Virtual Poetry Reading: 25th Anniversary of Poetry Ink, Day 1
2021-07-19 19:00 (America/New_York) | Moonstone
Virtual Poetry Reading: 25th Anniversary of Poetry Ink, Day 1
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84308329737?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 843 0832 9737 – Passcode: [REDACTED]

Moonstone began in 1981 when Larry Robin began to present writers at Robin’s Book Store, thousands of writers, poets, fiction, and non-fiction writers have read over the last 40 years. Poetry Ink started in 1996 as a benefit for the bookstore and has continued as our largest program, about 100 poets reading for six hours with an anthology that included those poets reading that year. This year is different, we have reached out to any poet who has ever read with us, and we are virtual. Our 25th annual Poetry Ink Anthology has 300 poets, some who are now famous and read here years ago and others who we just met. About half of the people who contribute to our anthologies are usually available to read, and I am never sure exactly who will show up. Six days of Poetry Ink, Monday we have from Abrams to Burke.
Not Everyone Will Be Reading.
Day 1 Potential Readers

Alandra Abrams
Fran Abrams
Liz Abrams-Morley
Michael Abreu
David Acosta
Carolyn Adams
Marjorie Agosin
Nathalie Anderson
Nathan Antoine
Meredith Avakian
Fran Baird
Kwame Bakari
Houston Baker
Floi Baker
John Balaban
Catherine Bancroft
JT Barbarese
Katherine Barham
Lisa Alexander Baron
Herschel Baron
Amy Barone
Peter Baroth
Tina Barr
Margaret Chew
Barringer
Samantha Barrow
Adriann Bautista
Siduri Beckman
Ken Been
Michele Belluomini
Norma Bernstock
Sylvia Beverly
Byron Beynon
Lili Bita
Pamela Blanding
Lynn Blue
Julia Blumenreich
Willeena Booker
Elizabeth Boquet
Matilda Bray
Joni Brenner
R. Bremner
Eugene Brown
Deborah brown
Megan Brown
Margaret Brown
Mary Brownell
Lisa Bruckman
Steve Burke

All 300 poets are listed here on our website.
Pre-order the anthology here!

Virtual Poetry Reading: 25th Anniversary of Poetry Ink, Day 2
2021-07-20 19:00 | Moonstone
Virtual Poetry Reading: 25th Anniversary of Poetry Ink, Day 2
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84308329737?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 843 0832 9737 – Passcode: [REDACTED]

Moonstone began in 1981 when Larry Robin began to present writers at Robin’s Book Store, thousands of writers, poets, fiction, and non-fiction writers have read over the last 40 years. Poetry Ink started in 1996 as a benefit for the bookstore and has continued as our largest program, about 100 poets reading for six hours with an anthology that included those poets reading that year. This year is different, we have reached out to any poet who has ever read with us, and we are virtual. Our 25th annual Poetry Ink Anthology has 300 poets, some who are now famous and read here years ago and others who we just met. About half of the people who contribute to our anthologies are usually available to read, and I am never sure exactly who will show up. Six days of Poetry Ink, Monday we have from Abrams to Burke.

Not Everyone Will Be Reading.
Day 2 Potential Readers

Dennis Brutus
Barbara Carlson
Charles Carr
Aileen Cassinetto
Erin Castaldi
Grace Cavalieri
Sandra Chaff
Joseph Chelius
China Rain Chung
Ty Clark
Eulinda Antonette
Clarke-Akalanne
CA Conrad
Jim Cory
Beverly Cottman
Lynda V. E. Crawford
Terence Culleton
Raheem Curry
Craig Czury
Eileen D’Angelo
Steven Davison
Toi Derricotte
Steven Deutsch
Gregory Djanikian
Pheralyn Dove
Tom Driscoll
Carlos Dufflar
Terry Dugan
Philip Dykhouse
Mare Earley
RuNett Ebp
Ryan Eckes
Oliver Egger
W.D. Ehrhart
Helene Eisman Fisher
Massimo Elijah
Alfred Encarnacion
Martin Espada
Cole Eubanks
R.G. Evans
Katherine Falk
Linda Fischer
Peggy Fisher
Francis Flavin
Philip Foster
Bryan Franco
Daisy Fried
Deborah Fries

All 300 poets are listed here on our website.
Pre-order the anthology here!

Virtual Poetry Reading: 25th Anniversary of Poetry Ink, Day 3
2021-07-21 19:00 | Moonstone
Virtual Poetry Reading: 25th Anniversary of Poetry Ink, Day 3
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84308329737?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 843 0832 9737 – Passcode: [REDACTED]

Moonstone began in 1981 when Larry Robin began to present writers at Robin’s Book Store, thousands of writers, poets, fiction, and non-fiction writers have read over the last 40 years. Poetry Ink started in 1996 as a benefit for the bookstore and has continued as our largest program, about 100 poets reading for six hours with an anthology that included those poets reading that year. This year is different, we have reached out to any poet who has ever read with us, and we are virtual. Our 25th annual Poetry Ink Anthology has 300 poets, some who are now famous and read here years ago and others who we just met. About half of the people who contribute to our anthologies are usually available to read, and I am never sure exactly who will show up. Six days of Poetry Ink, Monday we have from Abrams to Burke.

Not Everyone Will Be Reading.
Day 3 Potential Readers

Keith Gaboury
Nina Gadson
Maria Gillan
Eli Goldblatt
Leonard Gontarek
Amy Gordon
Beulah Gordon-Skinner
Linda Goss
Sandy Green
Ray Greenblatt
Ona Gritz
Luray Gross
Houston Baker
Floi Baker
John Balaban
Catherine Bancroft
JT Barbarese
Katherine Barham
Lisa Alexander Baron
Herschel Baron
Amy Barone
Peter Baroth
Tina Barr
Margaret Chew
Barringer
Samantha Barrow
Adriann Bautista
Siduri Beckman
Ken Been
Michele Belluomini
Norma Bernstock
Sylvia Beverly
Byron Beynon
Lili Bita
Pamela Blanding
Lynn Blue
Julia Blumenreich
Willeena Booker
Elizabeth Boquet
Matilda Bray
Joni brenner
R. Bremner
Eugene Brown
Deborah brown
Megan Brown
Margaret Brown
Mary Brownell
Lisa Bruckman
Steve Burke

All 300 poets are listed here on our website.
Pre-order the anthology here!

Virtual Poetry Reading: 25th Anniversary of Poetry Ink, Day 4
2021-07-22 19:00 | Moonstone
Virtual Poetry Reading: 25th Anniversary of Poetry Ink, Day 4
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84308329737?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 843 0832 9737 – Passcode: [REDACTED]

Moonstone began in 1981 when Larry Robin began to present writers at Robin’s Book Store, thousands of writers, poets, fiction, and non-fiction writers have read over the last 40 years. Poetry Ink started in 1996 as a benefit for the bookstore and has continued as our largest program, about 100 poets reading for six hours with an anthology that included those poets reading that year. This year is different, we have reached out to any poet who has ever read with us, and we are virtual. Our 25th annual Poetry Ink Anthology has 300 poets, some who are now famous and read here years ago and others who we just met. About half of the people who contribute to our anthologies are usually available to read, and I am never sure exactly who will show up. Six days of Poetry Ink, Monday we have from Abrams to Burke.

