Wednesday May 6, 2026 - 7pm – LIVE
2026-05-06 19:00 - 21:00 (America/New_York) | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Wednesday May 6, 2026 – 7pm – LIVE at Fergie’s Pub
Featuring: Dilruba (Ruba) Ahmed, Barbara Siegel Carlson, Raina J. León, ariel rosé
Dilruba (Ruba) Ahmed is the author of Bring Now the Angels (Pitt Poetry), with poems featured in New York Times Magazine, The Slowdown, and Poetry Unbound. Her poems have appeared in Kenyon Review, New England Review, Ploughshares, and Virginia Quarterly Review. Her work has also been anthologized in Best American Poetry; Halal If You Hear Me; New Moons: Contemporary Writing by North American Muslims; They Rise Like A Wave: An Anthology of Asian American Women Poets; and elsewhere.
Barbara Siegel Carlson is the author of four books of poetry, most recently Current published by Lily Poetry Review Books, 2026. Her poetry and translations have appeared in Verse Daily, Cortland Review, Mid-American Review, Salamander, 2River, The Poetry Porch and others. Her poems have been nominated for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize. Carlson is a Poetry in Translation Editor of Solstice: A Magazine of Diverse Voices.
Raina J. León, PhD, 2026-2027 Philadelphia Poet Laureate, is a Black, Afro-Boricua poet, writer, and educator from southwest Philadelphia (Lenni Lenape ancestral lands). Her work is grounded in collective action and community engagement, centering storytelling, memory, and the liberatory practice of humanizing education across poetry, visual art, and archival practice. She is the author of black god mother this body, Canticle of Idols, Boogeyman Dawn, sombra : (dis)locate, and several chapbooks, and is the founding editor of The Acentos Review, an international journal dedicated to the promotion and publication of Latinx arts.
ariel rosé is a trans gender / androgynous / queer poet, essayist, and illustrator originally from Poland, resident of Norway, a nomad. Ariel is coming to the United States to read from Both Sides Face East. Durable Words, that they edited: well as their latest poetry collection, morze nocą jest mięśniem serca (the sea at night is a muscle of the heart) nominated for the Orfeusz Award, and Północ. They were for the Most Beautiful Book Award for their illustrations for Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz’s Kocia Książka (Cat Book).

Tuesday May 12 - PhillyCAM - Philly Loves Poetry
2026-05-12 18:30 - 19:30 | PA
Tuesday May 12, 2026 @ 6:30pm – LIVE BROADCAST
Moonstone Poetry @ PhillyCAM
Can be viewed on the Phillycam website
Or Cable 66/966HD/967 or Verizon FIOS, 29/30
In Philadelphia.
Philly Loves Poetry Interview and Readings Series
Sean Hanrahan (he, him, his) is a Philadelphian poet originally hailing from Dale City, Virginia. He is the author of Headless (Collapse Press), the full-length collections Safer Behind Popcorn (2019 Cajun Mutt) and Ghost Signs (2023 Alien Buddha), and the chapbooks Hardened Eyes on the Scan (2018 Moonstone) and Gay Cake (2020 Toho). His work has also been included in various anthologies and journals. He has taught classes titled A Chapbook in 49 Days, Ekphrastic Poetry, Poetry Embodied, and has hosted and read at poetry events throughout Philadelphia. He can be found on Instagram as gaycakepoet. Sean Hanrahan, author of Headless, Safer Behind Popcorn and Ghost Signs, Hardened Eyes on the Scan and Gay Cake. His work has also been included in various anthologies and journals..
Charles S. Carr, Host

Wednesday May 13, 2026 - LIVE @ 7pm
2026-05-13 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Wednesday May 13, 2026 – 7pm
Live at Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom
Convergence: Poetry on Environmental Impacts of War
Convergence: Poetry on Environmental Impacts of War offers a groundbreaking and vital perspective on war’s destruction of the natural world—the creatures, plants, soil, water, and atmosphere of Earth. In poems and contextual comments, 61 contemporary poets focus on military damages to the ecosystems on six continents and the moon. This compelling anthology alerts readers to environmental degradation of our planet while affirming nature’s resilience and regeneration.
Contributors: Ninety poems, each paired with an Author’s Note, by U. S. and international poets, including John Balaban, Gillian Clarke, Camille T. Dungy, Ferida Duraković, W.D. Ehrhart, Willian Heyen, Cynthia Hogue, Denise Low, Craig Santos Perez, Eric Paul Shaffer, Jillian Sullivan, Brian Turner, Pamela Uschuk, and Mai Der Vang.
“Bringing light to a dark place, these geographically and historically wide-reaching poems illuminate how war pulls, from under our feet, the earth on which we stand and pollutes even the air we breathe. Convergence: Poetry on Environmental Impacts of War is unique in its scope and its focus on how war’s intolerable human cost is inseparable from the devastation of nature and its non-human animals—war against life itself. Though, like green shoots from a charred root, here, too, are poems of eloquent witness to nature’s humbling power of resilience and restoration.” —Eleanor Wilner – Chancellor, Academy of American Poets

C. Todd, co-editor of Convergence: Poetry on the Environmental Impacts of War. Her most recent books are Beyond Repair and the bilingual English–Lithuanian What Kept Me Awake? / Kas neleido užmigti?. A former Pew Fellow, she has poems in American Poetry Review, The Paris Review, Pedestal.

