Moonstone Arts Center

Moonstone Poetry @ Toast Cafe, 1201 Spruce Street, Wednesday February 21st, 2018 - 7pm
2018-02-21 19:00 (America/New_York)
Romance, with Courtney K. Bambrick. She is poetry editor of Philadelphia Stories and her work has appeared in print or online in Apiary, Certain Circuits, Dirty Napkin, Philadelphia Poets, Mad Poets Review, and Schuylkill Valley Journal. Courtney has taught composition, creative writing, and literature at a number of colleges and universities in the Philadelphia area.

Peter Baroth is a writer, visual artist, musician, and sometimes editor. He’s recently published his first full-length book of poetry, Lost Autographs, with Moonstone Press. His poetry, short stories, and artwork have appeared in a variety of print and online journals including Philadelphia Poets, Mad Poets Review, Apiary, Schuylkill Valley Journal, and elsewhere.

An open mic will follow the featured readers. The event is free and 21+.
Host: Suzan Jivan

Moonstone Poetry @ Fergie's Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Wednesday February 14th, 2018 - 7pm
2018-02-14 19:00
Savannah Cooper-Ramsey is a poet and a member of Philly’s Art Dept Collective. Her conceptual chapbook projects, Not Fit For Print: Forthcoming Titles and The Self and Other Jokes, will be released by Waterhouse Ltd Press in Spring 2018. Her poems have appeared in Whirlwind Magazine, the 2017 Moonstone Anthology, and elsewhere. She is a doctoral candidate at Columbia University and teaches at Drexel.

Lynn Hoffmn is a master of moments, stacking them together like photographs to make a coherent statement about the need for sex and love to cohere. He writes, “Sometimes the lack is half the joy.” He’s a lyrical poet, creating music through the repetition of lines. The language has a rock and roll bounce; I see him as a modern Yeats, taking on the discordance of love and sex, transforming them into poetry that remains breath-taking and heart-wrenching. —Hal Sirowitz, Author of Mother Said, Former Poet Laureate of Queens, Winner of the Nebraska Book Award.
An open mic will follow the featured readers. The event is free and 21+.
Host: Dave Worrel

Moonstone Poetry @ Fergie's Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Wednesday February 7th, 2018 - 7pm
2018-02-07 19:00
Lamont B. Steptoe is a poet, activist, Vietnam Veteran, photographer and founder/publisher of Whirlwind Press. Steptoe has a clear, direct and matter-of-fact approach and his language is rich and revealing to his socio-cultural subject matter. He is the author of fourteen books of poetry, has performed his work at the Library of Congress, the National Library of Nicaragua, the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival, Shakespeare & Co. in Paris, the Knitting Factory, the Schomburg Center for Black Culture, and various colleges. An open mic will follow the featured readers. The event is free and 21+.
Host: Sean Lynch

Moonstone Poetry @ PhillyCAM, 699 Ranstead Street, Tuesday February 6th, 2018 - 6:30pm
2018-02-06 18:30
Poetry as a Home for the Homeless: Host: Charles S. Carr, Poetry from One Step Away, featuring Richard “Ram” Ramson*, Tammy Mitchell* and Joseph Albater*
There are over 50 organizations that promote poetry in the Philadelphia are. They represent every form of poetry, ethnic background, age, gender and community. This series consists of a panel of guest poets and artists discussing the opportunities 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 over Comcast Cable 66/966 HD/967 and Verizon FIOS 29/30. The program is free and open to everyone. Please join us!
One Step Away, a nonprofit organization that produces a monthly street paper, raises awareness while creating jobs for people experiencing homelessness and poverty.
“One Step Away is a fantastic organization giving real opportunities to the homeless or those on the verge of being homeless. The program gives its vendors the opportunity to earn an income with a low barrier to entry. The work is by no means easy. The vendors are on their feet all day and have to learn a surprisingly large amount about entrepreneurship–budgeting, inventory management, customer service, and business planning to name a few. One Step Away makes a real in hard working peoples’ lives as they climb out of the troubles any of us could one day face. Please consider helping to expand the program and be sure to visit your local vendors!” – Erik Hudzik, October 4, 2016
*One Step Away Vendors and poets

