Moonstone Arts Center

Virtual Poetry Reading: Queer Poetics, Gala Mukomolova, Alina Pleskova, Galina Rymbu
2020-12-20 14:00 (America/New_York) | PA
Queer Poetics
From the former Soviet Union
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83944818819?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 839 4481 8819, Passcode: [REDACTED]
Gala Mukomolova is a Moscow-born, Brooklyn-raised, poet and essayist. Her full length poetry collection, Without Protection, is available through Coffee House Press. Her chapbook, One Above One Below: Positions & Lamentations, is available with YesYes Books. She is a recipient of the 2016 Discovery Prize from 92nd St Y & Boston Review and has held residencies at Vermont Studio Center, Pink Door, and ASYLUM Arts. Gala currently writes astrology articles for NYLON Magazine , cohosts Big Dyke Energy Podcast, and is one of the creators of QueerHealers.com. She is a founder and a part of The Cheburashka Collective.
Alina Pleskova is a poet, editor, and Russian immigrant turned proud Philadelphian. Her work has been featured in American Poetry Review, Thrush, Entropy, Cosmonauts Avenue, Peach Mag, Meduza, the Poetry Project, and elsewhere. Her chapbook, What Urge Will Save Us, was published by Spooky Girlfriend Press in 2017. She is co-editor of bedfellows magazine and a 2020 Leeway Foundation Art & Change grant awardee.
Galina Rymbu was born in 1990 in the city of Omsk (Siberia, Russia) and lives in Lviv, Ukraine. She edits F-Pis’mo, an online magazine for feminist literature and theory, as well as Gryoza, a website for contemporary poetry. She is the co-founder and co-curator of the Arkadii Dragomoshchenko Prize for emerging Russian-language poets. She has published three books of poems in Russia: Moving Space of the Revolution, Time of the Earth, and Life in Space. Her essays on cinema, literature, and sexuality have appeared on Séance, Colta, Your Art, and other journals. English translations of her work have appeared in The White Review, Arc Poetry, Berlin Quarterly, Music & Literature, n+1, Asymptote, Powder Keg, and Cosmonauts Avenue, as well as in the chapbook White. Her poetry has been translated into thirteen languages and stand-alone collections of her work have been published in Latvian, Dutch, Swedish, and Romanian. Her new book, Life in Space, is translated by Joan Brooks, and includes additional material translated by Helena Kernan, Charles Bernstein and others and is a co-production with After Hours Editions, who published Rymbu’s first English-language chapbook, White Bread and Ugly Duckling Presse. “ Daring and surprising in every poem, Life in Space is the arrival of a new major poet.” Valzhyna Mort

Virtual Poetry Reading: Moonstone Poetry @ PhillyCAM, with Valerie Fox & Lynn Levin, and Charles S. Carr
2021-01-05 18:30
699 Ranstead Street,Comcast Cable 66/966HD/967 or Verizon FIOS, 29/30 in Philadelphia.

Celebrate small things, find creative inspiration in your junk drawer, give thanks (sincere or sarcastic), maybe even write an inaugural poem. Valerie Fox and Lynn Levin, both Drexel University creative writing instructors and co-authors of the acclaimed Poems for the Writing: Prompts for Poets, Second Edition, will help you power up your poetry with their signature prompts. Fox and Levin’s poetry prompts book was a finalist in Writing/Publishing in the 2020 Next Generation Indie Book Awards. Poets, student poets, teachers, and all who are looking for new ideas, inspiration, and fun should tune into this episode of Philly Loves Poetry.
Valerie Fox grew up in central Pennsylvania. She currently lives in New Jersey with her family and teaches at Drexel University in Philadelphia. Recent work can be found in New Flash Fiction Review, The Cafe Irreal, Juked, Literary Orphans, Reflex, and Cleaver. Much interested in collaboration, she has worked with artist Jacklynn Niemiec and writer Arlene Ang (Collaborative poems with Ang from Poemeleon).

