, and her most recent work has appeared in Grey Sparrow Journal and The Broadkill Review. She is the consulting editor for ONE ART: a journal of poetry and lives in southeastern Pennsylvania.

Live Poetry Reading: A Chapbook in 49 Days
2022-06-19 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Moonstone Arts Center’s Live Poetry Reading
Sunday June 19, 2022 – 7pm
Live at Fergie’s Pub
1214 Sansom Street and on Zoom – Registration Required – Registration Link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0kdu2rrjkrE9PKXtJuraSgJDR63v-5q4eB22-Jun

A Chapbook in 49 Days with Host Sean Hanrahan
This course was designed to aid poets in developing a chapbook manuscript that realized its full artistic potential. Over seven weeks, we discussed the history of the chapbook, poem selection, poem order, marketing, performance, and the revision process. Poets received individualized feedback from the teacher and fellow students. A Reading by graduates.

Mikey Franz is a writer, composer, & surrealist something from the Philadelphia area. He records weird pop music under the moniker Frxnch — most recently releasing his sixth full-length record, What It Is & What It Seemed to Be (2021). You can catch him performing at various open mics throughout the Philadelphia area or find his music on most streaming platforms. For more information, you can follow him on Instagram @mikeyfranz.

Lindsay Hargrave is a poet, one quarter of the improvised music group Oarsman, the author of a poetry column in the Philly Plain Dealer and a copywriter for Temple University. Read more at https://linktr.ee/Hargrave or follow @notporkroll on Twitter.

Matthew Mitchell is a writer and mathematics teacher who lives near the banks of the American River in Sacramento. His poems have appeared through The Write Launch, Cathexis Northwest Press, Kestrel, and Other Rooms Press. Toho Press Online published his flash nonfiction story “The Question,” and several of his short radio essays have appeared on KQED Public Radio. He also keeps a whimsically updated blog that considers the intersecting dimensions of how to create more widely shared urban prosperity at www.prospericity.net.

Angela Muir is a writer and yogi who wrote most of this book under rainy Seattle skies, with a cup of coffee in her hand. She holds a BA from the University of Michigan and an MFA from Naropa University’s Jack Kerouac School. She currently resides in Boston, where she is a Teaching Fellow and graduate student at Boston College. memory of water is her debut chapbook.

Live Poetry Reading: Nathalie Anderson & Herman Beavers
2022-06-22 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Live Poetry Reading: Nathalie Anderson & Herman Beavers
Wednesday June 22, 2022 – 7pm
Live at Fergie’s Pub
1214 Sansom Street and on Zoom – Registration Required – Registration Link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcvdeuvpjIuG9I1jgckykQGy4BbPanE4irb

Nathalie Anderson’s books of poetry include Following Fred Astaire, Crawlers, Quiver, Stain, and the chapbook Held and Firmly Bound. She collaborated in 2021 with artist Susan Hagen and poet Lisa Sewell on Birds of North America, and her new book, Rough, is forthcoming in 2024 from The Word Works. Anderson’s poems have appeared in such journals as Atlanta Review, DoubleTake, Natural Bridge, The New Yorker, Nimrod, and Plume. She manages the list-serv Lit-Philly that informs about 500 members about literary events in the Philadelphia area. A 1993 Pew Fellow, she has recently retired from Swarthmore College, where she taught for 39 years, and served as Director of the Program in Creative Writing.

Herman Beavers Distinguished Professor of English and Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania , where he’s taught since 1989. Professor Beavers teaches a section of the intermediate poetry workshop in the Creative Writing Program, “August Wilson and Beyond,” which brings Penn students together with West Philadelphia residents together to read August Wilson’s 20th Century Cycle. Professor Beavers latest books are Geography and the Political Imaginary in the Novels of Toni Morrison, and The Vernell Poems. His poems are anthologized in Obsession: Sestinas for the Twenty-First Century, Remembering Gwen, Who Will Speak for America, and Show Us Your Papers. He serves on the Advisory Boards of The Furious Flower Poetry Center, Modern Fiction Studies, The Black Scholar, The Langston Hughes Review, and African American Review.
With hosts Alina Macneal & Jennifer Hook. Open Reading Follows.

