Moonstone Arts Center

2020 Philly Loves Poetry Interview and Reading Series on PhillyCAM
2020-09-08 18:30 (America/New_York) | PA
699 Ranstead Street. Comcast Cable 66/966HD/967 or Verizon FIOS 29/30 in Philadelphia
2020-2021 Philadelphia Poet Laureate on the role of the Laureate in promoting the love of poetry in the City and communities.
Trapeta B. Mayson is the 2020-2021 Philadelphia Poet Laureate. She is a recipient of a Pew Fellowship in Literature, Leeway Transformation Award, Leeway Art and Change Grant and Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Grants. Her work was also nominated for a 2016 Pushcart Prize. Mayson is a Cave Canem and Callaloo Fellow and a 2019 Aspen Words Emerging Writers Fellow with the Aspen Institute. She is the author of She Was Once Herself and Mocha Melodies. Mayson also released two music and poetry projects, SCAT and This Is How We Get Through, in collaboration with internationally acclaimed jazz guitarist, Monnette Sudler. Her other publications include submissions in The American Poetry Review, Epiphany Literary Journal, Aesthetica Magazine, Margie: The American Journal of Poetry among others. Mayson is a native of Liberia. She is a graduate of Temple University, Bryn Mawr Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research and Villanova University School of Business. Currently working in the social services field, Mayson is a member of several local organizations where she uses the arts to mobilize, build community and create change. trapetamayson.com
Charles S. Carr, Host

Serotonin Poetry Project
2020-09-05 14:00 | PA
Zoom Meeting ID: 851 0353 5295, Passcode: [REDACTED] Phone: +1 646-876-9923
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85103535295?pwd=[REDACTED]
Cynthia Arrieu-King teaches creative writing, literature, and general studies. Her poetry books include People are Tiny in Paintings of China, Manifest, and Futureless Languages. Her poetry book Continuity is forthcoming from Octopus Books and her book of experimental memoir The Betweens is forthcoming from Noemi in 2021.
Praise Osawaru is a Nigerian writer, (performance) poet, & wannabe entrepreneur studying at the University of Benin, Nigeria. His works have appeared/forthcoming in African Writer, Kreative Diadem, Ibua Journal, Ngiga Review, Perhappened Magazine, Praxis Magazine & elsewhere. He was longlisted for African Writers Award 2019 and shortlisted in the 2019 Kreative Diadem Creative Writing Contest. He’s openly a film fanatic & overall art enthusiast/lover. Say hello on Instagram/Twitter: @wordsmithpraise
Amber Renee, she/her, 26, writes from her home in suburban Bucks County, PA. A fool hopelessly in love with the pursuit of psycheverse knowledge, she often writes autobiographically. “Thoughts on This Most Recent Episode” was her 2016 full length collection of self-published poetry ruminating on her thoughts & illnesses. As recently as January 2020 she published a Poetry Picture book “i feel like i’m nothing” available online. Find her on social media @amberreneepoet
Sean Lynch, Host

M. Nzadi Keita, JC Todd, Alina Macneal, Jennifer Hook
2020-08-26 19:00 | PA
Zoom Meeting ID: 849 0497 4839, Passcode: [REDACTED] Phone: +1 646-876-9923
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84904974839?pwd=[REDACTED]
Nzadi Keita, a Philly-born writer, editor, and scholar, is a 2017 Pew Fellow for the Arts in Poetry. Her book of persona poems, BRIEF EVIDENCE OF HEAVEN, gives voice to abolitionist Anna Murray Douglass, first wife of Frederick Douglass. Cited by Yale historian David Blight, the book was also a finalist for the Phillis Wheatley Prize from the Quarterly Black Book Review. Keita is an alumna of Cave Canem, whose poems have appeared in journals such as Poet Lore and anthologies including A Face to Meet the Faces: An Anthology of Contemporary Persona Poetry. Fellowships from Yaddo, the Fine Arts Work Center, and Leeway Foundation have supported Keita’s writing and community work. She has collaborated with the Philadelphia Mural Arts Project, Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, and WHYY. Keita is an associate professor at Ursinus College.
J. C. Todd is author of five books of poetry; most recent are Beyond Repair, runner-up in the 2020 Able Muse Press Contest (forthcoming in 2020), and The Damages of Morning (Moonstone Press), a 2019 Eric Hoffer Award finalist. Winner of the Rita Dove Prize and twice a finalist for Poetry Society of America awards, she holds fellowships from the Pew Center for Arts and Heritage, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts and has poems in Beloit Poetry Journal, The Paris Review, and Journal of Compressed Creative Arts.
Alina Macneal & Jennifer Hook, Hosts
You can sign up for the open reading at 7PM!