Lynn Levin’s most recent poetry collection, The Minor Virtues is listed as one of Spring 2020’s best books by The Philadelphia Inquirer. Poet Ross Gay calls the book “a lovely honoring of the small, the minor sweetnesses that a life is made of.” Her previous collections include Miss Plastique, Fair Creatures of an Hour, and Imaginarium. She is the translatorof Birds on the Kiswar Tree by Odi Gonzales and co-author of Poems for the Writing: Prompts for Poets. Her poems have appeared in Boulevard, Artful Dodge, Rattle, on Garrison Keillor’s The Writer’s Almanac, and other places.
Charles S. Carr, Host

Virtual Poetry Reading: Peter Baroth, Bob McNeil, Pheralyn Dove, with Larry Robin
2021-01-06 19:00
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84308329737?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 843 0832 9737 Passcode: [REDACTED] Phone: 1 646 876 9923 US (New York)
Peter Baroth, writer, visual artist, musician, and staff member of Philadelphia Stories Magazine lives in Media, PA with his partner poet and professor Courtney Bambrick. His recent full-length book of poetry is Lost Autographs (Moonstone Press) and his novel is Long Green (iUniverse). His work has appeared in journals such as Mad Poets Review, Apiary, Schuylkill Valley Journal, and Philadelphia Poets where he has won both the Amy Tritsch Needle and Petracca Family awards. His paintings have appeared in such venues as the Imperfect Gallery, OUR Gallery, and the Wayne Art Center. He is also bass player and co-songwriter for the band the Party Crashers.
Bob McNeil, writer, editor, and spoken word artist, is the author of Verses of Realness. Hal Sirowitz, a Queens Poet Laureate, called the book “A fantastic trip through the mind of a poet who doesn’t flinch at the truth.” Among Bob’s recent accomplishments, he found working on Lyrics of Mature Hearts to be a humbling experience because of the anthology’s talented contributors. Copies of that collection are available here: Amazon.com
Pheralyn Dove is passionate about creating art that promotes the ideals of Cultural Preservation, Global African/Black Liberation and Emotional Healing. Although primarily a writer and performance poet, Pheralyn has emerged as a visual artist, working in mixed media, photography and abstract expressionism and has been included in “Generations 7 – Reflections on the Isms: Racism, Sexism, Ageism” curated by Dindga McCannon at Rush Arts Gallery Philadelphia. Pheralyn is the featured poet on Khan Jamal’s “Return from Exile” and Tyrone Brown’s, “Moon of the Falling Leaves” CDs. She has been a press agent, radio producer, entertainment editor for the “Philadelphia Tribune,” feature writer for the “Philadelphia Inquirer,” and lead grant writer on teams that have raised more than $175 million dollars for worthy nonprofit concerns. “All praises to the Creator,” she says. “Thank you for choosing me as the vessel.”
Larry Robin, Host
Open reading follows

Virtual Poetry Reading: In Collaboration with Serotonin, Lindsey Heatherly & Dawn Watts, and Sean Lynch
2021-01-09 14:00 - 17:00
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82855093815?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 828 5509 3815 Passcode: [REDACTED] Phone: 1-646 876 9923 US (New York)
Lindsey Heatherly is a writer born and raised in Upstate South Carolina. She has words in Emerge Literary Journal, X-R-A-Y, Emrys Journal, Red Fez, Schuylkill Valley Journal and more. She spends her time at home raising a strong, confident daughter. Find her on her website at https://r3dwillow.wixsite.com/rydanmardsey or on Twitter: @rydanmardsey.
Dawn Watts is a former barista from Chester Pa. She has poems published in Serotonin, Tealightpress and Stone of Madness Press. Her Twitter handle is @wattswritten.

Sean Lynch, Host
Open Reading Follows

Virtual Poetry Reading: Alyson Shore Adler, Katherine Barham, and Cathleen Cohen, with Larry Robin
2021-01-13 19:00
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84308329737?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 843 0832 9737 Passcode: [REDACTED] Phone: 1 646 876 9923 US (New York)
Alyson Shore Adler has been a Clinical Social Worker specializing in working with trauma for 40 years. She’s been writing poetry for the past 20 and has workshopped with and been mentored by many brilliant poets including AV Christie and now Nat Anderson. Alyson is thrilled to celebrate the release of new books by her colleagues Kathy Barham and Cathleen Cohen.
Katherine Barham received an MFA from Warren Wilson Program for Writers and her poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, The Drunken Boat, Spillway, Mad Poets Review, Hubbub, North of Oxford (January, 2021). Katherine’s chapbook, From the Familiar, was published by Moonstone Press in 2015. Katherine is a retired high school English teacher and currently resides in Rose Valley, PA, birdwatching with her cat Elliott.
Cathleen Cohen was the 2019 Poet Laureate of Montgomery County, PA. A painter and teacher, she founded the We the Poets program at ArtWell, an arts education non-profit in Philadelphia (www.theartwell.org). Her poems appear in Apiary, Baltimore Review, Cagibi, East Coast Ink, 6ix, North of Oxford, Passager, Philadelphia Stories, Rockvale Review, Rogue Agent, Camera Obscura (Moonstone Press, 2017) and Etching the Ghost (Atmosphere Press, forthcoming 2021). She received the Interfaith Relations Award from the Montgomery County PA Human Rights Commission and the Public Service Award from National Association of Poetry Therapy. Her artwork is on view at Cerulean Arts Gallery (www.ceruleanarts.com).
Larry Robin, Host
Open reading follows