Moonstone Poetry @ Fergie's Pub
2018-01-31 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Continuing our Wednesday night readings at Fergie’s and sending us into the second month of 2018 will be a few familiar faces in Nathelie Anderson, Alicia Askenase, and Herman Beavers!
More details tba

No River Twice: Improvisational Poetry "ImproPo"
2018-01-28 14:00 - 17:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
A new addition to our stable of poetry events, join us for Improvisational Poetry at Fergie’s for what is certain to be a one-of-a-kind afternoon!
More details tba

Moonstone Poetry @ Fergie's Pub
2018-01-24 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Readers tba
Open mic will follow
Hosted by Jennifer Hook and Alina MacNeal

A Philadelphia Tribute to Kimmika L.H. Williams-Witherspoon
2018-01-21 14:00 - 17:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Celebrate the release of our chapbook that collects local poetry made in tribute to Kimmika L.H. Williams-Witherspoon! Contributors will read their selections from the chapbook, which will be available for sale to the public during the event.
More details tba

Moonstone Poetry @ Fergie's Pub
2018-01-17 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Jacob Russell lives in South Philly where he writes, plays barroom pool, and grows tomatoes and basil in the little strip of a garden in front of his apartment. Paul Siegell is the author of wild life rifle fire, jambandbootleg and Poemergency Room. He has contributed to American Poetry Review, Black Warrior Review, Coconut, Rattle, and many other fine journals. Paul is a copywriter by day and a senior editor at Painted Bride Quarterly by choice. An open mic will follow the featured readers. Suzan Jivan, host

Chapbook Contest Winners - Moonstone Poetry @ Fergie's Pub
2018-01-14 14:00 - 16:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
More information TBA.

Moonstone Poetry @ Fergie's Pub
2018-01-10 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States

Philly Loves Poetry: The Moonstone Chapbooks
2018-01-09 18:30 - 19:30 | PhillyCAM, 699 Ranstead Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19106, United States
The newest Moonstone poets sit down to read their poetry and discuss the context of their writings. This event is also broadcast LIVE on PhillyCAM (Comcast channel 66/966 and Verizon channel 29/30).
More details tba.

Moonstone Poetry @ Fergie's Pub
2018-01-03 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Angelo Colavira, author of Heroines, lives and writes in Philadelphia, where he hosts Oxford Coma, a nihilist poetry reading series. His work has appeared in Apiary Magazine, The Philadelphia Citizen, Mad House, and elsewhere.
Penelope Gristelfink’s first novel will be published by Propertius Press in 2017. Her poems and fiction have appeared or will appear in Loch Raven Review, The Potomac, Eclectica Magazine, Foliate Oak, and The Seattle Review.
An open mic will follow the featured readers. The event is free and 21+. Sean Lynch, host

Debs of December - Moonstone Poetry @ Toast Café
2017-12-20 19:00 - 21:00 | Toast Café, 1201 Spruce Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Deborah Burnham, author of Anna and the Steel Mill, Still and a volume ofpoetry, is the Associate Undergraduate Chair of the English Department and teaches poetry and poetry writing, with a particular interest in formal poems and in the history of women’s poetry at UPENN. Deborah Fox found her love for poetry as a result of a 5th grade homework assignment and has been writing poetry ever since. She is author of Treasures in Darkness and In the Stillness. 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 and her recent poems and essays appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer, Grit, Gravity & Grace, 0-Dark-Thirty, Philadelphia Stories, Terrain.org, Narrative Matters and Poet Lore. Debra Leigh Scott is a multi-disciplined artist – a singer, writer, playwright, documentary filmmaker as well as an activist whose work focuses largely in areas of education rights and economic justice. She is the Founding Director of Hidden River Arts and her fiction has appeared in such literary journals as The Oxford American, The Chattahoochee Review, River City, Words of Wisdom, TPQ, The Abiko Quarterly (Japan), Purnev (Portugal) and The Ashen Eye (Thailand)
An open mic will follow the featured readers, Suzan Jivan, Host.