On the Verge: Poets of the Palisades with Dave Worrell
2020-08-16 14:00 | PA
Zoom Meeting ID: 818 3720 4326, Zoom Passcode: [REDACTED] Phone: 1-646-9923
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81837204326?pwd=[REDACTED]
On the Verge: Poets of the Palisades III is an anthology that consists of 80 contributors in the Tri-State who were featured over a four-year period from both series that are sponsored by the North Jersey Literary Community and hosted by Denise La Neve and Paul Nash.
Norma Ketzis Bernstock‘s poetry has appeared in many print and online journals, including Napalm and Novacaine, Stillwater Review, Exit 13, US 1 Worksheets, Connecticut River Review, and Paterson Literary Review.
Theresa Burns is author of Two Train Town, Pushcart Prize nominee, and founder and curator of Watershed Literary Events in New Jersey. Her poetry, reviews, and nonfiction have appeared in The New York Times, Prairie Schooner, New Ohio Review, JAMA, America Magazine, The Cortland Review, SWWIM, and elsewhere.
Deborah Gerris is the author of three books of poems, Light in Light (2017), The Language of Paisley, and the chapbook The Language of Rain. Her poems appear in many anthologies and journals.
Anton Yakovlev‘s latest poetry chapbook Chronos Dines Alone (SurVision Books, 2018) won the James Tate Poetry Prize. His poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The New Criterion, The Hopkins Review, and elsewhere.
Paul Nash works at AMNH, conducting laboratory and field research on ancient organisms preserved in amber and sedimentary rock. He authors scientific articles, poetry, fiction, and satire. He has been both an editor and contributor for three Poets of the Palisades anthologies, an editor for Roy Lucianna’s posthumous poetry collection Neptune on High, and founded and co-hosts two reading series (with his wife Denise).
Denise La Neve writes both poetry and fiction. She was a contributor and editor for the 2010 and 2016 Poets of the Palisades anthologies Beyond the Rift and META-LAND. She co-hosts two poetry series under the umbrella of the North Jersey Literary Community (The Poets of the Palisades in Teaneck and The High Mountain Meadow in Wayne).
John J. Trause, Director of Oradell Public Library, is the author of six books of poetry and one of parody, Latter-Day Litany (Éditions élastiques, 1996), the latter staged Off-Broadway. Marymark Press has published his visual poetry and art as broadsides and sheets. He is a founder of the William Carlos Williams Poetry Cooperative in Rutherford, N. J., and the former host and curator of its monthly reading series.
Dave Worrell is author of We Who Were Bound and the ekphrastic collection Close to Home features paintings by Catherine Kuzma. Dave’s poems have appeared in Slant, Canary, Shot Glass Journal, Painted Bride Quarterly, Schuylkill Valley Journal, U.S. 1 Worksheets, Exit 13, and elsewhere. He has performed his music-backed poems at Chris’ Jazz Café in Philadelphia.
Dave Worrell, Host

PhillyCAM: Trapeta B. Mayson
2020-08-11 18:30 | PhillyCAM, 699 Ranstead Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19106, United States
Philly Loves Poetry Interview and Readings Series on PhillyCAM
Comcast Cable 66/966HD/967 or Verizon FIOS 29/30 in Philadelphia
Please join us as 2020-2021 Philadelphia Poet Laureate Trapeta B. Mayson discusses the role of the Laureate in promoting the love of poetry in the City and communities.

Trapeta B. Mayson is the 2020-2021 Philadelphia Poet Laureate. She is a recipient of a Pew Fellowship in Literature, Leeway Transformation Award, Leeway Art and Change Grant, and Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Grants. Her work was also nominated for a 2016 Pushcart Prize. Mayson is a Cave Canem and Callaloo Fellow and a 2019 Aspen Words Emerging Writers Fellow with the Aspen Institute. She is the author of She Was Once Herself and Mocha Melodies. Mayson also released two music and poetry projects, SCAT and This Is How We Get Through, in collaboration with internationally-acclaimed jazz guitarist Monnette Sudler. Her other publications include submissions in The American Poetry Review, Epiphany Literary Journal, Aesthetica Magazine, Margie: The American Journal of Poetry, among others. Mayson is a native of Liberia. She is a graduate of Temple University, Bryn Mawr Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research, and Villanova University School of Business. Currently working in the social services field, Mayson is a member of several local organizations where she uses the arts to mobilize, build community, and create change. trapetamayson.com
Charles S. Carr, Host