Virtual Poetry Reading - New Voices: Emerging Poets, Cydney Brown, Husnaa Haajarah Hashim, and Teyanna Stone, with Larry Robin
2021-01-16 14:00 - 17:00
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82855093815?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 828 5509 3815 Passcode: [REDACTED] Phone: 1-646 876 9923 US (New York)
New Voices: Emerging Poets
New Voices is a program designed for emerging poets under the age of 25. It aims to create a platform for young poets by welcoming them into the larger Philadelphia poetry collaborative and giving them the opportunity to share their work with a wide audience.
Cydney Brown is the 2020-2021 Philadelphia Youth Poet Laureate. She is currently a Junior at Abington Friends School. She grew to love poetry by reading poems by Maya Angelou and Robert Frost. She loves how there are no limitations with writing. She wrote a book of poems entitled “Daydreaming” and is currently working on another. Her poetry explores the topics of love, self image, and social justice. She won first place in The Hip Hop workshop poetry competition in 2020. Cydney wishes to inspire people to stand up for what they believe in and to share her poetry with the world.
Husnaa Haajarah Hashim is the 2017-2018 Youth Poet Laureate of Philadelphia, and author of the poetry collection Honey Sequence (The Head and The Hand, 2018). She is an undergraduate student at the University of Pennsylvania. Husnaa has competed at Brave New Voices, performed at various conferences, festivals, and Philadelphia-area colleges, and received numerous Scholastic Art and Writing Awards including a National American Voices Medal awarded at Carnegie Hall. Husnaa’s work has been published by Apiary and The On Being Project among others.
Teyanna Stone is a storyteller, a creator of worlds through song, poetry, and other forms of art. A proud Philly girl and a Temple University student majoring in Media Studies and Production and additionally studying Theater and Music, Teyanna is exploring her interests in the arts. When it comes to poetry, her pen goes to love songs, life struggles, and sci-fi and fantasy adventures.
Larry Robin, Host, Open Reading Follows
Join us each month for readings by emerging poets on the third Saturday at 2pm
A Voice for Everyone – Listen, Share, Connect with Other Writers

Virtual Poetry Reading: F. X. Baird, Steve Burke, and Charles S. Carr, with Larry Robin
2021-01-20 19:00
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84308329737?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 843 0832 9737 Passcode: [REDACTED] Phone: 1 646 876 9923 US (New York)
F. X. Baird was born in Philadelphia, the youngest of 12 children. He studied with David Ignatow at the 92nd Street Y in New York City in the early 80’s and later at the Antioch Writers’ Workshop in Yellow Springs, Ohio. He currently studies with Leonard Gontarek in Philadelphia and conducts a poetry workshop, via email since the pandemic, with long term inmates at Phoenix (formerly Graterford) Prison sponsored by the Prison Literacy Project of Pennsylvania and the Phoenix Lifers organization. Ten poems from five poets from this workshop were published in the Fall 2017 Schuylkill Valley Journal. He received “honorable mention” in the 2019 Sandy Crimmins National Poetry Prize for his poem “Phantom Limb” published in the Spring 2019 edition of Philadelphia Stories. His first chapbook, Painting with my Father.
Steve Burke is the author of two chapbooks – After The Harvest & For Now. His work-life consisted of being a psychiatric technician & a labor-and-delivery nurse. He now lives in the Mount Airy section of Philadelphia with wife-Giselle & cat “Luigi ‘Golden Eyes’ Boccherini.”
Charles S. Carr was born in Philadelphia and lived here his whole life. Charles was educated at LaSalle and Bryn Mawr College and has worked in social and community development services for 45 years. He has also been active in raising funds for various missions and organizations serving the poorest of the poor In Haiti. In 2007 Charles was The Mad Poets Review First Prize Winner for his poem “Waiting To Come North”. Charles has two published books of poetry: paradise, pennsylvania and Haitian Mudpies & Other Poems and his poems have been published in various local and national poetry journals. For five years Charles was the host of the Moonstone Poetry series at Fergie’s Pub. Since 2016 he has been the host of Philly Loves Poetry a monthly broadcast on Philly Cam. He has read poems in the Garden of Remembrance in Dublin Ireland as part of international 100,000 Poets For Peace.
Larry Robin, Host
Open reading follows