Moonstone Poetry @ Toast Café
2017-12-13 19:00 - 21:00 | Toast Café, 1201 Spruce Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Sarah Blake is the author of two poetry collections, Let’s Not Live on Earth and Mr. West. An illustrated workbook accompanies her chapbook, Named After Death. In 2013, she was awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. Her debut novel, Naamah is forthcoming. Nomi Stone’s second collection of poems, Kill Class is forthcoming, based on two years of fieldwork she conducted within war trainings in mock Middle Eastern villages erected by the US military across America. Stone has a PhD in Anthropology, and MFA in Poetry from Warren Wilson, and teaches at Princeton University.
An open mic will follow the featured readers, Dave Worrell, host.

2017 Anthology of Featured Poets @ Fergie's Pub
2017-12-10 14:00 - 16:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Join us for an afternoon of poetry and camaraderie. The 2017 Anthology of Featured Poets includes 50 of the over 100 featured poets who read for Moonstone in 2017, many of whom will read on December 10.
A listing of the poets included in the anthology is on our website www.moonstoneartscenter.com, which includes some of the best poets reading in Philadelphia today. That makes this a terrific book to give to poetry lovers and to use in poetry classes since readers can go hear the poets as well as read their work.

Philly Loves Poet Laureates @PhillyCAM
2017-12-05 18:30 - 20:30 | PhillyCAM, 699 Ranstead Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19106, United States
2017 Philly Loves Poetry Interview and Readings Series at PhillyCAM

Sonia Sanchez, Philadelphia’s First Poet Laureate, Yolanda Wisher is the 2016-17 Poet Laureate of Philadelphia, Husnaa Hashim is the current Youth PoetLaureate, David Jones is a former Youth Poet Laureate.
Host: Charles S. Carr

Home(less) @ PhillyCAM
2017-12-01 19:00 - 21:00
Join our live studio audience for Home(less): An evening of poetry, photography and video on the themes of home and homelessness. Featuring poems by Krisann Janowitz; creative writing by One Step Away vendor and writer, Richard Ramson “Ram”; photos by Harvey Finkle; video by Karen Walker.
PhillyCAM, 699 Ranstead Street, (267) 639-5481, info@phillycam.org
Doors open at 6:30 PM.
The taping is FREE and open to the public.

Moonstone Poetry @Toast Café
2017-11-29 19:00 - 21:00 | Toast Café, 1201 Spruce Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Angel Murray-Kelly is a singer/songwriter, LGBTQ+ youth advocate, vegetarian, & local Philly youth poet. David Jones is a Philadelphia native, poet, writer, performer, Temple University student, and Youth Poet Laureate Emeritus of Philadelphia. Christian Warrick is a Philadelphia-born Maori-American poet and story writer. He’s a junior at the University of Pennsylvania, majoring in English and minoring in Education. An open mic will follow the featured readers. Alina Macneal& Jennifer Hook, hosts

Moonstone Gold @ Fergie’s Pub Presents Afaa M. Weaver Interviewed by Earnest Hilbert
2017-11-19 14:00 - 17:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Tickets $15.00, Students with ID – $7.50 – available at Square.com
In 2014, Weaver completed his Plum Flower Trilogy with the publication of his 14th collection of poetry, City of Eternal Spring. A Los Angeles Times review of the trilogy echoed previous critical evaluations of his oeuvre to date: “Compared to Whitman by the poet Michael Harper and critic Arnold Rampersad, Weaver brings in new voices and experiences to American poetry, and like Whitman he sings and celebrates himself. … poems written in the black vernacular … with their short, crisp lines, and with great attention to detail and with great compassion, take us to inner city Baltimore, to his mother’s kitchen and his grandmother’s bedside, to the basketball court, the factory, and the front stoop to show the different experiences, voices, histories that are part of his own unique development.”
In Spirit Boxing ($15.95, Pitt Poetry Series), Weaver revisits his working class core. The veteran of fifteen years as a factory worker in his native Baltimore, he mines his own experience to build a wellspring of craft in poems that extend from his life to the lives that inhabit the whole landscape of the American working class. He writes with an intimacy that is unique in American poetry, and echoes previous comparisons of his oeuvre to that of Walt Whitman. The singularity of his voice resonates here through the prism of his realization of self through a lifelong project of the integration of American and Chinese culture. The work is Daoist in influence and structure as it echoes both a harmonic realization of context and the intuitive and transcendent dance of body, mind, and spirit. Books will be available for purchase and to be autographed.