BLACK LIVES MATTER: Virtual Poetry Reading
2020-08-05 19:00 | PA
Zoom Meeting ID: 821 6127 0135 – Zoom Passcode: [REDACTED] – Phone: 1-646-9923
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82161270135?pwd=[REDACTED]
Sandra Turner-Barnes is an author, poet, and jazz lover and vocalist. Her first book of poetry Always A Lady has sold over 7,000 copies. In 1996, Sandra won the EBONY MAGAZINE Literary Competition for Short Fiction, and in 1997, Sandra re-created the concept of “Jazz-Oetry” and began singing Jazz. In 2000, Sandra’s live jazz vocals’ video performance, with pianist Barry Sames, was selected for National & International airing on BET’s syndicated show “Jazz Discoveries.”
Theodore A. Harris is a collagist, poet, and founder and director of The Institute for Advanced Study in Black Aesthetics. He has co-authored books with Amiri Baraka, such as Our Flesh of Flames, Malcolm X as Ideology, and TRIPTYCH: Text by Amiri Baraka and Jack Hirschman, as well as i ran from it and was still in it with Fred Moten. “Posed against an eerily iridescent orange sky,” as quoted from Our Flesh Of Flames, Harris’ collaged landscapes are filled with urban dystopia. Upside down capitols and distorted banknotes pose the reality of a society fettered by the cash nexus. Controversial critic and poet Amiri Baraka provides lyrical assault through his captions with his trademark humor and biting social commentary.
Lamont B. Steptoe is an award-winning poet, photographer, founder of Whirlwind Press, and Vietnam veteran, born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He has published sixteen collections of poems and is the winner of an American Book Award, a Pew Fellow in the Arts, and two Pennsylvania Council on the Arts awards, as well as induction into the International Hall of Fame for Writers of African Descent by the Gwendolyn Brooks Center in Chicago. Steptoe’s work appears in over one hundred anthologies, the most recent being Waging Peace in Vietnam. His most recent titles are Crowns & Halos, Oracular Rumblings & Stilt Walking, Meditations in Congo Square, and Beyond the White Stone Lions.
M. Nzadi Keita is a native Philadelphian. Her most recent collection, Brief Evidence of Heaven, sheds light on Anna Murray Douglass, Frederick Douglass’ first wife. Poet Lore journal, The Ringing Ear: Black Poets Lean South, and other publications have featured her work. Keita received a 2017 Pew Fellowship for Poetry. She is an associate professor of English, Creative Writing, and African-American/Africana Studies at Ursinus College.
Kirwyn Sutherland is a Clinical Research Professional and poet who makes poems centering the black experience in America. He is a Watering Hole fellow and has attended workshops/residencies at Cave Canem, Winter Tangerine, Poets House, Philadelphia Sculpture Gym, and Pearlstein Art Gallery at Drexel University. Kirwyn was a member of the 2015 Philadelphia Pigeon Slam and the 2016 Philadelphia Fuze Poetry Slam Team. Kirwyn’s work has been published in American Poetry Review, Blueshift Journal, APIARY Magazine, FOLDER, The Wanderer, and elsewhere. He has served as Editor of Lists/Book Reviewer for WusGood magazine and poetry editor for APIARY Magazine and teaches Spoken Word/Poetry Performance at the University of the Arts.
Lamont B. Steptoe, Host

James Arthur, George David Clark, Trapeta B. Mayson
2020-03-11 19:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
James Arthur, a Canadian-American poet, is the author of The Suicide’s Son and Charms Against Lightning. Arthur lives in Baltimore, where he teaches in the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University.
George David Clark’s Reveille received the 2015 Miller Williams Prize, he teaches creative writing at Washington & Jefferson College and lives in western Pennsylvania.
Trapeta B. Mayson is the City of Philadelphia’s current Poet Laureate. She is the author of She Was Once Herself and a chapbook, Mocha Melodies.
An Equinox Reading. John Wall Barger, Host, Open Reading Follow

2019 Featured Poets Anthology Reading
2020-03-08 13:00 | The Free Library of Philadelphia, 1901 Vine Street, 1901 Vine Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, United States
Moonstone Arts Center presented 85 poetry readings in 2019, including featured poets and large events with many presenting poets. All told over 500 poets read at Moonstone events, over 150 being featured. 82 poets responded to our call for the 2019 featured Poets Anthology and about 30 are expected to read at this event.
Please join us for an afternoon of poetry.

Adriann Bautista, Jamarr Hall, Elijah B. Pringle III
2020-03-04 19:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Adriann Bautista is author of “Ballad of a Beautiful Brown King”, “Sister Strength” and “Sanctuary of Snow” and is also in various anthologies.
Jamarr Hall is an International Poetry Slam Champion of Brave New Voices and he is a singer, composer as well as an accomplished painter.
Elijah B Pringle III is a Philadelphia based writer/director/actor/choreographer whose words have been published on every continent except for South American and Antarctica. He has recently completed his first full length play and his most recent publication is Lamda Lancer a collection of LGBT inspired poetry

PhillyCAM: Irish Poetry
2020-03-03 18:30 | PhillyCAM, 699 Ranstead Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19106, United States
Comcast Cable 66/966HD/967 or Verizon FIOS 29/30 in Philadelphia.
Philly Loves Poetry Interview and Readings Series on PhillyCAM
After Boston, Philly and its immediate suburbs have the largest concentration of Irish Americans. The Irish take great pride in their rich culture of literature and poetry—claiming some of the greatest poets and writers in the world including Yeats, Heaney, Joyce, Becket, Boland and Muldoon to name a few. This program will explore Irish poetry from the perspective of America and Ireland.