Not Everyone Will Be Reading.
Day 4 Potential Readers

Donald Krieger
Ed Krizek
Jim LaVilla-Havelin
Kyle Laws
Jeffrey Lee
Lynn Levin
Michael Levin
Elliott Levin
Antoinette Libro
Carey Link
Jewel Lloyd
Robin Longfield
Warren Longmire
Gregory Loselle
Dick Lourie
Gregory Loselle
Dick Lourie
Frederick Lowe
Alison Lubar
Lynette
Nick Lutwyche
Sean Lynch
Deidra Lyngard
Terri Lyons
Alina Macneal
Haki Madhubuti
Ann Malaspina
Norman Marshall
Angel Martinez
John Mason
Trapeta Mayson
Bernadette McBride
Octavia McBride-Ahebee
Cecelia McKinney
Austin McLain
Pat McLean
Diane McManus
Tony Medina
Barbara Meier
Drew Miller
Ethelbert Miller
Michael Miller
Helen Markil
Gail Mitchell
Abbe Mogell
Curtis Mohn
David Mook
Kathleen Moore
Michael Moss
Iryna Mozovaya

All 300 poets are listed here on our website.
Pre-order the anthology here!

Virtual Poetry Reading: 25th Anniversary of Poetry Ink, Day 5
2021-07-23 19:00 | Moonstone
Virtual Poetry Reading: 25th Anniversary of Poetry Ink, Day 5
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84308329737?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 843 0832 9737 – Passcode: [REDACTED]

Moonstone began in 1981 when Larry Robin began to present writers at Robin’s Book Store, thousands of writers, poets, fiction, and non-fiction writers have read over the last 40 years. Poetry Ink started in 1996 as a benefit for the bookstore and has continued as our largest program, about 100 poets reading for six hours with an anthology that included those poets reading that year. This year is different, we have reached out to any poet who has ever read with us, and we are virtual. Our 25th annual Poetry Ink Anthology has 300 poets, some who are now famous and read here years ago and others who we just met. About half of the people who contribute to our anthologies are usually available to read, and I am never sure exactly who will show up. Six days of Poetry Ink, Monday we have from Abrams to Burke.

Not Everyone Will Be Reading.
Day 5 Potential Readers

Peter E. Murphy
Charlotte Muse
WunKuen Ng
Thom Nickels
Leonard Niedermayer
Gloria Nixon-John
Stu O’Connor
Daniel O’Hara
Cynthia Oka
Ewuare Osayande
Alicia Ostriker
Marko Otten
Hermond Palmer
Our Sun Paul
Faith Paulsen
Joan Penn
Aaren Perry
John Polier
Steve Pollack
Kate Potter
Prabha Prabhu
Susana Praver-Perez
Halle Preneta
Elijah Pringle
Elijah Pryor
David Radavich
Margaret Randall
Patrick Reardon
Tennessee Reed
Don Riggs
Theresa Rodriguez
Ruth Rouff
Ursula Rucker
Destiny Samuel
Sonia Sanchez
Hayden Saunier
George Schaefer
Nina Schafer
Peter Schmidt
Jennifer Schneider
Esther Schnur-Berlot
Naila Schulte
Connie Wasem Scott
Fereshteh Sholevar
Alyson Shore Adler
Daniel Simpson
David R. Slavitt
Bob Small
Christopher Sohnly

All 300 poets are listed here on our website.
Pre-order the anthology here!

Virtual Poetry Reading: 25th Anniversary of Poetry Ink, Day 6
2021-07-24 19:00 | Moonstone
Virtual Poetry Reading: 25th Anniversary of Poetry Ink, Day 6
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84308329737?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 843 0832 9737 – Passcode: [REDACTED]

Moonstone began in 1981 when Larry Robin began to present writers at Robin’s Book Store, thousands of writers, poets, fiction, and non-fiction writers have read over the last 40 years. Poetry Ink started in 1996 as a benefit for the bookstore and has continued as our largest program, about 100 poets reading for six hours with an anthology that included those poets reading that year. This year is different, we have reached out to any poet who has ever read with us, and we are virtual. Our 25th annual Poetry Ink Anthology has 300 poets, some who are now famous and read here years ago and others who we just met. About half of the people who contribute to our anthologies are usually available to read, and I am never sure exactly who will show up. Six days of Poetry Ink, Monday we have from Abrams to Burke.

Not Everyone Will Be Reading.
Day 6 Potential Readers

Peter E. Murphy
Charlotte Muse
WunKuen Ng
Thom Nickels
Leonard Niedermayer
Gloria Nixon-John
Stu O’Connor
Daniel O’Hara
Cynthia Oka
Ewuare Osayande
Alicia Ostriker
Marko Otten
Hermond Palmer
Our Sun Paul
Faith Paulsen
Joan Penn
Aaren Perry
John Polier
Steve Pollack
Kate Potter
Prabha Prabhu
Susana Praver-Perez
Halle Preneta
Elijah Pringle
Elijah Pryor
David Radavich
Margaret Randall
Patrick Reardon
Tennessee Reed
Don Riggs
Theresa Rodriguez
Ruth Rouff
Ursula Rucker
Destiny Samuel
Sonia Sanchez
Hayden Saunier
George Schaefer
Nina Schafer
Peter Schmidt
Jennifer Schneider
Esther Schnur-Berlot
Naila Schulte
Connie Wasem Scott
Fereshteh Sholevar
Alyson Shore Adler
Daniel Simpson
David R. Slavitt
Bob Small
Christopher Sohnly

All 300 poets are listed here on our website.
Pre-order the anthology here!

Virtual Poetry Reading: A 21st Century Plague: Poetry from a Pandemic, edited by Elayne Clift
2021-07-25 14:00 - 17:00 | Moonstone
Virtual Poetry Reading: A 21st Century Plague: Poetry from a Pandemic, edited by Elayne Clift
with Michael Bosworth, Elayne Clift, Marion Deutsche Cohen, Barbara Crooker, Charlotte Friedman, Jim Kates, Burt Rashbaum, Irene Sherlock, Miriam Weinstein, and Daniel Williams.
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84532069956?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 845 3206 9956 – Passcode: [REDACTED]

It is more than a year since Covid-19 invaded our countries and our bodies, causing us to long for the touch of loved ones, to fight anxiety and despair, and to adjust to the stunning effects of prolonged isolation. We watched as the numbers of deaths mounted and agreed that it was the worst health crisis we’d experienced in a hundred years. What we longed for were stories about people lost to the insidious virus, and those left behind. We wanted stories of survival, coping, finding our way to the future. In making much of the mundane, 53 poets share 70 poems in the anthology A 21st Century Plague: Poetry from a Pandemic. The poems, by diverse and award-winning writers, capture and share the collective Covid. They reveal that we were brave in our contemplative journey. This anthology adds to the tradition of sharing stories in well-chosen words that move and enlighten us.