Moonstone Poetry @Toast Café, 1201 Spruce Street
2017-11-17 19:00 - 21:00 | Toast Café, 1201 Spruce Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
April Lynn James & Madison Hatta
Dr. April Lynn James, award-winning performer, scholar, and Librarian-in-Training rolls in with her muse/guardian angel Madison Hatta, Sonneteer. Madison, a Mirth-Maker Extraordinaire, composes and declaims whimsical sonnets on such themes as madness, Time, career & family dysFUNction, and the importance of drinking tea. The wordplay and imagery are drawn from daily life, from Alice in Wonderland, and from Other Sources Unknowable. Extra-Ordinary Poetic Fun!

Moonstone Poetry @Toast Café, 1201 Spruce Street
2017-11-16 19:00 - 21:00 | Toast Café, 1201 Spruce Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
John Oliver Mason, author of All of the Above
“Like every writer, I have tried to find a place to publish my material-what better motivation to write than to find some place to write for? I read an article in The Writer which had an essay about how writers should have their own e-mail newsletter; so I started one. Now, ten years later, The Mason Missile still goes on as my platform for my beliefs and causes, as well as the milestones and incidents of my life. All of the Above is a collection of my poems and of the Mason Missile.

Moonstone Poetry @ Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street
2017-11-15 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Brandon H. Blake has been an artist throughout his life, eventually studying Fine Arts at Millersville University. Primarily, he has been writing haikus as well as exploring other traditional forms of poetry throughout the last ten to fifteen years.

Poet and lyricist Beulah Gordon-Skinner has featured at the Philadelphia Fringe Festival, the Women’s Writing and Spoken Word Series, the Black Women’s Art Festival and Lady Fest Philly. Her poetry has appeared in small press poetry journals and the Chesapeake Bay Poets Anthology. An open mic will follow the featured readers.

An open mic will follow the featured readers. Suzan Jivan, host

Release Party for Home(less) @ Brandywine Workshop, 728 S Broad Street
2017-11-12 14:00 - 17:00 | Brandywine Workshop, 728 S. Broad Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19146, United States
Poetry by Krisann Janowitz, Photography by Harvey Finkle

Krisann Janowitz – “I wanted to show my readers that those we label as “bums”, “hobos”, “beggars”, etc are just people, like you and me. That is what I have experienced through befriending members of a tent city in Bucks County and that is what all too many of us forget when we walk by men and women laying on our city’s sidewalks, asking for money.”

Harvey Finkle – “In the beginning, I walked streets and eventually would end up on Skid Row, Philly’s Bowery, and meet those living on the street or 25cent a night rooming houses. It was enlightening to learn this was not a group monolithically depicted as alcoholics or disturbed individuals. Their reasons for dropping out were much more varied than our conventional wisdoms. For months, I photographed these casualties, motivated by the same feelings conveyed in these powerful poems.”