Virtual Poetry Reading: 2020 Featured Poets
2021-01-24 14:00
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84532069956?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 845 3206 9956 Passcode: [REDACTED] Phone: +1 646 876 9923 US (New York)
Each year we publish a special anthology of those poets who were featured in the year. In 2020 Moonstone presented 67 Poetry Readings with 160 featured poets, despite the pandemic. Unlike our other anthologies this one is by invitation only, and we have had some terrific poets. Please join us on Zoom as some of them share their poetry
with you. Our 2020 Featured Poets Anthology will be available on our website on January 24 in two volumes for $15. Not all contributors will be reading.

Virtual Poetry Reading: F. X. Baird & Liz Chang, with Alina McNeal and Jennifer Hook
2021-01-27 19:00
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84308329737?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 843 0832 9737 Passcode: [REDACTED] Phone: 1 646 876 9923 US (New York)
F. X. Baird was born in Philadelphia, the youngest of 12 children. He studied with David Ignatow at the 92nd Street Y in New York City in the early 80’s and later at the Antioch Writers’ Workshop in Yellow Springs, Ohio. He currently studies with Leonard Gontarek in Philadelphia and conducts a poetry workshop, via email since the pandemic, with long term inmates at Phoenix (formerly Graterford) Prison sponsored by the Prison Literacy Project of Pennsylvania and the Phoenix Lifers organization. Ten poems from five poets from this workshop were published in the Fall 2017 Schuylkill Valley Journal. He received “honorable mention” in the 2019 Sandy Crimmins National Poetry Prize for his poem “Phantom Limb” published in the Spring 2019 edition of Philadelphia Stories. His first chapbook, Painting with my Father.
Liz Chang was 2012 Montgomery County Poet Laureate in Pennsylvania. Her poems have appeared in Verse Daily, Rock & Sling, Origins Journal, Breakwater Review and Stoneboat Literary Journal, among others. Her translations from French appeared in The Adirondack Review. Her 2018 chapbook Animal Nocturne is available from Moonstone Press. She is an Associate Professor of English at Delaware County Community College.
Baird and Chang were inaugural members of the Lansdale Workshop Group, founded in 2010 and sponsored by the Montgomery County Poet Laureate program.
Alina McNeal & Jennifer Hook, Hosts
Open reading follows

It Can't Happen Here Reading
2021-01-31 14:00
Reflections on January 6, 2021
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84532069956?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 845 3206 9956 Passcode: [REDACTED] – Phone +1 646 876 9923 US (New York)
On the same day that an African American minister and a person of Jewish heritage are elected to the Senate from the state of Georgia, giving the Democratic party control of both houses of congress and the presidency, Donald Trump incites a crowd of his supporters to attack the capitol. People waving Confederate flags, breaking into the building, leaving two pipe bombs and several people dead. Sinclair Lewis is reported to have said, “When Fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.” The Sinclair Lewis Society says, “This quote sounds like something Sinclair Lewis might have said or written, but we’ve never been able to find this exact quote. There is a similar quote in It Can’t Happen Here”. We depend on poets to speak the truth. Moonstone will release It Can’t Happen Here Anthology today.
$15 – Not All Contributors Will Be Reading

Moonstone Poetry @ PhillyCAM: Norma Ketzis Bernstock, Sean Hanrahan, and Elaine Terranova, with Charles S. Carr
2021-02-02 18:30
699 Ranstead Street,Comcast Cable 66/966HD/967 or Verizon FIOS, 29/30 in Philadelphia.

2021 Philly Loves Poetry Interview and Readings Series
Writing During the Pandemic
How have writers coped? Have they producd more or less? How has it effected what they write about? Their insights, observations, fears, hopes.