D. Ehrhart is a Marine Corps veteran of both the American War in Vietnam and Vietnam Veterans Against the War. His most recent books are Smart Fish Don’t Bite and Getting Shot At: Essays on War, Conflict, and Culture Clash.
Vernita Hall, author of Where William Walked: Poems About Philadelphia and Its People of Color. Poems have appeared in Poetry, American Poetry Review, African American Review, Barrow Street, and elsewhere.
Rick Kearns is a writer of Puerto Rican and European heritage. His poems have appeared in over 70 publications and six anthologies in the US and Argentina. He was Poet Laureate of Harrisburg. Rick and the Con Alma Quartet blended his poetry with established jazz tunes. A freelance journalist for over 35 years, he writes mostly about Latin American and Indigenous issues.
MaryAnn L. Miller is a poet, printmaker, and book artist. Miller has been thrice nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her work has appeared in the anthologies Illness as a Form of Existence, Welcome to the Resistance, and Stained.
Michelle Servellon is a Salvadoran-American writer and graduate of Stockton University. She lives in South Jersey with her family—whose joy, grief, and anger often become the subject of her pieces. She now dedicates her time at the Long Branch Free Public Library working as a Technology Assistant.

Live Reading: Featured Poets 2025
2026-05-16 14:00 - 16:00 | The Free Library of Philadelphia, 1901 Vine Street, 1901 Vine Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, United States
Saturday, May 16 2026 – 2pm ET
Philadelphia Central Library, Literature Department – 1901 Vine Street
Featured Poets from 2025
Moonstone presents over 100 poetry readings a year, creates a book with some of the presenters poems, and has a live and virtual reading. This is it.
Featured Poets (not all poets will be reading):

Nathalie
Anderson

Peter
Baroth

Grace
Bauer

Nilufer
Bektas

Phoebe
Brown

Christopher
Brown

Sarah
Browning

Sydney
Coffin

Marion
Cohen

Robert
Coles

C.M.
Crockford

CRAIG
CZURY

Eileen
D’Angelo

Bill
Ehrhart

Shannon
Frost Greenstein

Thalia
Geiger

Jenny
Grassl

Julia
Gwiazdowski

Brian
Harper

Faleeha
Hassan

Alison
Hicks

Dennis
Hinrichsen

Ditta Baron
Hoeber

Jones
Irwin

Mackenzie
Lerario

Lynn
Levin

Cameron
MacKenzie

Marjorie
Maddox

Emiliano
Martin

MJ
McGinn

Carol
Metellus

David
Milley

Jane Edna
Mohler

Nader
Rahimi

Sultana
Raza

Don
Riggs

Lynda Gene
Rymond

Amy
Small-McKinney

Karamo Muchuri
Sulieman

Mark
Svenvold

Tara
Tamburello

Elaine
Terranova

Bill
Van Buskirk

BJ
Ward

Bernardine
Watson

Von
Wise

Alexis
Young

Robert
Zaller

Wednesday May 20, 2026 @7pm - LIVE
2026-05-20 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Wednesday May 20, 2026 @7pm – LIVE at Fergie’s
Featuring: Chris Darrah, Olga Livshin, David Milley, Elijah B Pringle, III, and Sean Hanrahan as Host
Chris Darrah – Unwashed heathen wordsmith. Published several times in area zines. Member of the New Hope Beats. “Heretic Vicar” nome de plume.
Olga Livshin grew up in Ukraine and Russia. Her poetry appears in POETRY, The New York Times, Ploughshares and other journals.
David Milley’s recent work appears in 3rd Wednesdya, Bay Windows, RFD Magazine, Neologism Poetry Journal, and Last Syllable. His collection of poems, Tiller and Shears, will appear under the Aldrich Press imprint in fall 2026.
Elijah B Pringle, III has to credit his experience in Radio, TV, Stage and FIlm, has worked as a dancer, choreographer, actor, director, and vocalist. Facilitator for writing and Performance, Mr. Pringle has been published in almost fifty anthologies, journals, and books.
Sean Hanrahan Host – Open Reading Follows