Moonstone Poetry @ Fergie’s Pub featuring Emari DiGiorgio & Raena Shirali
2017-11-08 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Emari DiGiorgio is the author of Girl Torpedo (Agape, 2018), the winner of the 2017 Numinous Orison, Luminous Origin Literary Award, and The Things a Body Might Become (Five Oaks Press, 2017). She’s the recipient of the Auburn Witness Poetry Prize, the Ellen La Forge Poetry Prize, the Elinor Benedict Poetry Prize, RHINO’s Founder’s Prize, the Woodrow Hall Top Shelf Award, and a poetry fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. She’s received residencies from the Vermont Studio Center, Sundress Academy of the Arts, and Rivendell Writers’ Colony. She teaches at Stockton University, is a Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation Poet, and hosts World Above, a monthly reading series in Atlantic City, NJ.
Indian American poet Raena Shirali is the author of GILT (YesYes Books, 2017), an experimental collection grappling with standards created by an invisible system and enforced by family, relationships, and violations of women’s rights in a reckoning of intersectional identity. She has performed at such venues as: the 92Y Unterberg Poetry Center in NYC, Boston Poetry Slam at the Cantab, Slam Free or Die, College of Charleston, & many more. As an educator & when she isn’t teaching at the college level, Shirali gives craft talks on the political weight of poetic endings, highlighting voices of color & immigrant & contemporary voices. Most recently, she was the Philip Roth Resident at Bucknell University’s Stadler Center for Poetry. Shirali now lives in Philadelphia, where she freelances as an editor & serves as a poetry reader for Muzzle Magazine.

Dave Worrell, host
An open mic will follow the featured readers. The event is free and 21+.

Moonstone Poetry @ PhillyCAM
2017-11-07 18:30 - 20:30 | PhillyCAM, 699 Ranstead Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19106, United States
2017 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.

Tuesday November 7, 2017 -6:30pm
On January 15, 2017, Alicia Askenase joined writers Stephanie Feldman and Nathaniel Popkin in curating Philadelphia’s iteration of the Pen America Writers Resist international day of readings of resistance. Writers Resist Philadelphia was a standing room only event held at the National Museum of American Jewish History. The group continues with meetings of Philadelphia area writers in their efforts to affect change and resistance through writing. WRPHL also has a Facebook page as a forum for writers, and will hold another reading in the near future. On November 7, Ms. Askenase, along with fellow poets of resistance, Ahmad Almallah, Herman Beavers, and Alina MacNeal, will continue on this path, discussing what writing and resistance mean to them and their writing practices, and read from their own work.
Alicia Askenase is an educator who has taught English and creative writing, co-organizer of Philadelphia Writers Resist, founding co-editor of the poetry journal 6ix, and Director of Literary Programs at the Walt Whitman Center in New Jersey for many years. She is the author of the chapbooks Cover, Suspect, The Luxury of Pathos, and Shirley Shirley. Her poems have appeared in literary journals and anthologies including Feminist Studies, Review Revista Inter- Americana, 5trope, sonaweb, texture, Chain, Black Mountain Review II, aerial, The World, 100 Days, and New Works by Philadelphia Poets.
Ahmad Almallah is a poet, scholar and translator of Arabic literature with a PhD in Arabic literature and teaches at the University of Pennsylvania. He grew up in Bethlehem, Palestine and moved to the U.S. when he was 18. His set of poems “Recourse,” won the 2017 Blanche Colton Williams Fellowship from Hunter College. His poems have appeared in Jacket2, Track//Four, All Roads will lead You Home, and forthcoming in Apiary, Supplement and Making Mirrors: Righting/Writing by Refugees.
Herman Beavers is Professor of English and Africana Studies at theUniversity of Pennsylvania. His most recent poems have either appeared in The Langston Hughes Colloquy, MELUS, and Versadelphia, Cleaver Magazine, The American Arts Quarterly, and Supplement. Herman is author of Obsidian Blues and Geography and the Political Imaginary in the Novels of Toni Morrison. He serves as an advisory editor for The African American Review, The Black Scholar, The Journal of Black Studies, and Modern Fiction Studies.
Alina Macneal is a Philadelphia-based educator/writer/poet/translator/and co-host of the Fourth Wednesday Moonstone poetry series at Fergie’s. Her poems have appeared in Apiary, Poems for the Writing, and The World to Come, and in 2015 she was a finalists for the Raynes poetry prize. This August two of her political poems were published in Poetry24. She has been a faculty member at Drexel University for 19 years.