Virtual Reading: Remembering Paul Laurence Dunbar
2022-06-26 14:00 - 16:00 | PA
Virtual Reading: Remembering Paul Laurence Dunbar
Sunday June 26, 2022 – 2 pm
Virtual
Registration Required – Registration Link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZwof-2vqzsqG9ds6zRdZ9c866kl-iVbrBix
Join us for Paul Laurence Dunbar’s two hundredth birthday (born June 27, 1872)
“Paul Laurence Dunbar stands out as the first poet from the Negro race in the United States to show a combined mastery over poetic material and poetic technique, to reveal innate literary distinction in what he wrote, and to maintain a high level of performance. He was the first to rise to a height from which he could take a perspective view of his own race. He was the first to see objectively its humor, its superstitions, its short-comings; the first to feel sympathetically its heart-wounds, its yearnings, its aspirations, and to voice them all in a purely literary form.”—James Weldon Johnson
Readings by contributors to the Moonstone anthology

Live Poetry Event: E-Verse Equinox Reading Series
2022-06-29 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Moonstone Arts Center in collaboration with E-Verse Equinox Reading Series
Live at Fergie’s Pub
Wednesday June 29, 2022 – 7pm EST
1214 Sansom Street and on zoom – Registration Required – Registration Link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZAtc-ippjIjG9wawPtiJPNKdw22fqzjEDIs
James Shea is the author of two poetry collections, The Lost Novel and Star in the Eye, both from Fence Books. Recipient of grants from the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program, Hong Kong Arts Development Council, and National Endowment for the Arts, he is the director of the Creative and Professional Writing Program at Hong Kong Baptist University.

Dorothy Tse is a Hong Kong fiction writer whose books include Owlish and So Black. Tse has received the Hong Kong Book Prize, Unitas New Fiction Writers’ Award (Taiwan), and the Hong Kong Award for Creative Writing in Chinese. She has been a resident at Art Omi, the University of Iowa’s International Writing Program, and the Vermont Studio Center.

Ryan Wilson’s books include The Stranger World (2017), winner of the Donald Justice Poetry Prize, How to Think Like a Poet (Wiseblood, 2019), and Proteus Bound: Selected Translations, 2008-20 (Franciscan UP, 2021). His work appears widely in periodicals such as Best American Poetry, Five Points, The Hopkins Review, The New Criterion, The Sewanee Review, and The Yale Review. Editor-in-Chief of Literary Matters (literarymatters.org), he teaches at The Catholic University of America and in the M.F.A. program at The University of St. Thomas-Houston.

The Struggle for Freedom: Virtual Moonstone Anthology Poetry Reading
2022-07-03 14:00 - 16:00 | PA
The Struggle for Freedom: Virtual Moonstone Anthology Poetry Reading

Registration Required – Registration Link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIsduCsrjwiEtMrMCgeWMUJulqmM7ujVoJv

Struggle for Liberty – Everyone Struggles for Freedom
Independence Day in the US (July 4th) – Bastille Day in France (July 14th)
The continuing struggle for liberty is prevalent all over the world, but there are contradictions and complexities in words like “freedom” and “liberty.” Freedom for who? Liberty to do what? Can these words even truly be defined? Readings by contributors to the Moonstone anthology

Virtual Poetry Reading: Ken Holland and Mike Jurkovic
2022-07-05 19:00 - 21:00 | PA
Virtual Poetry Reading: Ken Holland and Mike Jurkovic

Registration Required – use this link: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUsdeyrrzkvE9a5XaxS_M-lkBnESlr3EBOI

Ken Holland has been nominated three times for the Pushcart Prize and has had work published in such journals as Rattle, Tulane Review, Southwest Review, North Dakota Quarterly, The American Journal of Poetry and Tar River among others. He’s won/placed in a number of contests, including those sponsored by Naugatuck River Review and the Stephen DiBiase competition. One of his poems, adapted for stage, was selected for performance in NYC in July. He lives and breathes in the mid-Hudson Valley of New York. And has recently launched his website: www.kenhollandpoet.com

Mike Jurkovic is published widely: full length collections include mooncussers, AmericanMental, and Blue Fan Whirring; anthologies include Calling All Poets 20th Anniversary Anthology, Reflecting Pool: Poets & the Creative Process, Like Light: 25 Years of Poetry & Prose, and others. Now in its 23rd year, Mike serves as President of Calling All Poets. A 2016 Pushcart nominee, online CD reviews at All About Jazz and Lightwood. Chairman, Music Fan Film Series, Rosendale Theater. Host, New Jazz Excursions, WIOX 91.3FM, Roxbury, NY. Streaming at wioxradio.org. Regional features Van Wyck Gazette, 2013-2020. The Rock n Roll Curmudgeon appeared in Rhythm and News Magazine, 1996-2003. He loves Emily most of all.

Virtual Author Reading at PhillyCAM: J.C. Todd
2022-07-12 18:30 - 20:30 | 699 Ranstead Street, 699 Ranstead Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19106, United States
Virtual Author Reading at PhillyCAM: J.C. Todd

2022 Philly Loves Poetry Interview and Reading Series
699 Ranstead Street,Comcast Cable 66/966HD/967 or Verizon FIOS, 29/30 in Philadelphia.