Michael Bosworth recently returned to writing poetry and creative nonfiction after a 45-year hiatus. He is on the board of the Brattleboro Commons newspaper in Vermont and an active member of WriteAction in Brattleboro.

Elayne Clift is an award-winning writer and journalist whose work appears in numerous publications and anthologies internationally. Her travel memoir Around the World in 50 Years: Travel Tales of a Not So Innocent Abroad was published in 2019. This is her 4th anthology.

Marion Deutsche Cohen is the author of 32 collections of poetry and memoir. Her prose and poetry collections include Not Erma Bombeck: Diary of a Feminist 70s Mother, and The Discontinuity at the Waistline: My #MeToo Poems. She teaches Mathematics in Literature at Drexel University.

Barbara Crooker is a poetry editor for Italian-Americana, author of twelve chapbooks and nine poetry books, including Some Glad Morning, published in 2019 by the University of Pittsburgh Poetry Press. Her awards include the WB Yeats Society of New York Award.

Charlotte Friedman teaches Narrative Medicine at Barnard College. Her poetry has been published in Connecticut River Review, Intima, and elsewhere. Her book The Girl Pages was published by Hyperion.

Jim Kates is a poet and literary translator. He lives in New Hampshire.

Burt Rashbaum has published in literary and poetry journals, including Contemporary Literary Horizon in Bucharest. His latest book is Of the Carousel (2019). His work has been anthologized and his books include A Century of Love, Becoming an American, and Tears for My Mother.

Irene Sherlock is a marriage and family therapist. His poems, essays, and short stories have been published in various literary magazines. Finishing Line Press published Equinox, a poetry chapbook.

Miriam Weinstein has published poetry in several anthologies including Reflections on Home: The Heart of All That Is and Broken Atoms in Our Hands. Her chapbook Twenty Ways of Looking was published in 2017.

Daniel Williams has been widely anthologized. He was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in poetry and several of his poems are in the time capsules at Yosemite.

Virtual Poetry Reading: Heather Lanier and Autumn McClintock with Hosts Alina MacNeal and Jennifer Hook
2021-07-28 19:00 | Moonstone Arts Center
Virtual Poetry Reading: Heather Lanier and Autumn McClintock with Hosts Alina MacNeal and Jennifer Hook
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84308329737?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 843 0832 9737 – Passcode: [REDACTED]

Heather Lanier
Heather Lanier is the author of the memoir, Raising a Rare Girl, a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, as well as two award-winning poetry chapbooks. Her poems have been published most recently with The Cincinnati Review, The Sun, and Mid-American Review. She is an assistant professor of creative writing at Rowan University, and her TED talk has been viewed over two million times.

Autumn McClintock
Autumn McClintock lives in Philadelphia and works at the Free Library. Poems of hers have recently appeared in The Account, Cimarron Review, Denver Quarterly, The Georgia Review, Sonora Review, and others. Her chapbook, After the Creek, was published in 2016. She is a staff reader for Ploughshares and Associate Poetry Editor of Doubleback Review.

Alina Macneal & Jennifer Hook, Hosts – Open Reading Follows

Virtual Poetry Reading: "Free Speech: And Why You Should Give a Damn" by Jonathan Zimmerman, Signe Wilkinson (Illustrator)
2021-07-29 19:00 | Moonstone Arts Center
Virtual Poetry Reading: “Free Speech: And Why You Should Give a Damn” by Jonathan Zimmerman, Signe Wilkinson (Illustrator)
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87881707311?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 878 8170 7311 – Passcode: [REDACTED]
Purchase This Title

In America, we like to think we live in a land of liberty, where everyone can say whatever they want. Throughout our history, however, we have also been quick to censor people who offend or frighten us. We talk a good game about freedom of speech, then we turn around and deny it to others. In this brief but bracing book, historian Jonathan Zimmerman and Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Signe Wilkinson tell the story of free speech in America: who established it, who has denounced it, and who has risen to its defense. They also make the case for why we should care about it today when free speech is once again under attack. Across the political spectrum, Americans have demanded the suppression of ideas and images that allegedly threaten our nation. But the biggest danger to America comes not from speech but from censorship, which prevents us from freely governing ourselves. Free speech allows us to criticize our leaders. It lets us consume the art, film, and literature we prefer. And, perhaps most importantly, it allows minorities to challenge the oppression they suffer. While any of us are censored, none of us are free.
Jonathan Zimmerman is the Judy and Howard Berkowitz Professor in Education at the University of Pennsylvania. A former Peace Corps volunteer, he is the author of Campus Politics: What Everyone Needs to Know and seven other books. He is also a frequent op-ed contributor to The New York Times, the Washington Post, and other national newspapers and magazines. Zimmerman received the 2019 Open Inquiry Leadership Award from Heterodox Academy, which promotes viewpoint diversity in higher education.
Signe Wilkinson was the first female to receive the Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning in 1992.

Virtual Poetry Reading: Richard Hoffman, Wanda Phipps, and M.G. Stephens
2021-07-31 19:00 | Moonstone Arts Center
Virtual Poetry Reading: Richard Hoffman, Wanda Phipps, and M.G. Stephens
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82855093815?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 828 5509 3815 – Passcode: [REDACTED]

Richard Hoffman
Richard Hoffman has published four volumes of poetry, Without Paradise; Gold Star Road, winner of the Barrow Street Press Poetry Prize and the Sheila Motton Award from The New England Poetry Club; Emblem; and Noon until Night, awarded the 2018 Massachusetts Book Award for Poetry. His other books include the memoirs Half the House and Love & Fury, and the story collection Interference and Other Stories. He is Senior Writer in Residence at Emerson College in Boston, and nonfiction editor at Solstice: A Magazine of Diverse Voices.

Wanda Phipps
Wanda Phipps is a writer and translator. Her books include Field of Wanting: Poems of Desire and Wake-Up Calls: 66 Morning Poems. Her poetry has been translated into Ukrainian, Hungarian, Arabic, Galician and Bangla. She has received awards from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the National Theater Translation Fund, and others. As a founding member of Yara Arts Group she has collaborated on numerous theatrical productions presented in Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, Siberia, and at La MaMa, E.T.C. in NYC. She’s curated reading series at the Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church and written about the arts for Boog City, Time Out New York, Paper Magazine, and others. Her new book is Mind Honey!