Host: Charles S. Carr

Moonstone Poetry @ Fergie's Pub Presents Philadelphia Says: Not Our President
2017-11-05 14:00 - 17:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
This is a reading for our new chapbook, “Philadelphia Says: Not Our President,” which we are still accepting submissions for here, if you would like to participate.
Participants will get the opportunity to read their work at the Philadelphia Says: Not Our President event (this event) on November 5, 2017 at 2pm, two days before this year’s election.
While it is not produced in affiliation, our purpose is to celebrate the release of Not Our President, the new book from Third World Press by Haki R. Madhubuti (Editor), Lasana D. Kazembe (Editor).

Remembering Gwendolyn Brooks
2017-10-29 14:00 - 17:00 | African American Museum, 701 Arch Sreet, Philadelphia, PA, United States
African American Museum in Philadelphia, 701 Arch St, Philadelphia, PA 19106
Free with Reduced Museum Admission of $5.00
Poet, educator, and social activist Gwendolyn Brooks was a singular force in American culture. The first black woman to be named United States poet laureate, Brook’s poetry, fiction, and social commentary shed light on the beauty of humanity, the distinct qualities of black life and community, and the destructive effects of racism, sexism, and class inequality.
An informal discussion honoring Gwendolyn Brooks on her centennial with Herman Beavers, Margo Natalie Crawford, Sonia Sanchez, and Lamont Steptoe.
“But each time I read Miss Brooks, each time I revisit her poems, they climb up on my knees and sit in tight contentment. They speak to me of form and color, patterns and dawns. They talk of myths: they tell me where flesh lives, where a troop of young heroes and sheroes lean back in chairs. “beautiful. Imprudent. Ready for life’ Where the young ‘Live not for battles won. /Live not for the-end-of-the-song/Live in the along’” -Sonia Sanchez
“If a person from another planet continent or culture wishes to gain insight into the inner working, the comings and goings of black people in America, an excellent place to begin a formal or informal education is with the poetry of Gwendolyn Brooks.”-Haki R. Madubuti