J.C. Todd’s most recent book of poetry are Beyond Repair, a special selection for the 202 Able Muse Book award, and The Damages of Morning, a 2019 Eric Hoffer Award finalist. A winner of a Poetry Society of the UK award and the Rita Dove Prize in Poetry, she has received fellowships from the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and residency programs including the Bemis Center. Her poems and interviews have appeared in the American Poetry Review, Mezzo Cammin, The Night Heron Barks, Paris Review, and Virginia Quarterly Review. She lives in Philadelphia. Charles S. Carr, Host

Live Poetry Reading: Savannah Cooper-Ramsey, Summer J. Hart, and Osimiri Sprowal
2022-07-13 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Live Poetry Reading: Savannah Cooper-Ramsey, Summer J. Hart, and Osimiri Sprowal

Registration Required for zoom – use this link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIkdOioqj0uHNJ8-6wjUL4y4IxNsU2xMOZ-
Savannah Cooper-Ramsey holds a BA in History from Bard College, an MA in Comparative Literature from Dartmouth College and a PhD in Italian from Columbia University. She is the author of the artist’s book Not Fit for Print, winner of BOMB Magazine’s 2018 Biennial Poetry Prize and finalist for the 2018 Sandy Crimmins National Poetry Award, her poems can be found in publications like BOMB, Dream Pop Journal, Bedfellows, and Whirlwind Magazine. Savannah works for the Nick Virgilio Haiku Association in Camden, NJ, and teaches Creative Writing at UArts and with the Arts Alliance of Philadelphia’s Writers’ Workshop.
Summer J. Hart is an interdisciplinary artist from Maine, living in the Hudson Valley, New York. Her written and visual artworks are influenced by folklore, superstition, divination, and forgotten territories reclaimed by nature. She is the author of Boomhouse and Augury of Ash. Her poetry can be found in Waxwing, The Massachusetts Review, Northern New England Review, Denver Quarterly, and elsewhere. Summer is a member of the Listuguj Mi’gmaq First Nation.

Osimiri Sprowal (they/them) is an Afro-Indigenous, Trans, Queercrip poet, homeless rights activist, and sibling. Their poetry has been featured at Bowery Poetry, The University of Wisconsin-Madison, Gettysburg University, The University of Arizona-Tuscon, among other locations. They were the 2015 Philly Youth Grand Slam Champion, 2018 College Union Poetry Slam Invitational (CUPSI) Semi-Finalist, where they received the Best Love Poem Award. They were a 2018 Till Arts Emerging Artist Fellow, 2019 Feminine Empowerment Slam Champion, and a 2020 CoLab Arts Fellow. They were a winner of the 2019 Shockwire Micro Chapbook Contest for their book Gemini: Duality of Self, a chapbook chronicling their experiences as a genderfluid person. They were the founder and President of deadname.arts, Philly’s only gender-expansive collective in its time. Most recently, they recieved the Marshall Scholarship, and are preparing to relocate to the U.K to write Black Queer plays.

Virtual Poetry Reading: High-Octane Poetix from the Legendary Toad Suck Review
2022-07-17 20:00 - 22:00 | PA
Virtual Poetry Reading: High-Octane Poetix from the Legendary Toad Suck Review: Best of The Sucks

Registration Required – use this link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZwkf-qtrTsrG9SWC8UP_dlV9CJFR2nNVIYW

Best of the Sucks:
High-Octane Poetix from the Legendary Toad Suck Review
Edited by Mark Spitzer ($21.95, MadHat Press)
For fans of the legendary Toad Suck Review, and for anyone who missed that boat but would have an appreciation for innovative literature that’s quirky, edgy, and International Avant-Garde, this revival publication is your ticket to get on board. This publication will reestablish Toad Suck Editions as MadHat takes it into the future, so consider this your time to catch up with the class! Digging back to its Exquisite Corpse roots, the transitional period to the inception of Toad Suck, and pummeling chronologically through the issues.
Presenters include: Marc Vincenz, publisher, reading from CD Wright, Mark Spitzer, editor, reading from preface, Scotty Lewis, assistant editor, reading from Rimbaud, Brenda Mann Hammack, “Gargoyles & Phantoms”, Tyrone Jaeger, “From The Runaway Note”, Elva Maxine Beach, “Raised by Mobsters & Born Agains”, Robert Archambeau, “The Sproks”, Lea Graham, “From The Hotel Vernon”, Ken Waldman, “Where the Ink Is Self and the Sex Burns”

Moonstone Poetry Reading & New Book Publications: Steven Dale Davison, Beth Brown Preston, John Gallagher, and Amber Renee
2022-07-20 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Moonstone Poetry Reading & New Book Publications: Steven Dale Davison, Beth Brown Preston, John Gallagher, and Amber Renee

Registration Required for zoom – use this link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIlfuiqrjwsH91tx7Gj9d9t222hmUeUvUvx

New Books from the Moonstone Press
Steven Dale Davison, author of O My Heart (Moonstone Press), Dancing Mockingbird, and The Road to Continental Heart. worked for twenty years as a journalist and professional writer and has written both short and long fiction and has published non-fiction essays.