Sean Lynch’s poems have been published in various journals and he is the author of four chapbooks, he’s the Managing Editor of Thirty West Publishing House and hosts poetry readings for Moonstone Arts Center.

Bernadette McBride serves as poetry editor for the Schuylkill Valley Journal and is author of four poetry collections, she is an adjunct English professor as well as a presenter of community writing workshops and programs.

Charles S. Carr, Host

"The Child I Was" with Martin Jude Farawell
2020-02-26 19:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Poet and playwright Martin Jude Farawell is the author of Odd Boy and Genesis: A Sequence of Poems.” His work has appeared in a wide range of journals and anthologies, and his plays have been performed off-off-Broadway and by regional, college and community theaters from South Africa to Los Angeles. He directs the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival.
Ona Gritz’s poetry collection Geode was a finalist for the 2013 Main Street Rag Poetry Book Award. Together with her husband Daniel Simpson, she is co-author of Border Songs: A Conversation in Poems and co-editor of More Challenges For the Delusional. Ona’s poems have appeared in Ploughshares, Catamaran Literary Reader, Bellevue Literary Review, Seneca Review, and elsewhere.
Alina Macneal & Jennifer Hook, Hosts, Open Reading Follows

On Toni: She Was A Friend of My Mind
2020-02-23 13:00 - 15:30 | African American Museum, 701 Arch Sreet, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Tickets to this event are SOLD OUT.
Event Overview
The African American Museum in Philadelphia, alongside the Moonstone Arts Center and the Scribe Video Center, is hosting a three-part event in tribute to the award-winning novelist and poet who brought forth the prominent issues on race and identity into the american literary mainstream. The event will first begin with a showing of “The Foreigner’s Home” which then moving onto a conversation between Sonia Sanchez and Louis Massiah. The event ends with a reading of Moonstone’s newest anthology, “Remembering Toni Morrison,” which focuses read by various collaborators of the chapbook.
Toni Morrison was a novelist, essayist, children’s writer, and an English professor. Song of Solomon won the National Book Critics Circle Award and Beloved won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. In 1993, she received the Nobel Prize in Literature, making her the first woman of African descent to win the prize.
“We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.”

The Foreigner’s Home explores Toni Morrison’s artistic and intellectual vision through “The Foreigner’s Home,” her 2006 exhibition at the Louvre Museum in Paris. Through exclusive footage we observe Morrison in dialogue with artists, most prominently, writer Edwidge Danticat, as the discussion of “foreignness” extends beyond the urgent questions of migration in the Americas, Europe, and in the Middle East, and explores art’s crucial role in comprehending the human problems that surround such questions. The film features extensive archival still and motion pictures of American and international topics and events basic to Morrison’s vision—from slavery to the blues, from Hurricane Katrina to the current migration crisis in the Middle East and Europe.

Speakers:
Sonia Sanchez is a poet, activist, scholar; the Laura Carnell Professor of English and Women’s Studies at Temple University; recipient of both the Robert Frost Medal for distinguished lifetime service to American poetry and Langston Hughes Poetry Award; one of the most important writers of the Black Arts Movement; the author of sixteen books including Like the Singing Coming off the Drums, Does Your House Have Lions?, Wounded in the House of a Friend, and Shake Loose My Skin.
Louis Massiah is an independent filmmaker who explores historical and political subjects. Massiah is a graduate of Cornell University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, receiving a degree in documentary film-maker. His producing and directing credits include Trash (1985), Louise Alone Thompson Patterson: In Her Own Words (2002), and more. He also produced two films for the PBS series, Eyes on the Prize II (1990). In addition to his film work, Massiah founded the Scribe Video Center, a West Philadelphia-based media arts organization that provides training and equipment access to emerging filmmakers and community organizations.

Remembering Toni Morrison is an anthology published by Moonstone Arts Center in remembrance of her life and legacy to overcoming adversity and raising awareness for issues and cultures mainstream media had once ignored. A collection of poetry written by poets and authors all around the nation, Remembering Toni Morrison is a testament to her reach and sheer presence as both a writer and public figure for black literature.
The Book will be available for sale during the event for $10.

Blanche Brown & Terra Oliveira
2020-02-19 19:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Blanche Brown operates a crisis hotline and collaborates with arts and community-based organizations. She is the 2019 winner of the Diagram/New Michigan Press chapbook contest. Her writing has appeared in West Branch, Scalawag, Indy Weekly, Welter, and elsewhere.
Terra Oliveira is an after-school program facilitator at the Free Library, an organizer for the Party for Socialism and Liberation, and the founder and editor of Recenter Press. Their work has been featured in Prolit Magazine, Hooligan Magazine, and others.