Norma Ketzis Bernstock – After retiring from a 34-year career in education in New York City and Northern New Jersey, Norma moved to Milford, Pennsylvania where she became a member of the Upper Delaware Writers Collective. She now works full-time writing and publishing her poetry which has appeared in many journals and anthologies including Stillwater Review, Exit 13, Connecticut River Review, Paterson Literary Review, Lips, Meta-Land—Poets of the Palisades II, Pennsylvania Seasons and the International Bilingual Anthology, Bridging the Waters, II. Norma is author of Don’t Write a Poem About Me After I’m Dead (Big Table Publishing.)
Sean Hanrahan is the author of the full-length poetry collection Safer Behind Popcorn (Cajun Mutt 2019) and the chapbooks Hardened Eyes on the Scan (Moonstone Press 2018) and Gay Cake (Toho 2020). He is head poetry editor for Toho, serves on the Moonstone Press Editorial Board and as an instructor for Green Street Poetry, writes poetry reviews for Mad Poets, and hosts a poetry series at Moonstone and Art with Spirits. photo credit to Reed Gustow

Elaine Terranova grew up in a working-class neighborhood and has held a variety of jobs: factory worker, office temp, preschool teacher, and editor. She taught at the Community College of Philadelphia, Temple University, the University of Delaware, and in the Rutgers, Camden MFA program. She is author of seven collections of poetry and two chapbooks. Terranova’s first book, The Cult of the Right Hand won the 1990 Walt Whitman Award, Perdido, 2018, is her most recent book. Her poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The American Poetry Review, Pleiades, Ploughshares, and other magazines and anthologies. Among her awards are a Pushcart Prize, the Margaret Banister residency at Sweet Briar, the Judah L. Magnes Gold Medal, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Pew Center. Her memoir, The Diamond Cutter’s Daughter will be out this spring.

Charles S. Carr, Host

Virtual Poetry Reading: James Feichthaler, Anthony Palma, Mbarek Sryfi, with Larry Robin
2021-02-03 19:00
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84308329737?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 843 0832 9737 – Passcode: [REDACTED] – Phone: 1 646 876 9923 US (New York)
James Feichthaler is a poet and essayist whose work has appeared in One Art, Sortes, Schuylkill Valley Journal, and the Mad Poets Society’s Local Lyrics series. His new book The Rise of the COVFEFE, a poetical satire of these divided and uncertain times, was recently published by Parnilis Media. He is also the host of an open mic reading in Manayunk, PA called The Dead Bards of Philadelphia. “With its controversial take on politics, recent events, and all things Americana, James Feichthaler’s epic poem The Rise of the COVFEFE addresses the seriousness of these divided times with a brutal honesty and sharp humor, and the dark undertones that haunt its stanzas speak to the frail uncertainty of a society unhinged.”
Anthony Palma’s work attempts to bridge the gap between poetry and other forms while addressing issues of social justice, identity, and existence. His work has appeared in publications such as Rue Scribe, Oddball Magazine, and the Show Us Your Papers Anthology. His debut collection of poetry, flashes of light from the deep (Parnilis Media), is now available on Amazon. Be sure to look him up on social media at anthonypalmapoetry
Mbarek Sryfi is a lecturer in foreign languages and Arabic language Coordinator at the University of Pennsylvania. His work has been widely published in many journals and magazines, and anthologies including Al-Arabiyya, Banipal, CEELAN Review, Metamorphoses, Middle Eastern Literatures, The Journal of North African Studies, Translation Review, World Literature Today, and has contributed to A New Divan— a lyrical dialogue between East & West, among others. Sryfi has co-authored Perspectives: Arabic Language and Culture in Film, co-translated four books, The Monarch of the Square, The Arabs and the Art of Storytelling, The Elusive Fox, The Blueness of the Evening, and published two poetry collections, The Trace of a Smile and City Poems.

Larry Robin, Host – Open Reading Follows

Virtual Poetry Reading in Collaboration with Serotonin: Lexi Locket, Warren Longmire, Basil Wright, with Sean Lynch
2021-02-06 14:00
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82855093815?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 828 5509 3815 Passcode: [REDACTED] – Phone: 1-646 876 9923 US (New York)
Lexi Locket is a creative in Phoenix, AZ. She enjoys the art of storytelling through poetry, prose, music, and performance art. When not creating, Lexi works as a music therapist in the mental health field. Lexi also enjoys playing roller derby, spending time with her family and friends, and raising her fur babies. She self-published her first chapbook, ‘The After Life’, in the fall of 2019, and has been featured in Tealight Press and has work forthcoming in the All Female Menu Zine. She can be found on Twitter @punkiepie394 and on Instagram @poetrywithlexi

Warren Longmire is the co-founder of the Excelano Project Spoken Word Collective and the former Director of Poetry Events for Blue Stoop. He’s been published in journals including American Poetry Review, Eleven Eleven, Graviton and The Painted Bride Quarterly. He is featured in the Best American Poetry 2021 anthology and will release his first full collection with Radiator Press this fall. You can find his writings, musings and selfies on instagram @alongmirewriter.