M. G. Stephens
M. G. Stephens (Michael Gregory Stephens) is the author of over twenty books, including the critically acclaimed novel The Brooklyn Book of the Dead; the travel memoir Lost in Seoul; the award-winning essay collection Green Dreams; and Hobo Haiku from Moonstone. His play Our Father ran on Theatre Row (42nd Street in New York) for over five years. MadHat just published his book of prose poems and poetry about an out of work actor who lands the part of Hamlet and is called History of Theatre or the Glass of Fashion. Dispatches Editions is shortly going to publish his book about the origins of the Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church in the Bouwerie; entitled When Poetry Was the World: St. Mark’s, the East Village, the 1960s, and Beyond. Stephens earned a doctorate from the University of Essex (UK), researching and writing on the Poetry Project; an MFA in writing from Yale, with Derek Walcott his supervisor; and his BA and MA from the City University of New York (City College). He’s taught at Princeton, Columbia, and New York universities, and the University of London. After living in London for fifteen years, he now lives just north of Chicago.

Moonstone Poetry @ PhillyCAM: Cydney Brown with Host Charles S. Carr
2021-08-03 18:30 | PhillyCAM, 699 Ranstead Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19106, United States
Moonstone Poetry @ PhillyCAM: Cydney Brown with Host Charles S. Carr
2021 Philly Loves Poetry Interview and Readings Series
699 Ranstead Street, Comcast Cable 66/966HD/967 OR Verizon FIOS, 29/30 in Philadelphia.

Cydney Brown
Cydney Brown is the Philadelphia Youth Poet Laureate and author of “Daydreaming”. She is a Senior at Abington Friends School and has been writing poetry since she was in 5th grade. The Philadelphia Inquirer, 6abc, Philadelphia Citizen, and Fox29 featured Brown. She loves that there are no limitations to writing. She has recited her poetry at Benjamin Franklin Hall, Lincoln University, The Ideas We Should Steal Festival and The Kelly’s Writers house. Her poetry explores the topics of social justice, self-image, love, and nature. She won first place in The National Hip Hop workshop poetry competition and loves to perform spoken word poetry. She is a Gold Award Ambassador Girl Scout who is active in improving her community. Cydney wishes to inspire people to speak their truth and share her poetry with the world.
Host Charles S. Carr talks with Cydney Brown, current Youth Poet Laureate, who will also read her poetry

Virtual Poetry Reading: Joanna Fuhrman, Christine Hamm, and Kathleen Ossip
2021-08-04 19:00 | Moonstone Arts Center
Virtual Poetry Reading: Joanna Fuhrman, Christine Hamm, and Kathleen Ossip
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84308329737?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 843 0832 9737 – Passcode: [REDACTED]

Joanna Fuhrman
Joanna Fuhrman is the author of six books of poetry, including To a New Era, The Year of Yellow Butterflies, and Pageant. She is a former poetry editor for Ping Pong and Boog City and served as the Monday-night coordinator for the poetry readings at The Poetry Project from 2001 to 2003 and the Wednesday-night coordinator from 2010 to 2011. She currently teaches poetry writing at Rutgers University and coordinates the Introduction to Creative Writing Classes and the faculty and alumni readings.

Christine Hamm
Christine Hamm has published four books of poetry exploring the roles of animals, fairytales, gender, and violence. Her newest book is GORILLA, “a potent and wholly original collection that traces—with the indelible strokes of dream logic—the contours of domestic dramas and estranging losses, along with the menaces of masculinity… The emotional complexity limned by Hamm is something to marvel at.”—Jenny Xie. Her poems have been published in Painted Bride Quarterly, Rattle, Rhino, and Pinch. She also has an MSW from NYU, an MA in fiction writing, and is halfway through an MFA in poetry from Columbia. She is the 8th annual winner of the Tenth Gate Prize.

Kathleen Ossip
Kathleen Ossip is the author of three volumes of poetry: The Do-Over, which was a New York Times Editors’ Choice; The Cold War, which was one of Publishers Weekly’s Best Books of 2011; and The Search Engine, selected by Derek Walcott for the American Poetry Review/Honickman First Book Prize. Her poems have appeared widely in such publications as The Washington Post, The Best American Poetry, The Best American Magazine Writing, The New York Review of Books, The Nation, The New Republic, Poetry, Paris Review, Kenyon Review, and many others. Ossip teaches at The New School, the 92nd Street Y, and the Hudson Valley Writers Center.

Virtual Poetry Reading: 婕 Venus Cohen, Heidi Seaborn, and Lauren Zazzara with Host Sean Lynch
2021-08-07 14:00 | Moonstone Arts Center
Virtual Poetry Reading: 婕 Venus Cohen, Heidi Seaborn, and Lauren Zazzara with Host Sean Lynch
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82855093815?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 828 5509 3815 – Passcode: [REDACTED]

婕 Venus Cohen
婕 Venus Cohen is a mixed, trans creator and current undergrad in English at Mount Holyoke College as a Frances Perkins Scholar. Their work has been recognized in various formats with writing and visual arts in Boston Fashion Week, Disquiet Arts, and is upcoming in Beyond Queer Words Anthology, Wrongdoing Magazine, Fahmidan Journal and The B’K.

Heidi Seaborn
Heidi Seaborn is Executive Editor of The Adroit Journal and author of [PANK] Book Award winner An Insomniac’s Slumber Party with Marilyn Monroe (2021), Give a Girl Chaos (2019) and the 2020 Comstock Review Prize Chapbook, Bite Marks. Recent work in American Poetry Journal, Beloit, Copper Nickel, The Cortland Review, The Greensboro Review, The Missouri Review, The Slowdown with Tracy K. Smith, Tinderbox, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA in Poetry from NYU. www.heidiseabornpoet.com

Lauren Zazzara
Lauren Zazzara is a writer in Buffalo, NY. When she isn’t reading, (loudly) tapping at her keyboard, or napping, she is likely adoring her cat, Margaret.

Sean Lynch, Host.
Open Reading Follows.

Virtual Poetry Reading: Caroline Furr, Darrell Parry, and Ben Saff with Host Sean Hanrahan
2021-08-11 19:00 | Moonstone Arts Center
Virtual Poetry Reading: Caroline Furr, Darrell Parry, and Ben Saff with Host Sean Hanrahan
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84308329737?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 843 0832 9737 – Passcode: [REDACTED]

Caroline Furr
Caroline Furr began professional and personal life in Texas, then moved to Los Angeles to complete an MA in sculpture. She has worked in museums and galleries, sometimes as founder and director, and painted sets for TV and film. When living in Barcelona, she began writing, and in Philadelphia, surface and interior design. She is the author of A Foreigner’s Conception and Uneven Terrain available at www.tohopub.com. Find her online at carolinefurr.com or @carolinefurrdesign.art on Instagram.

Darrell Parry
Darrell Parry is a writer, artist, and event organizer from Easton, Pennsylvania. He founded the online publication, Stick Figure Poetry Quarterly, and the monthly Stick Figure Poetry open mic. He also co-founded Lehigh Valley Poetry’s Virtual Salon, which meets on Zoom the first Monday of every month. His alter ego works in higher education, not as a professor, but as one of those reviled peddlers of unaffordable course materials. Believe it or not, he even sometimes sells poetry books.

Ben Saff
Ben Saff is a book-lover, a cat-watcher, and a breath-breather living in Philadelphia. His first chapbook, Minor League All American Dance Club, is available at www.tohopub.com. You can find all of his published work to date at bsaff.github.io.