Ryan Eckes, Host, Open Reading Follows

Poetry And Music
2020-02-12 19:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Peter Baroth, an award-winning poet and visual artist, is also a bassist who, along with his band the Party Crashers, has had the original song “Roy Head” streamed on Sirius XM Satellite Radio’s Goldie’s Garage.
Elliott Levin is a Philadelphia jazz legend plays the saxophone and the flute and he’s also an abstract poet and often combines poetry and music during his performances.
Joe Roarty is a poet who moves his work along a steady line of the hand drum he often uses to accentuate, drive, and punctuate his readings.

Larry Robin, Host, Open Reading Follows

Interview and Reading
2020-02-05 19:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Chidi E. O. Ezeobi, author of Remind the World, was born in Nigeria and migrated to the United States in 1996. Chidi Ezeobi was recently released after serving 11 years in prison. He resides in Newark New Jersey while working on his second book
Sean Lynch, Host, Open Reading Follows

PhillyCAM - Generations of Poetry
2020-02-04 18:30 | PhillyCAM, 699 Ranstead Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19106, United States
Philly Loves Poetry Interview and Readings Series on PhillyCAM
There are there are over 50 organizations that promote poetry in the Philadelphia area. They represent every poetry form, ethnic background, age, gender and community. This series consists of a panel of guest poets and artists discussing the opportunities which their group or organization provides for poets in Philly as well as the themes that influence them.
The program is broadcast live on the first Tuesday of each month. The program is free and open to everyone. Please join us.

Octavia McBride-Ahebee ‘s work presents human relationships within the context of global inequality. She is author of Assuming Voices, Where My Birthmark Dances and Praise Song for the Gravediggers. Her work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies including Rigorous, For Harriet, Raising Lilly Ledbetter; Women Poets Occupy the Workplace.

Sojourner Ahebee was born in Cote d’Ivoire to an American mother and Ivoirien father, Sojourner Ahebee writes stories about African diaspora identities and the eternal question of home and belonging. She served as a National Student Poet, the nation’s highest honor for young poets presenting original work and was invited to the White House by former First Lady, Michelle Obama, to garner her award.

Charles S. Carr, Host

Poetry From The Hosts of Other Series
2020-01-29 19:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Leah Falk is the author of To Look After and Use. Her poems and essays have appeared in The Kenyon Review, FIELD, Best New Poets, Poetry Daily, Electric Literature, and Los Angeles Review of Books, and have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. She’s received support for her writing from Sundress Academy for the Arts, the Yiddish Book Center, the Vermont Studio Center, Asylum Arts, and the Helen Zell Writers Program at the University of Michigan. She lives in Philadelphia and directs programs at the Writers House at Rutgers University-Camden

Leonard Gontarek coordinates Peace/Works, Poetry In Common, Philly Poetry Day, hosts The Green Line Reading & Interview Series, is Poetry Consultant for Whitman at 200: Art and Democracy and contributing editor for The American Poetry Review.

Joanne Leva is an advocate for creative writing and community service, founder and Executive Director of the Montgomery County Poet Laureate Program (MCPL), Executive Director of Caesura Poetry Festival & Retreat, Host of First Thursday Poetry Reading Series at Farley’s Bookshop in New Hope.

Jim Mancinelli is the founder/moderator of the Moveable Beats Reading Series in Philadelphia. He has published two chapbooks, Primer, and In Deep. His most recent work is entitled The Bartimeus Poems for which he also did the drawings. His poems have appeared in The Connecticut River Review, Philadelphia Poets, The Schuylkill Valley Journal of the Arts, Sea Change, Mad Poets Review, Fox Chase Review, and issues of Poetry Ink, an anthology of Philadelphia poets. He has been a featured reader on Live from Kelly Writer’s House. He was a finalist in the Atlanta Queer Literary Festival, judged by Mark Doty, in 2011.

Michael Miller is a Chester, PA native who served eight years in the Marine Corps and seven years in the Army. After a tour in Afghanistan he was honorably discharged and opened his own business in his hometown. A poet himself, he wanted to focus on his diverse community and create change through the arts. Open Mike’s Internet Café showcased various art forms. Mike has performed around Philadelphia and new Jersey and at the Dodge Poetry Festival.

Larry Robin, Host, Open Reading Follows

Displacement - Sham-e-Ali Nayeem, Faleeha Hassan
2020-01-22 19:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Sham-e-Ali Nayeem is an Indian American poet and artist of Hyderabadi descent. She is the author of City of Pearls and the recipient of the Loft Literary Center’s Spoken Word Immersion Fellowship.

Faleeha Hassan is a poet, teacher, editor, writer, playwriter born in Najaf, Iraq who has published 24 books. Her poems have been translated into English, Turkmen, Bosevih, Indian, French, Italian, German, Kurdish, Spain, Korean, Greek, Serbia, Albanian, Pakistani, Malayalam and ODIA language.

Alina Macneal & Jennifer Hook, Hosts, Open Reading Follows

OPEN READING OF New Voices 2: Philadelphia's Emerging Poets
2020-01-19 14:00 | Shakespeare and Co., 1632 Walnut St., Philadelphia, PA, 19103, United States
Spencer Nitkey poems and prose have appeared in Short Editions, The Gateway Review, Critical Read, and more. He is an Educator, Communicator, Writer, Researcher, and Storyteller.