Basil Wright is a Black and Indigenous autistic queer writer that lives in Florida with their sibling. Their work has appeared in Perhappened Mag, The Daily Drunk Mag, and Disability Madison’s Black and Disabled Virtual Showcase.

Sean Lynch, Host

Virtual Poetry Reading: Hermond Palmer, Cherise A. Pollard, Leena Taylor, with Sean Hanahan
2021-02-10 19:00
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84308329737?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 843 0832 9737 Passcode: [REDACTED] Phone: 1 646 876 9923 US (New York)

Hermond Palmer is a poet, author and song writer who has performed his work at spoken-word venues in and around Harlem, Philadelphia, and Washington D.C. He is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania’s College of Arts & Sciences and the Wharton Graduate School of Business. He has published three books of poetry; Echoes from the Quiet that I Keep, Words to Fill the Light in You, and What the Ancestors Told Me and I Decided to Listen. He has a Chapbook of Love poems entitled Aquarian Love Poems forthcoming from Moonstone Publishing in 2021 and he is currently wrapping up his first book of fiction, entitled Road Kings.

Cherise A. Pollard, Ph.D., is Professor of English and Director of the Poetry Center at West Chester University of PA. A Cave Canem and Callaloo Fellow, Pollard was awarded a grant from the Money for Women/Barbara Deming Memorial Fund. Her work has a in several journals including 5 AM, Affilia: The Journal of Women in Social Work, African American Review, Connotations Press, The Healing Muse, The Mom Egg, The Pittsburgh Poetry Review, PoemMemoirStory, and Rattle. Her poem, “Sugar Babe” was a Finalist for the 2015 Rattle Poetry Prize. Her chapbook, Outsiders, was chosen by C.M. Burroughs as the winner of the 2015 Susan K. Collins/Mississippi Valley Chapbook Contest sponsored by the Midwest Writing Center.

Leena Taylor spent her formative years in northeast Philadelphia. Leena exists at the crossroads of multiple sometimes conflicting cultures. Her poetry is an expression of a women that is often overlooked in America she is black she is Muslim she is women in a place that can hardly understand the nuances of one of those identities. As a caregiver, Leena loves amplifying the voice of those othered by society and writes with the intention of giving a home to women who are often omitted from the narrative of America. Her debut chapbook is available at https://www.tohopub.com/product-page/they-shot-anyway.

Sean Hanahan, Host – Open Reading Follows

Virtual Poetry Reading: Samantha Barrow, Lisa Grunberger, Jane Ellen Ibur, with Aaren Perry
2021-02-17 19:00
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84308329737?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 843 0832 9737 Passcode: [REDACTED] Phone: 1-646 876 9923 US (New York)

Samantha Barrow is director of the Humanities in Medicine at the Sophie Davis School of Biomedical Education at The City College of New York, and teaching in the Program of Narrative Medicine at Columbia. Spoken word poet, performance artist and educator. Author of ‘GRIT’, ‘tender membrane’, ‘Jelly’ and ‘Chap’. Her poetry, prose, reviews and interviews have been published in places such as Off Our Backs, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Philadelphia City Paper, Lesbian Nation and Feminist Review.

Lisa Grunberger is the author of three books: Yiddish Yoga: Ruthie’s Adventures in Love, Loss and the Lotus Position (Harper Collins, 2009) and two poetry books: Born Knowing (Finishing Line Press) and I am dirty (Moonstone Press, First Prize Winner). A Pushcart nominee and Temple University Professor, her work has appeared in a wide variety of publications including The New York Times, Hanging Loose Press, Crab Orchard Review, Krytyka Literacka and The Mom Egg Review. She teaches Narrative Medicine and Yoga and Writing at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine. Her play about motherhood, infertility, and assisted reproductive technologies, Almost Pregnant, is currently under artistic development at the Squeaky Bicycle Theatre company in NYC. When she’s not being a mom, a professor and a poet, she teaches Yoga and Writing Workshops at The Healing Arts Center in Philadelphia.