Sean Hanrahan, Host, Open Reading Follows

Virtual Poetry Reading: Poetry of Displacement with Fióna Bolger, Chandrika Narayanan-Mohan, and Divya Victor
2021-08-15 10:30 | Moonstone Arts Center
Virtual Poetry Reading: Poetry of Displacement with Fióna Bolger, Chandrika Narayanan-Mohan, and Divya Victor
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84532069956?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 845 3206 9956 – Passcode: [REDACTED]

“By bringing together three poets with overlapping connections to one another through the places they have called home over the course of their lives we seek to explore the ideas of home, migration, citizenship, belonging as well as borders, unhoming and disowning. While these poets share places, both Fióna and Divya have lived in Tamil Nadu, both Chandrika and Fióna live in Dublin, and both Divya and Chandrika were born in India, their writing emerges from displacement and cannot be easily situated in a national poetic tradition.”

Fióna Bolger
Fióna Bolger is author of a compound of words. She lives between Ireland and India. Her work has appeared in Poetry Ireland Review, Southword, The Brown Critique, The Poetry Bus, The Chattahoochee Review, and others. She is a co-ordinator of Dublin Writers’ Forum and a member of the creative team of Outlandish Theatre Platform. She is currently working towards a PhD at Dublin City University entitled ‘Searching for Poems in the Cracks Between Borders’. Poems can be corralled into lists by country, by language, by form. Fióna Bolger is interested in those that fall between categories, challenge the existence of formal, linguistic, cultural, or geographic boundaries, borders.

Chandrika Narayanan-Mohan
Chandrika Narayanan-Mohan (She/Her) is a Dublin-based arts manager, writer, and performer from India. Her work has been published in Writing Home: The ‘New Irish’ Poets from Dedalus Press, The Ireland Chair of Poetry Hold Open the Door anthology by UCD Press, the Green Carnations: 25 Young LGBTQ+ Poets from Ireland anthology by Book Hub Publishing, Banshee, Honest Ulsterman, Impossible Archetype, and Poetry Ireland Review. In 2020 Chandrika won 3rd place in the Fingal Poetry Prize. Chandrika is editor of Poetry Ireland’s Trumpet issue 9, book reviewer for Children’s Books Ireland’s Inis magazine, and one of Science Gallery Dublin’s current Rapid Residency Artists. In 2021 Chandrika joined the Board of the Irish Writers Centre.

Divya Victor
Divya Victor is the author of Curb; Kith, a book of verse, prose memoir, lyric essay, and visual objects; Scheingleichheit: Drei Essays; Natural Subjects (Winner of the Bob Kaufman Award); Unsub, Things To Do With Your Mouth. Her work has appeared in BOMB, the New Museum’s The Animated Reader, Crux: Journal of Conceptual Writing, The Best American Experimental Writing, POETRY, and others. She has been translated into French, German, Spanish, and Czech, been a Mark Diamond Research Fellow at the U.S Holocaust Memorial Museum, a Riverrun Fellow at the Archive for New Poetry at University of California San Diego, and a Writer in Residence at the Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibit.

Virtual Poetry Reading: Audrey Gidman, Joan Kwon Glass, and Marcela Sulak with Host Larry Robin
2021-08-18 19:00 | Moonstone Arts Center
Virtual Poetry Reading: Audrey Gidman, Joan Kwon Glass, and Marcela Sulak with Host Larry Robin
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84308329737?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 843 0832 9737 – Passcode: [REDACTED]

Audrey Gidman
Audrey Gidman is a queer poet living in Maine. Her poems can be found or are forthcoming in Rust + Moth, Luna Luna, SWWIM, Wax Nine, Okay Donkey, Rogue Agent, The Inflectionist Review, Bear Review, The Shore, The West Review, and elsewhere. She serves as assistant poetry editor for Gigantic Sequins and an editor for Newfound’s Emerging Poets Chapbook Series. Her chapbook, body psalms, winner of the Elyse Wolf Prize, is forthcoming from Slate Roof Press.

Joan Kwon Glass
Joan Kwon Glass is author of How to Make Pancakes For a Dead Boy and If Rust Can Grow on the Moon. In 2021 she was a finalist for the Harbor Review Editor’s Prize, the Subnivean Award, the Lumiere Review Writing Contest & the Five South Poetry Prize & a semi-finalist for the Ralph Angel Poetry Prize. She serves as Poet Laureate for the city of Milford, CT, is a graduate of Smith College & serves as Poetry Co-Editor for West Trestle Review., Joan has been nominated four times for the Pushcart Prize. She tweets @joanpglass & you may read her previously published work at www.joankwonglass.com.

Marcela Sulak
Marcela Sulak is author of City of Skypapers, Decency, Immigrant, and the lyric memoir, Mouth Full of Seeds. Sulak, who translates from the Hebrew, Czech, and French, is a 2019 NEA Translation Fellow, and her translation of Twenty Girls to Envy Me: Selected Poems of Orit Gidali, was nominated for the 2017 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation. She directs the Shaindy Rudoff Graduate Program in Creative Writing at Bar-Ilan University, where she is an associate professor in American Literature. She also edits The Ilanot Review and hosts the TLV.1 Radio podcast, Israel in Translation.

Larry Robin, Host, Open Reading Follows

Virtual Poetry Reading: Educator-Poet Reading, hosted by Alina Macneal and Jennifer Hook
2021-08-25 19:00 - 21:00
Virtual Poetry Reading: Educator-Poet Reading, hosted by Alina Macneal and Jennifer Hook
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84308329737?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 843 0832 9737 – Passcode: [REDACTED]

Lanre-Habeeb Animashaun is author of On Love. On Hope. On Heartbreak. When he’s not writing, he is inspired by his dynamic 7th and 8th grade students in North Philadelphia.

Barefoot Bella (Ariel Goodwin) is an earthy expressionist, innovative educator and light-bearing black woman. Currently she serves as a Sexual Health and Social Skills teacher, as well as a community educator.

Octavia “Alonge” Clarkson is an educator at Simon Gratz Mastery Charter High School as a PostSecondary Coordinator providing juniors and seniors with the tools necessary for their lives after graduation and is a doctoral student in Africology & African American Studies at Temple University.

Barrett Rosser created the Black Girls Literacies Project where adolescent girls ages 13-18 read, write and respond to each other about Black girlhood, love, and imagination, she has been a poet since elementary school, and she loves crafting multimodal poetry on social media.