HERMAN BEAVERS is Professor of English and Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, he has been teaching African American Literature and Creative Writing since 1989. His poems have appeared in Whiskey Island, Cross Connect, Black American Literature Forum (presently titled The African American Review), Dark Phrases, The Cincinnati Poetry Review, Peregrine, The Painted Bride Quarterly, Callaloo, MELUS, The Langston Hughes Colloquy, Versadelphia, Cleaver Magazine, and American Arts Quarterly, as well as the anthology, Gathering Ground: A Cave Canem Reader. His chapbook, A Neighborhood of Feeling won first prize in the Doris Press Chapbook competition. His poems have been nominated for The Best American Poetry series, The Best of the Web, and nominated three times for The Pushcart Prize in Poetry. He has been a finalist for the 42 Miles Press Poetry Award, the Kathryn A. Morton Poetry Prize, and the Lena Miles Wever Poetry Prize. Dr. Beavers has recently completed work on a chapbook of poems, The Vernell Poems an d a full length poetry manuscript. His chapbook, Obsidian Blues, is forthcoming from Agape Editions as part of its Morning House Chapbook Series.
MARGO NATALIE CRAWFORD is the author of Dilution Anxiety and the Black Phallus (Ohio State University Press, 2008) and the coeditor, with Lisa Gail Collins, of New Thoughts on the Black Arts Movement (Rutgers University Press, 2006). Her essays appear in a wide range of books and journals, including American Literature, Want to Start a Revolution?, The Cambridge Companion to American Poetry Since 1945, The Modernist Party, Callaloo, Black Camera, NKA: Journal of Contemporary African Art, Black Renaissance Noire, and James Baldwin: Go Tell It on the Mountain; Historical and Critical Essays. She is on the editorial board of the Society for Textual Scholarship, the James Baldwin Review, and the Wiley Blackwell Anthology of African American Literature. She is now completing “Black Post-Blackness: the 1960s and 70s Roots of 21st Century Black Aesthetics.” Margo has participated in programs with Gwendolyn Brooks in Chicago in the past. She was the faculty director of Cornell’s Mellon Mays Undergraduate Research program, and now works as an English professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
SONIA SANCHEZ is an African-American poet most often associated with the Black Arts Movement. She has authored over a dozen books of poetry, as well as short stories, critical essays, plays, and children’s books. She was a recipient of 1993 Pew Fellowships in the Arts, the Lucretia Mott Award for 1984, the Outstanding Arts Award from the Pennsylvania Coalition of 100 Black Women, and the Community Service Award from the National Black Caucus of State Legislators. In 2001, Sanchez was the recipient of the Robert Frost Medal for her poetry (one of the highest honors awarded to a nationally recognized poet), the Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Humanities for 1988, the Peace and Freedom Award from the Women International League for Peace and Freedom, and the Langston Hughes Poetry Award for 1999. She has lectured at over 500 universities and colleges in the United States and has traveled extensively, reading her poetry in Africa, Cuba, England, the Caribbean, Australia, Europe, Nicaragua, the People’s Republic of China, Norway, and Canada. She has been influential to other African-American female poets, including Krista Franklin.
LAMONT STEPTOE is a poet, activist, Vietnam Veteran, photographer and founder/publisher of Whirlwind Press. He is a graduate of Temple University’s School of Communications and Theater, where he majored in Radio, Television, and Film. Steptoe has a clear, direct and matter-of-fact approach to his socio-cultural subject matter and his language is rich and revealing. He is the author of fourteen books of poetry and is the editor of two collections of poems by South African poet, Dennis Brutus. He has performed his work at the Library of Congress, the National Library of Nicaragua, the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival, Shakespeare & Co. in Paris, the Knitting Factory, the Schomburg Center for Black Culture, and various colleges and universities throughout the United States. He was awarded the Life-time Achievement Award by the Kuntu Writers Workshop from the University of Pittsburgh in 2002, a Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Literary Fellowship in 1996 and has been twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Steptoe was awarded the American Book Award in 2005.

Moonstone Poetry @ Fergie’s Pub featuring Eliza Callard, Lucy Bell Sellers, and Fritz Ward
2017-10-25 19:00 - 21:00 | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Eliza Callard is a Philly gal, and still lives in the Germantown rowhouse she grew up in. She likes to run in the Wissahickon and kayak in the Schuylkill, she has been published widely. Lucy Bell Sellers lives in Germantown, taught theatre at Germantown Friends and at College of the Atlantic. She has written poetry since she was little, but never very much.
Fritz Ward is the author of Tsunami Diorama and the Doppelganged. The recipient of the Cecil Hemley Memorial Prize from the Poetry Society of America, his poetry has appeared in American Poetry Review, Best New Poets, and elsewhere. He works at Swarthmore College and lives just outside of Philadelphia. Open Reading Follows, Jennifer Hook and Alina Macneal Hosts

Moonstone Poetry @ Toast Café featuring John Amen and Amy Small-McKinney
2017-10-19 19:00 - 21:00 | Toast Café, 1201 Spruce Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
John Amen is the author of several collections of poetry, the latest of which is Illusion of an Overwhelm. strange theater was a finalist for the 2016 Brockman-Campbell Award and work from which was chosen as a finalist for the 2016 Dana Award. His poetry, fiction, reviews, and essays have appeared in journals nationally and internationally he is a Staff Reviewer for No Depression and founded and conti nues to edit The Pedestal Magazine. Amy Small-McKinney won The Kithara Book Prize 2016 for her second full-length collection of poems, Walking Toward Cranes. Small-McKinney was twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She was the 2011 Montgomery County Poet Laureate, judged by poet, Chris Bursk. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals, She facilitates poetry workshops in Philadelphia.