Doris Zheku is a first generation Albanian-American, who moved to France, was active in Paris’ anglophone open mic scene and returned to Philadelphia. She is an active member of the Green Street Poetry Workshop.

Krisann, Host, Open Reading Follows

PassThePen Fundraiser Deadline
2020-01-17 | PA
The Moonstone Arts Center is attempting to raise a $10,000 scholarship fund. Aptly named “Pass The Pen,” This scholarship fund aims to give two high-school junior/senior students to go to a writing workshop of their choice. This allows further encouragement of growth as both a writer and a person through gaining experience in writing and creating connections in places outside of their comfort zone.
We ask of those who are not eligible to apply for the scholarship to take this opportunity to donate to the fund—to Pass the Pen into the hands of eager, young writers who wish to further their creative passions. The best way to make a difference is to get involved in your community—so join Moonstone in giving back to the future of Philadelphia’s poetry scene.
If you want to donate for Moonstone’s Pass The Pen Scholarship Fund, click here.
Those hoping to apply for this scholarship will be able to do so by following the instructions given soon after the fundraiser event ends.

John Wall Barger & Ernest Hilbert
2020-01-16 18:30 | Shakespeare and Co., 1632 Walnut St., Philadelphia, PA, 19103, United States
John Wall Barger is the author of The Mean Game, The Book of Festus, Hummingbird and Pain-proof Men, Dying in Dharamsala, Samovar / Dukkha, and The Vnfortunate Report & Tragicall Tidings of Leslie Barger. Barger has been shortlisted for the Montreal Poetry Prize twice, has appeared in Best Canadian Poetry and Best of the Best Canadian Poetry, and was a finalist for Arc’s Poem of the Year Contest.
Ernest Hilbert is the author of Sixty Sonnets, All of You on the Good Earth, Caligulan, and Last One Out. His poem “Mars Ultor” appeared in Best American Poetry 2018.
Larry Robin, Host, Open Reading Follows

Poetry And Humor
2020-01-15 19:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Herman Beavers is Professor of English and Africana Studies at the U of P, where he teaches courses in African American literature and Creative Writing. He is the author of two scholarly monographs: Wrestling Angels into Song: The Fictions of Ernest J. Gaines and James A. McPherson and Geography and the Political Imaginary in the Novels of Toni Morrison and poetry chapbooks, A Neighborhood of Feeling, Obsidian Blues, and The Vernell Poems.
Julia López is a multi-disciplinary artist and educator who believes in the power of the arts and arts education to effect Social Change and Justice. Julia’s work is informed and propelled by Art Making. She has performed and exhibited her original works in diverse spaces throughout the United States, Mexico, Cuba, Central America and Spain and is presently at Mural Arts Philadelphia.
Don Riggs will have turned 67 by the time of this reading. He has taught English at Drexel University since fall 1997. He doesn’t mean to write funny poems, but they turn out that way when he reads them, so don’t feel bad about your reaction.
Aaren Yeatts Perry, Host, Open Reading Follows

Poetry From The Moonstone Hosts
2020-01-08 19:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Charles S. Carr is author of paradise, pennsylvania, and Haitian Mudpies & Other Poems. He has worked in social and community development services for 45 years. Charles was The Mad Poets Review First Prize Winner for his poem “Waiting To Come North”. Charles was the host of the Moonstone Poetry series at Fergie’s Pub and is now host of Philly Loves Poetry a monthly broadcast on Philly Cam.

Ryan Eckes‘ narrative-driven poetry is “a possible form of history,” a way to document the voices and conditions of urban life. His book, Old News, weaves newspaper articles from the 1920s with his neighbors’ personal accounts of life in South Philadelphia, Valu-Plus continues his examination of Philadelphia, as he imaginatively makes use of corporate language, workplace correspondence, and other non-poetic texts, “in search of free expression and experience,”

Jennifer Hook came to Philadelphia for the grit. Following the death of her husband of thirty-five years, she chose poetry as an entry into the territory of loss and self-reinvention. She is the author of This is How He Left Me and co-host of Moonstone’s fourth Wednesday at Fergie’s. She has read at 100,000 Poets for Change, Poetic Feats of Strength, The Osage Poets, Philadelphia Poetry Day, and Why Are They Called The Poetry Liberation Front?.

Krisann Janowitz has always had a passion for poetry and words (since elementary school– if you count all the song lyrics about bubblegum). Among others, her poems have been published by streetcake magazine, The Avenue, and Z Publishing. Along with her chapbook Home(less): A Sampling of Poems on Home & Homelessness published by Moonstone Press, Krisann is honored to be the host of Moonstone’s New Voices.