Alina Macneal & Jennifer Hook, Hosts – Open Reading Follows

Virtual Poetry Reading: New Chapbooks from Moonstone Press
2021-08-29 14:00 - 16:00
Virtual Poetry Reading: New Chapbooks from Moonstone Press
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84532069956?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 845 3206 9956, Passcode: [REDACTED]
Join us for a poetry reading with the authors of Moonstone Press’s new chapbooks.
Byron Beynon, author of A View From the Other Side and 14 other collections of poetry including Cuffs and The Echoing Coastline, coordinated Wales’s contribution to the anthology Fifty Strong (Heinemann). His poems and essays have featured in several publications including The Independent, Agenda, Wasafiri, The London Magazine, North of Oxford, San Pedro River Review and the human rights anthology In Protest.
Arlene Edmonds, author of Landscape of Hope, is a poet, writer, piano teacher, university lecturer, and former prolific news correspondent.
Gabrielle Martin, author of Gritty City, originally from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, much of their formative years were spent shucking corn. Their work has appeared in YesPoetry, Apiary Magazine, and Rag Queen Periodical.
Adriana Morgan, author and illustrator of Enlightenment, is a poet, writer, painter, and children’s picture books writer. Fluent in six languages, she worked as a translator at the European Commission and the United Nations, taught French at the University of Jamia Milia Islamia, New Delhi, India, the French Alliance, and the Universities of Valparaiso and Vina del Mar, Chile.
Aaren Yeatts Perry is an independent editor and writing coach, teaches nonviolence-and-writing workshops and mindful poetics to all ages. His collections include Open Fire, Poetry Across the Curriculum: An Action Guide for Teachers, a spoken word recording, Mercury Calling, and Shipping and Receiving with Moonstone Press.

All of their chapbooks are now available for purchase.

LIVE Poetry Reading: C. M. Crockford and Amy Saul-Zerby, hosted by Sean Lynch
2021-09-01 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Live Poetry at Fergie’s Pub with C. M. Crockford and Amy Saul-Zerby

1214 Sansom Street and on Zoom

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84308329737?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 843 0832 9737 – Passcode: [REDACTED]

Join us for our first live poetry reading back at Fergie’s Pub. This reading will be hybrid, with both in-person performances and a Zoom livestream. As the COVID-19 situation develops, Moonstone will monitor recommendations of health officials.
C.M. Crockford, author of Mark The Place, a neurodivergent poet whose work has been featured in Wilde Boy, Serotonin, Toho Journal, Neologism Poetry Journal, and Wingless Dreamer among others.

Amy Saul-Zerby is the author of Paper Flowers Imaginary Birds and Deep Camouflage. Her poems have appeared in The Rumpus, The Chicago Review of Books, American Poetry Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, and elsewhere. She edits Voicemail Poems.

Sean Lynch Host, Open Reading Follows

Moonstone Poetry @ PhillyCAM: Poetry from Prison with F. X. Baird and host Charles S. Carr
2021-09-07 18:30 - 19:30 | PhillyCAM, 699 Ranstead Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19106, United States
Moonstone Poetry @ PhillyCAM: Poetry from Prison with F. X. Baird and host Charles S. Carr

2021 Philly Loves Poetry Interview and Readings Series
Watch the live broadcast at Comcast Cable 66/966HD/967 | Verizon FIOS 29/30 in Philadelphia | PhillyCAM TV: https://phillycam.org/watch
Host Charles S. Carr talks with F. X. Baird who will also read poetry from the workshop

F. X. Baird began the poetry workshop for incarcerated individuals in 2016, some of the poetry was published in the Schuylkill Valley Journal. Guest Editor Eric Greinke said“… Poetic talent can appear anywhere, under any circumstances, because it is the result of the inner human drive to evolve and connect. These five poets transcend situational concerns and rise to a universal level that communicates to our shared humanity. Their poems have in common an emotional intensity but each poet sings with his own unique voice.”
Fran’s poems have appeared in the Schuylkill Valley Journal, Philadelphia Stories, and others. He is a Pushcart nominee, the author of Painting with My Father and Square Peg, Round Hole, and has conducted a poetry workshop with long term incarcerated men at Phoenix (formerly Graterford) Prison. Since the pandemic, the workshop has been conducted via email and now includes poets from other state prisons and recently has expanded to include women incarcerated at Muncy State Correctional Institution.

E-Verse Equinox Reading Series: James Brookes, Louisa Schnaithmann, and David Yezzi
2021-09-08 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
E-Verse Equinox Reading Series: James Brookes, Louisa Schnaithmann, and David Yezzi
Live Reading at Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, and on Zoom
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84308329737?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 843 0832 9737 – Passcode: [REDACTED]
Join us back at Fergie’s Pub for live poetry, drinks, and food. This reading will be hybrid, with both in-person performances and a Zoom livestream. As the COVID-19 situation develops, Moonstone will monitor recommendations of health officials.
James Brookes is author of Spoils, recent poems have appeared in journals including The London Review of Books, The Hopkins Review, Image Journal and Literary Matters.

Louisa Schnaithmann is author of Plague Love (forthcoming from Moonstone Press), her work has appeared in Beltway Poetry Quarterly, The Mantle, and Wine Cellar Press, among others.

David Yezzi’s latest book is More Things in Heaven: New and Selected Poems (Measure Press). He teaches in the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins.

In collaboration with E-Verse Equinox Reading Series – John Wall Barger Host, Open Reading Follows

Virtual Poetry Reading: Tribute to RuNett Nia Ebo
2021-09-12 14:00 - 16:00 | Moonstone Arts Center
Virtual Poetry Reading: Tribute to RuNett Nia Ebo
Virtual Poetry Reading: Tribute to RuNett Nia Ebo
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84532069956?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 845 3206 9956 – Passcode: [REDACTED]

RuNett Nia Ebo
RuNett Nia Ebo, author of 8 chapbooks and 3 paperbacks of poetry and counting. She is also the co-author of a poetry book entitled Truth With Purpose with Victoria Huggins Peurifoy. Her signature poem is “Lord, Why Did You Make Me Black?” It is featured in Chicken Soup For the African American Soul and a children’s version is available as a coloring book. Ms. Ebo visits schools (all grades) as part of Nia’s Purpose: Poetry & Percussion At Work. She is a recipient of the Golden Mic Award (2014) from World Renowned Entertainment and was honored for Poetic Excellence by Poetic Ventures and the National Black Authors’ Tour (2016). Ms. Ebo has written 3 plays and a blog for her church. She has co-hosted a poetry venue- “POET-IFY: Poetry to Edify” bi-monthly since 2005.

Plus a new chapbook by RuNett Nia Ebo, Expressing Myself on Purpose ($10.00, Moonstone Press)

Live Poetry Reading: Adriann Toombs Bautista, Nzinga Asele El, and Justin Udo with Host Elijah Pringle
2021-09-15 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Live Poetry Reading with Adriann Toombs Bautista, Nzinga Asele El, and Justin Udo
Live at Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street
On zoom https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84308329737?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 843 0832 9737 – Passcode: [REDACTED]
This reading will be hybrid, with both in-person performances and a Zoom livestream. As the COVID-19 situation develops, Moonstone will monitor recommendations of health officials.
Adriann Toombs Bautista is author of Sister Strength (published with Moonstone Press in 2021), Sanctuary of Snow and Ballad of a Beautiful Brown King.

Nzinga Asele El is a North Philly Poet, Still Rising with a Mission: To Inspire, To Uplift and To Inform.