Jane Ellen Ibur, Poet Laureate of St Louis, Missouri, an established arts educator, received a Visionary Award for Outstanding Arts Educator; recognized as a Warrior Poet from Word in Motion; two awards from the Missouri Scholar’s Academy, A World of Difference Award from the Anti-Defamation League. Honored with an Author Recognition Award by the Missouri Center for the Book, she is published in literary journals and anthologies since 1972 garnering numerous additional awards. She is the author of Both Wings Flappin’, Still Not Flyin’ and The Little Mrs./Misses both published by PenUltimate Press. For further details, visit Ibur’s Wikipedia page.
Aaren Perry, Host – Open Reading Follows

Virtual Poetry Reading: New Voices: Emerging Poets, Rose-Marie Athiley, Colby Bellman, Wes Mathews, with Larry Robin
2021-02-20 14:00
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82855093815?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 828 5509 3815 Passcode: [REDACTED]
New Voices is a program designed for emerging poets under the age of 25.

Rose-Marie Athiley (she/hers) is a senior at Hamline University in Saint Paul, MN, where she studies English and Communications. She moved to the United States in 2006 and through learning her third language found the art of the pen and word. Her love for poetry has found itself in her academic essays and newspaper articles. Rose-Marie uses her poems and essays to foster empathy and understanding. Her most recent publication was in 22 Under 22: Young People Speak!, an anthology of fiction, essay, and poetry by 22 people under the age of 22.

Colby Bellman is more than just your typical “average person.” His whacky personality always shines amongst the crowd, and he tries to incorporate that “shine” in all of his projects. He’s perusing a Film & Media Arts degree at Temple University while also obtaining an English minor and an acting certificate. Colby enjoys writing of all kinds and aims to entertain his readers by taking them on a journey into his bizarre (but creative) mind.

Wes Mathews is currently at the University of Pennsylvania. As Philadelphia’s Youth Poet Laureate (2018/2019) he held workshops for elementary–school students across the city in hopes of fostering that same foundation he had. “Having a foundation in poetry as a child will sustain you for life…you experience so much internal freedom, and it’s kind of hard to let go of that feeling.” Without forcing any definitions on students, he gave them the opportunity to think more about how they personally experienced their world. Matthews, a two-time Brave New Voices competitor, was a speaker at the 2016 TEDx in Detroit. A winner of the 2018 Philly Slam League All-Star Poetry Slam, he has published in the Detroit Free Press, Eunoia Review, Dreginald Magazine, and elsewhere. “Poetry is an open field, It allows you to exercise your imagination and creative freedom and intuition…”
Larry Robin, Host. Open Reading Follows.

Virtual Poetry Reading: Philly Jawns: For Women Revisited, Poetry Anthology Tribute to Nina Simone
2021-02-21 19:00
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81841890688?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 818 4189 0688 Passcode: [REDACTED]
PHILLY JAWNS: FOR WOMEN REVISITED
A poetry anthology in tribute to Nina Simone
“Editors Debra Powell-Wright and Pat McLean-Smith have lovingly gathered a chorus of voices from the city of brotherly love and sisterly affection to honor Nina Simone, the queen of Black Woman Magic, Rage and Reckoning. These Philly jawns revisit and revive Nina’s infinite gospel. This anthology is both playlist and prayer for Ms. Simone, our mold-breaker and future fashioner.” —Yolanda Wisher, Philadelphia Poet Laureate 2016-2017
With: Annette Deigh, Wanda Flowers, Brenda Hodges, Jaz, Aziza Kebe, Kia Knight, Oni Lasana, Pat McLean-Smith, Alida Padilla, Debra Powell-Wright, Rahnda Rize, Sandra Turner-Barnes, Kimmika Williams-Witherspoon

Annette Deigh is a mother, wife, daughter, sister, friend, child of God, and survivor of child abuse and sexual assault, which led her to become an “artivist,” channeling her love of the arts and humanity into helping to heal others.

Wanda Flowers Peacock has spent her life advocating for human rights, as a teacher and as an attorney fighting discrimination in the workplace. She is focused on creating peace through interfaith activities, exploring justice through poetic expression, and by elevating the state of girls and women, as a mentor.

Brenda Hodges is a poet and author whose work centers on telling the stories of Black, Brown, and Indigenous Women. She is the author of Contradictions in Shades of Blue, a poetry collection, and Naima The Junkman’s Daughter, a novel.

Jaz is a Performance Poet, Singer, Actress, Author, Award-Winning Poet & ASCAP songwriter, who has performed at venues including Freedom Theater, Temple University, and Enon Tabernacle Baptist Church. Jaz is interested being of service to those considered to be castaways and forgotten people of the world.

Aziza Kebe is an Art Activist, Poet, Griot, Public Servant, and Citizen of the World who utilizes her art form to uplift her culture, promote Black Womanhood in a positive light, and cultivate a consciousness receptive to social and political change.