Sean Lynch is a leftist poet and editor who lives in South Philly. His poems have been published in various journals and he is the author of four chapbooks, the latest being On Violence, published in 2019 by Radical Paper Press. On Violence is a diverse assortment of poems that explore the dichotomy between the oppressive violence of the state versus violence that frees oneself from oppression.

Alina Macneal is a Philadelphia-based educator/writer/poet/translator/architect and co-host of the Fourth Wednesday Moonstone poetry series at Fergie’s. Her poems have appeared in Apiary, Poems for the Writing, The World to Come, and Poetry 24. In 2015 she was a finalist for the Raynes poetry prize. Since the last presidential election Alina has been translating the 1930’s political poems of the Polish poet, Julian Tuwim.

Aaren Perry is an invited poet at schools, colleges and conferences. Along with his three collections of poetry, his work has appeared in magazines, newspapers, on NPR and TV broadcasts. Bilingual, he has performed his work with musicians, visual artists and dancers at venues from the Fringe, Kimmel, World Café, the top of the Ben Franklin Bridge and the Painted Bride to the Nuyorican Cafe and Bowery Poetry Club.

Larry Robin, Host, Open Reading Follows

PhillyCAM - Generations of Poetry
2020-01-07 18:30 | PhillyCAM, 699 Ranstead Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19106, United States
Comcast Cable 66/966HD/967 or Verizon FIOS 29/30 in Philadelphia.
Philly Loves Poetry Interview and Readings Series on PhillyCAM
There are there are over 50 organizations that promote poetry in the Philadelphia area. They represent every poetry form, ethnic background, age, gender and community. This series consists of a panel of guest poets and artists discussing the opportunities which their group or organization provides for poets in Philly as well as the themes that influence them. The program is broadcast live on the first Tuesday of each month. The program is free and open to everyone. Please join us.

Leonard Gontarek coordinates Peace/Works, Poetry In Common, Philly Poetry Day, hosts The Green Line Reading & Interview Series, is Poetry Consultant for Whitman at 200: Art and Democracy and contributing editor for The American Poetry Review. He is the author of six books of poems, has twice received poetry fellowships from the PCA and conducts poetry workshops.

Max Gontarek is a poet from Philadelphia. He is a graduate of Johns Hopkins University’s Writing Seminars program and is currently an MFA candidate at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. In addition to writing poetry, he makes music under various pseudonyms, including Sally Port, Hoist Point, and A Clip in the Lughole.

Charles S. Carr, Host, Open Reading Follows

Painter as Poet, Poet as Painter
2019-12-17 18:30 | PhillyCAM, 699 Ranstead Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19106, United States
2019 Philly Loves Poetry Interview and Readings Series at PhillyCAM.
Comcast Cable 66/966HD/967 or Verizon FIOS 29/30 in Philadelphia.
The program is broadcast live on the first Tuesday of each month. The program is free and open to everyone. Please join us.

Catherine Bancroft, artist and writer, has shown at Muse Gallery, Third Street Gallery, Off the Wall Gallery, The Sketch Club, The Main Line Art Center, among other places. and has read her poetry at Green Line Café, the Philadelphia Poetry Festival, the Last Word Bookshop, and other venues.

Peter Baroth, writer, visual artist, musician, and staff member of Philadelphia Stories Magazine, his work has appeared in journals such as Mad Poets Review, Apiary, and Philadelphia Poets. His paintings have appeared in such venues as the Imperfect Gallery and the Wayne Art Center. He is also bass player and co-songwriter for the band the Party Crashers.

Deborah Fries is a poet and non-fiction writer whose work reflects her interest in environmental, medical and social issues. She is the author of two books of poetry published, has been the recipient of numerous poetry awards, including the Kore Press First Book Award, Sandy Crimmins Poetry Prize, Montgomery County Poet.

Amanda Auerbach, Adrienne Raphael, Bridget Talone
2019-12-15 14:00 | Shakespeare and Co., 1632 Walnut St., Philadelphia, PA, 19103, United States
Amanda Auerbach is author of What Need Have We For Such as We, her poems have appeared in the Paris Review, Kenyon Review, and other journals. In What Need Have We For Such as We, the speaker quickly transitions from being a lyrical poet to being a person infected by a poetic voice that, like a virus or a machine or a social script, has a startling and terrifying life of its own.
Adrienne Raphel is the author of What Was It For and But What Will We Do. She has written for The New Yorker online, The Paris Review Daily, The Poetry Foundation, Public Books among other publications. Adrienne revitalizes the topsy-turvy lyric and its evergreen sagacity.
Bridget Talone is the author of The Soft Life and two chapbooks. She is the recipient of a Artist Fellowship in Poetry from the New York Foundation for the Arts. Talone creates a reading of the feminist subject that is both a product of this world and an agent of its dislocation.
Books Will Be Available for Purchase.
Larry Robin, Host

Moonstone Press: Mass Chapbook Releases
2019-12-11 19:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Hail to the Symptom
Gloria Heffernan is the author of the poetry collection, What the Gratitude List Said to the Bucket List (forthcoming from New York Quarterly Books), and the chapbook, Some of Our Parts, (Finishing Line Press, 2018), and Hail to the Symptom. Her work has appeared in over fifty journals including Chautauqua Literary Journal, Stone Canoe, Columbia Review, and The Healing Muse. She teaches at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, NY and holds an M.A. from New York University.