Justin Udo, a lover of Haiku and Images, often pairs them together creating a synergy that makes the whole something greater than the individual parts.

Elijah Pringle, Host, Open Reading Follows

LIVE Poetry Reading: Alison Hicks and Cassie MacDonald
2021-09-22 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Live Poetry Reading: Alison Hicks and Cassie MacDonald with Hosts Alina Macneal & Jennifer Hook

Live at Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street
On zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84308329737?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 843 0832 9737 – Passcode: [REDACTED]
This reading will be hybrid, with both in-person performances and a Zoom livestream. As the COVID-19 situation develops, Moonstone will monitor recommendations of health officials.

Alison Hicks’s latest book of poems, Knowing Is a Branching Trail, winner of the 2021 Birdy Prize from Meadowlark Books, has just been released. Previous books include poetry collections You Who Took the Boat Out and Kiss, a chapbook Falling Dreams, a novella Love: A Story of Images, and an anthology, Prompted. Her work has appeared in Eclipse, Gargoyle, Permafrost, and Poet Lore. She was named a finalist for the 2021 Beullah Rose Prize from Smartish Pace, and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize by Green Hills LiteraryLantern. She is founder of Greater Philadelphia Wordshop Studio, which offers community-based writing workshops.

Cassie MacDonald serves as Hearthkeeper of Brigid’s House in Camden, New Jersey 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 (“Poetry to the People!”) She has been a featured reader at Fergie’s, Big Blue Marble Bookstore and Eleven One Gallery in Camden and is always game for an open mic, even an unscheduled one on a moving train.

Alina Macneal & Jennifer Hook, Hosts
Open Reading Follows

Virtual Poetry Reading: Protest 2021 Anthology with 100 Thousand Poets for Change
2021-09-25 14:00 - 16:00
Virtual Poetry Reading: Protest 2021 Anthology with 100 Thousand Poets for Change
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82855093815?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 828 5509 3815 – Passcode: [REDACTED]
Moonstone Arts Center celebrates 11 years of 100 Thousand Poets for Change with readings from our new anthology Protest 2021

100 Thousand Poets for Change (100 TPC) has organized over 5000 poetry, art and music gatherings for the cause of Peace, Justice, and Sustainability across the globe in the last 10 years. Poets from many languages, cultures, geographical regions, ethnicities, creeds, beliefs, and religious affiliations have come together year after year to lead and promote poetry readings, without any preconditions or censorship, where participants speak out for causes nearest their hearts. In the process, oppressions, exploitative practices, biases, and abuses of many kinds have been highlighted (personal and social, communal, political and economic, spiritual, intellectual and emotional)—whether based on gender, race, class, or religious affiliation, color, territory, language and cultural tradition, or any form of differentiation whatsoever.
These are real troubles that wrack our world; there are distinct and often mortal consequences to these regimes of tyranny and persecution; and there is a collective interest in striving toward the demanding ideal that 100 TPC has set for itself in calling for Peace, Justice, Sustainability.
Moonstone is continuing this global initiative with our latest anthology, Protest 2021. The anthology includes over 40 poets writing about creating change through protest.

Virtual Poetry Reading: J. C. Todd and Beyond Repair
2021-09-26 14:00 - 16:00
Virtual Poetry Reading: J. C. Todd and Beyond Repair

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84532069956?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 845 3206 9956, Passcode: [REDACTED]

J. C. Todd’s Beyond Repair bears vivid witness to the struggles for healing, both small- and large-scale, in global hotspots of conflict. With precisely crafted poems, imbued with empathy and grace, Todd examines those who must continue with daily life amidst horror and chaos. This fierce and moving collection is a special honoree for the 2019 Able Muse Book Award.
Beyond Repair ($19.95, Able Muse Press, 978-1773490595) is woven of war and aftermath. Survival lives in the blood-wit of each turn in this wrought collection, singing and daring the heart awake. This voice is refined to an edge. . . . Leaps and associations feel calibrated as the reader finds oneself sizing up the angle of heart and head, becoming part of the accumulative turns—an accord of people, voices, places, times—and we confront what war does to one who has a capacity for grace. Yusef Komunyakaa, Everyday Mojo Songs of Earth
Bearing unflinching witness to upheaval across borders and time, places where “nothing / is left, not even names,” Todd’s poems give voice to the oppressed and missing, asking “Without a speaker language what is it.” Compassionate, questioning, she remains keenly aware of the challenges of representation, acknowledging how “beyond the cropped shot” the “background resists / insists.” . . . . J. C. Todd’s unforgettable voices and visions will leave you transformed forever. Dilruba Ahmed, Bring Now the Angels
In these powerful, impassioned poems of war’s devastation, what counts is . . . bodies and minds caught in modern warfare’s mutilating gears. Eloquent in witness, with searing exactitude, J. C. Todd restores life’s meaning—always war’s first casualty. Filling the acronym PTS with substance—“memory a carnivore ravening the entrails / of castaway reason”—she takes us inside those who’ve served, the poet as faithfully vigilant as the Air Force doctor charged with care, even of those damaged “beyond repair.” Eleanor Wilner, Before Our Eyes

Virtual Poetry Reading: Margaret Randell, Cynthia Dewi Oka
2021-09-28 19:00 - 21:00
Virtual Poetry Reading with Margaret Randell and Cynthia Dewi Oka
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84308329737?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 843 0832 9737 – Passcode: [REDACTED]

Margaret Randell is a feminist poet, writer, photographer and social activist. Author of more than 150 books, releasing this month are Thinking About Thinking (not quite essays) and Out of Violence Into Poetry. She has lived for extended periods in Albuquerque, New York, Seville, Mexico City, Havana, and Managua. Shorter stays in Peru and North Vietnam were also formative. In the turbulent 1960s she co-founded and co-edited EL CORNO EMPLUMADO / THE PLUMED HORN, a bilingual literary journal which for eight years out of Mexico City published some of the most dynamic and meaningful writing of an era. From 1984 through 1994 she taught at a number of U.S. universities.
“My life and work have been profoundly informed by parents who gave me love and adventure, and encouraged creativity; the dramatic desert canyons, rich colors and open skies of the southwestern United States; Socialist ideals; the second wave of feminism; and the generous mentorship of many great friends and colleagues. My children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren are always with me, even when far away; and my spouse Barbara is bedrock. New York’s abstract expressionist painters in the 1950s, Mexico and her struggles of the 1960s, the Cuban revolution’s second brave decade in the 1970s, the Vietnamese people’s struggle against US attack and occupation in that same decade, and the Sandinista attempt to change Nicaragua in the early 1980s were places and events that shaped me. The exploration of ancient sites continues to be a source of nourishment, and I have long been involved with oral tradition. I deeply believe in humanistic values, combating our culture of violence and greed, and art as a tool for change.” Her memoir I Never Left Home: Poet, Feminist, Revolutionary came out in 2020.