Beth Brown Preston, author of Oxygen II (Moonstone Press), is a poet and novelist with two collections of poetry from the Broadside Lotus Press and a poetry chapbook. She has been published in numerous journals including African American Review, The Black Scholar, Callaloo, Obsidian and other literary and scholarly journals.

John Gallagher, author of Undaunted Light (Moonstone Press). is the son of working class immigrants from Donegal, Ireland, and grew up on the other side of the tracks in Bryn Mawr, PA. These two settings are the backdrops that formed him and provide the core of this collection.

Amber Renee, author of In memory, energy (Moonstone Press), is a chronic writer, author of Thoughts on This Most Recent Episode and i feel like i’m nothing. During the pandemic Amber created what she calls “Poetry Songs” and was an editor for Serotonin Poetry.

Virtual Moonstone Poetry Reading and New Book Publications: R. Bremner, Rosemary Capello, Albert Tacconelli, Daniel Williams, and James Redfern
2022-07-24 14:00 - 16:00 | PA
Virtual Moonstone Poetry Reading and New Publications: R. Bremner, Rosemary Capello, Albert Tacconelli, Daniel Williams, and James Redfern

Registration Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUtdO2grjgpHNduJWSeJ9za5ZyJqHblU-w6

New Books from the Moonstone Press
R. Bremner, author of Erasing Influences (Moonstone Press) and seven other books, has been writing of incense, peppermints, and the color of time since the 1960s. His work has appeared in International Poetry Review, Paterson Literary Review, Red Wheelbarrow, Sigmund Freud in Poetry, and many more journals.

Rosemary Cappello, author of Suitcase Poems (Moonstone Press) is passionate about many things, poetry heads the list, and she spent a large portion of my life reading poetry, writing it, and presenting it to the public. She is passionate about editing and puts a great deal of thought into the publication of “Philadelphia Poets”.

Albert Tacconelli, author of Such Things (Moonstone Press), is a Poet and artist whose poems and art have appeared in Paterson Literary Review, Philadelphia Poets, VIA, Mad Poets Review, and Endicott Review. Tacconelli read at Hofstra University, Calandra Institute, Free Library of Philadelphia, and the American Italian Historical Association Annual Conference.

Daniel Williams, author of Lost Language of Mars (Moonstone Press) is primarily a poet of the Sierra Nevada range in central California, his work encompasses a wide variety of material. He has also been a community college instructor, a park ranger, and a stand-in and actor in Back to the Future III.

James Redfern, author of Baker (Moonstone Press) is a teacher, editor, printmaker, artist, writer, and poet: Redfern has built up a long rap sheet of artistic creation. Recently, his poetry has appeared in High Shelf, Beatific Magazine, The Raw Art Review, Transcend, We Are Antifa (Into the Void), 2020: Good Writing/Bad Year (Dutch Kills Press), and elsewhere

Live Poetry Reading: Aaren Perry and Lamont B. Steptoe
2022-07-27 19:00 - 21:00 | PA
Live Poetry with Aaren Perry & Lamont B. Steptoe
Wednesday July 27, 2022 – 7pm
Live at Fergie’s Pub
1214 Sansom Street and on Zoom –
Registration Required for Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcsduurqzwiHtCYbzMsMPYIsGE7cAX8Oinl

Aaren Perry’s new book is Shipping and Receiving, published by Moonstone. Bilingual with an MFA from Vermont College, he recently edited a forthcoming collection of new poems by Lamont B. Steptoe. He co-edited with Dr. James Villarreal, Under Lock and Key: 100 Poems From Death Row, by Anthony Reid, an ebook out now on Amazon. Perry runs Yeatts Perry Consulting, grants and donor management for health equity and social change nonprofits.

Lamont B. Steptoe was born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Steptoe is a father, grandfather, and Vietnam veteran. A graduate of Temple University majoring in Radio, Television and Film, Steptoe is the author of sixteen collections of poetry among which include, Crimson River, Mad Minute, Uncle’s South China Sea Blue Nightmare, A Long Movie of Shadows, Crowns and Halos, and Meditations in Congo Square. Steptoe’s work appears in over one hundred anthologies among which are the Oxford University Press Anthology of African American Literature. Steptoe is the winner of an American Book Award, Pew Fellow in the Arts, and two Pennsylvania Council on Arts Awards. His forthcoming collection is Woke! Soon to be published by Whirlwind Press.

Alina Macneal & Jennifer Hook Hosts,
Open Reading Follows