Here I Am Standing This Woman, This Me
Jerri Ketcham McDermott earned a Bachelor of Arts at Syracuse University and a Master’s at SUNY Albany. She is a former English teacher who later worked in environmental and scholarly publishing. She began writing at the age of twelve, with pieces in school and college literary magazines, and has continued writing ever since—fiction, nonfiction, family history, educational materials, and articles for special interest publications. She worked in Manhattan for several years and loves the city, but she was raised in upstate New York and traveled in many countries, as the daughter of a foreign language professor who loved to spend summers on the road. These experiences have given her a broad base of reference for personal reflections on the world and her connections with it. She posts new work on her Facebook website Jerri Ketcham McDermott, Poet.

Makers and Keepers
Gail Mitchell received her MFA in Poetry from Drew University in 2017. This is her second book of poems. Her first book, Learning English the Cultural Way, was written after receiving her Masters in T.E.S.O.L. from West Chester University. Gail is a master quilt maker, poet, and a retired public school educator. She and her husband live in central New Jersey.

Changing Conversations
Esther Schnur-Berlot was born and raised on the Lower East Side in New York City. Before finding her way to poetry, she worked behind the scenes in TV Commercials and owned Esther Street, a Jewish Soul Food Restaurant Gallery in New York’s Soho district. Then on to California, she designed whimsical, wearable art that sold in Sonoma, Palm Springs and Tucson Galleries. Now living in Arizona she devotes her time to writing poetry. Her chapbook memoir, Changing Conversation, is filled with love, pain, tenderness, rancor, joy and grief of past voices that live in her ear. Her poetry has appeared in California Poetry Review, Sonoma Poets Collection, Desert Voices, The Blue Guitar Magazine, Unstrung and Voices of Israel on line and in Poetica Magazine.

Over/Time
Jonathon Todd is a poet and musician, living in South Philadelphia. His work deals with observations mainly written between breaks, trying to find humanity outside of and within labor. His work has been featured in Philadelphia Stories, The Lower East Side Review, and Shakefist Magazine among others.

The Dresden Zoo
Robert Zaller is Drexel Distinguished University Professor of History Emeritus. He is the author of six books and chapbooks of poetry: The Year One; Lives of the Poet; Invisible Music, For Empedocles, Islands, and, with Moonstone Press, Speaking to Power.

Frolic and Detour - Book Release
2019-12-04 19:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
A new collection from the Pulitzer Prize winning poet.
Though Frolic and Detour is Paul Muldoon’s thirteenth collection, it shows all the energy and ambition we might generally associate with a first book. Here, the poet brings his characteristic humor and humanity to the chickadee, the house wren, the deaths of Leonard Cohen and C. K. Williams, the Irish Rising, the Great War, and how “a streak of ragwort / may yet shine / as an off-the-record / remark becomes the party line.”
Sean Lynch, Host, Open Reading Follows

A Conversation Between Theodore Harris and Warren Longmire
2019-11-24 16:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Theodore A. Harris is a collagist, poet, and has co-authored books with Amiri Baraka, Our Flesh of Flames, and Malcolm X as Ideology, with Fred Moten, i ran from it and was still in it and TRIPTYCH: Text by Amiri Baraka and Jack Hirschman. Our Flesh of Flames “Posed against an eerily iridescent orange sky,” and Harris’ collaged landscapes are filled with urban dystopia. Upside down capitols, distorted bank notes pose the reality of a society fettered by the cash nexus. Controversial critic and poet Amiri Baraka provides lyrical assault through his captions with his trademark humor and biting social commentary.

Warren C. Longmire is a Philly native, expert level whistler, pushcart nominee, former poetry editor at Apiary Magazine. He’s been published in Painted Bride Quarterly, Eleven Eleven and is author of Ripped Winters and Do.Until.True.

This book will be available for purchase during the event.
Larry Robin, Host – Open Reading Follows

Cynthia Dewi Oka and Eleanor Wilner
2019-11-20 19:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Cynthia Dewi Oka is the author of Salvage: Poems and Nomad of Salt and Hard Water. Her work has appeared in ESPNW, Hyperallergic, Guernica, Scoundrel Time, Academy of American Poets, American Poetry Review, Kenyon Review, The Massachusetts Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, and elsewhere.

Eleanor Wilner will be reading from her new collection, Before Our Eyes: New and Selected Poems. She received the 2019 Frost Medal for distinguished lifetime achievement from the Poetry Society of America; her poems appear in more than fifty anthologies. Books will be available for purchase.
Larry Robin, host. Open Reading follows