Cynthia Dewi Oka is the author of Fire Is Not a Country (2021), Salvage, and Nomad of Salt and Hard Water. She is Poetry Editor at Kweli Journal. Cynthia worked as an organizer, trainer, and fundraiser in social movements for gender, racial, economic, and migrant justice. As an immigrant and former young single mother with working-class roots, her aesthetics are guided by her core values: self-determination, collaboration, and attention to the peripheral. Cynthia has taught creative writing at Bryn Mawr College and literary/arts organizations including Murphy Writing of Stockton University, The Blue Stoop, and Asian Arts Initiative, with whom she partnered in the aftermath of the 2016 election to offer Sanctuary: A Migrant Poetry Workshop for immigrant poets based in Philadelphia. She has served as a visiting Distinguished Writer at Widener University, and conducted workshops and readings at Princeton University, University of Pennsylvania, The New School, New York University, Swarthmore College, and Williams College, among others.

Live Poetry Reading: Terence Culleton, Eileen M. D'Angelo, and Aaren Yeatts Perry
2021-09-29 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Live Poetry Reading: Terence Culleton, Eileen M. D’Angelo, and Aaren Yeatts Perry
Live at Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84308329737?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 843 0832 9737 – Passcode: [REDACTED]
This reading will be hybrid, with both in-person performances and a Zoom livestream. As the COVID-19 situation develops, Moonstone will monitor recommendations of health officials.

Terence Culleton taught writing and literature for forty years, he is the author of A Communion of Saints, Eternal Life and A Tree and Gone. Mr. Culleton publishes in diverse magazines and reviews, and reads widely throughout the Philadelphia region, as well as in northeastern PA and New York. His work has been featured on radio and cable TV shows in Pennsylvania and New York. and on NPR, and he has won a number of prizes and awards both for his poetry and his teaching. His work has also been set to music and recorded by Vermont composer Don Jamison for his book and CD Far Heaven, as well as by Darryl Harper and Onus for their CD Stories in Real Time.

Eileen M. D’Angelo is Founder/Executive Director of the Mad Poets Society and Founder/Managing Editor of the lit mag, Mad Poets Review (1990-2010). Since 1987, she produced over 1,500 special events, including performances, slams, readings, conferences, workshops, bonfires and literary festivals in the Delaware Valley. Twice nominated for a PA Governor’s Award in the Arts, D’Angelo also received two Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Press nominations. Poetry, op-eds, essays and book reviews were published in numerous journals. She was awarded the Victim Rights Award by Domestic Abuse Project and District Attorney’s Office of Delaware County and named 2017 Paralegal of the Year by DCCC Paralegal Advisory Board.

Aaren Yeatts Perry is an independent editor and writing coach. Perry teaches nonviolence-and-writing workshops and mindful poetics to all ages at schools, colleges and festivals on the East Coast and in the Midwest. He has performed his poems at the Nuyorican Cafe, Bower Poetry Club, Kimmel Center, World Café, Fringe Festival, and Philadelphia Writers Conference and other stages and classrooms. His work appears in magazines on NPR and on regional television. He produced and directed Page2Stage, a long-running all-poetry TV show on Cable. Bilingual with an MFA from Vermont College, he received a PA Council on the Arts Grant. His collections include Open Fire (Whirlwind Press), Poetry Across the Curriculum: An Action Guide for Teachers (Allyn&Bacon), a spoken word recording, Mercury Calling (MelodyVision), and a 2021 chapbook called Shipping and Receiving (Moonstone Press).
Open Reading Follows

Virtual Poetry Reading: Welcome to the Resistance, Poetry as Protest
2021-10-03 14:00 - 16:00
Readings from Welcome to the Resistance: Poetry as Protest

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84532069956?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 845 3206 9956, Passcode: [REDACTED]

Welcome to the Resistance: Poetry as Protest
Edited by Ona Gritz & Taylor Carmen Savath
From the introduction by Ona Gritz:
“It is difficult to get the news from poems,” William Carlos Williams famously wrote, “yet men die miserably every day for the lack of what is found there.”
News comes to us in swaths. Poetry considers moments. New comes to us raw. Poetry distills and, in both senses of the word, reflects. Taylor and I began assembling this collection in the spring of 2019, the airwaves filled with divisiveness and hate speech, the supposed leader of the free world governing through a Twitter feed in gibberish and lies. In resistance, we chose to seek out and off that which is found in poetry. Welcome to these pages. Welcome to eloquence and truth.
We expect over 20 of the contributors to present. Click here for a full list of poets in the anthology.

Moonstone Poetry @ PhillyCAM: Leonard Gontarek with host Charles S. Carr
2021-10-05 18:30 - 19:30
Moonstone Poetry @ PhillyCAM: 2021 Philly Loves Poetry Interview and Readings Series
Watch the live broadcast:
Comcast Cable 66/966HD/967 | Verizon FIOS 29/30 in Philadelphia | PhillyCAM TV: https://phillycam.org/watch

Charles S. Carr talks with Leonard Gontarek
Charles S. Carr talks with Leonard Gontarek, who will also read from is new book, The Long Way Home ($26.00 BlazeVOX)
Leonard Gontarek is the author of seven books of poems, including Take Your Hand Out of My Pocket, Shiva. His poems have appeared in Field, Poet Lore, Verse Daily, Fence, Poetry Northwest, American Poetry Review, Joyful Noise: An Anthology of American Spiritual Poetry, and The Best American Poetry (edited by Paul Muldoon). He coordinates Peace/Works, Poetry In Common, Philly Poetry Day, hosts The Green Line Reading & Interview Series, and is Poetry Consultant for Whitman at 200: Art and Democracy. He conducts the poetry workshop: Making Poems That Last. His poem, 37 Photos From The Bridge, selected by Alice Quinn, was a Poetry winner for the Big Bridges MotionPoems project and the basis for the award-winning film sponsored by the Weisman Art Museum in Minneapolis. He also has two chapbooks from Moonstone Press: The Paris Poems of Jim Morrison, and Contact.

“Leonard Gontarek is a Whitmanic visionary: in one moment he’s chanting incantations; in the next, he’s out in the street making sense of his American moment. No matter his angle of approach, in his vision Gontarek sees us with devastating clarity. Yet, we are drawn toward this seering vision because he expresses it with disarming sincerity. Which is to say, he tells it like it is and we can’t help but agree. With The Long Way Home, this poet’s poet has crafted a tour de force.” – Iain Haley Pollock, author of Ghost, Like a Place and Spit Back a Boy
“What is it with Leonard Gontarek and cats? What is it with coats, car parts, with parties across the river? What is it with Katy Perry, what is it with Donald Barthleme, with Breughel snapping at us? What is it with fathers? With mothers? With house-painters, their ladders, what is it with the American light dropping like lumber? I say let it be and let it be praise. Let it be a song, or a moan, or a two-foot walkie-talkie ch-ch-ch-ing into the night. And let it be, all ye who enter, your face given back by this shining cup of darkness.” –Kate Northrop, author of cuntstruck and Things Are Disappearing Here