Kia Knight is a poet, singer, songwriter, dancer and percussionist. She has been performing in the Philadelphia area and surround area as a guest artist with In The Company of Poets and as a member of For Women Collective.

Nish Pugh is a founding member of In The Company of Poets and The Free-Though Collective performance ensembles, she is also founder and facilitator of spoken word venues Word4Word, Moods in Mocha, and TOPS–Taste of Philly S.O.U.L.

Oni Lasana (Desirable Poet of The People), a descendant of African San peoples with roots in Barbados, is a life-long spirit-driven poet, storyteller, musician, performance and teaching artist. As “Auntie Oni” she can be heard telling stories on ABF Creative podcast.

Pat McLean-Smith is a poet and teaching artist, author of Poetry Pulls Pain and Healing Her Hurts, author and illustrator of her children’s book Reggie Rascal. In addition, Pat is the Founder and Director of the Tomorrow’s Girls Mentoring Program.

Alida L. Padilla aka Poetic Ali, is a Puerto Rican woman who has loved poetry, music and art since a young age. Poetic Ali contributes an inspired work influenced by Nina Simone’s music and voice for this collection.

Debra Powell-Wright serves as lead strategist of social justice artist advocacy collective, SistahWrites!, founder of the multi-genre performance ensemble, For Women Collective, and a founding member of Philly’s first female spoken word ensemble, In The Company of Poets. Her work can be found in Check the Rhyme: An Anthology of Female Poets & Emcees, Imaging the Black Female Body: Reconciling Image in Print and Visual Culture, Stand Our Ground: Poems for Trayvon Martin & Marissa Alexander, The Pierian: Albany State University Literary Journal.

Rahnda Rize is a singer/songwriter, actor dancer and poet as well as an arts facilitator, event organizer/host, and an art for social change agent who advocates for the self esteem, well-being and representation of Black women and girls.

Sandra Turner-Barnes is a Poet, Author, Historian, and Workshop Presenter, author of Beyond the Back of the Bus, But, Mostly Love, and a CD, September Will Never Be the Same. She is a Trustee of the Camden County Historical Society; founding member of the New Jersey Black Cultural & Heritage Initiative Foundation; and the first African American woman appointed Executive Director of the Camden County Cultural & Heritage Commission.

Kimmika Williams Witherspoon is an Associate Professor of Urban Theater and Community Engagement at Temple University. She is the author of Through Smiles and Tears: The History of African American Theater (From Kemet to the Americas); The Secret Messages in African American Theater: Hidden Meaning Embedded in Public Discourse. Her scholarly work centers around pedagogy, women’s issues, the African diaspora, performance rituals and community engagement.

Host: Ewuare X. Osayande is an award-winning poet, essayist, publisher, international social justice activist and anti-oppression educator.

Virtual Poetry Reading: Ahmad Almallah, Grant Clauser, with Larry Robin
2021-02-24 19:00
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84308329737?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 843 0832 9737 Passcode: [REDACTED]

Ahmad Almallah holds a Ph.D. in Classical Arabic Poetry from Indiana University Bloomington. He is currently a Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania, working on writing a book on Arabic love poetry and the ghazal. He held the position of Assistant Professor of Arabic and Arabic Literature at Middlebury College and left that position to move to Philadelphia with his wife and daughter in 2014. Since then he has found inspiration in Philadelphia to work on writing poetry and has been involved with the Arab arts and education organization, Al-Bustan Seeds of Culture, in West Philadelphia. He is currently managing their project “Words Adorned: Andalusian Poetry and Music.”

Grant Clauser is the author of five books, most recently Muddy Dragon on the Road to Heaven (winner of the Codhill Press Poetry Award) and Reckless Constellations (winner of the Cider Press Review Book Award). Poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, Cortland Review, The Literary Review, The Journal, Rattle, Southern Poetry Review and others. He was the 2010 Montgomery County Poet Laureate, has been a presenter at numerous writing conferences and a guest speaker at the Sharjah International Book Fair in the United Arab Emirates. He received his MFA from Bowling Green State University where he was a Richard Devine Fellow. He is a senior editor at the New York Times’ Wirecutter and teaches poetry classes at Rosemont College

Virtual Poetry Reading: Martín Espada, Afaa Weaver, with Larry Robin
2021-02-27 14:00
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82855093815?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 828 5509 3815 Passcode: [REDACTED]
Martín Espada
Celebrating his new book Floaters: Poems
Autographed copies for $26.95 available at our website www.moonstoneartscenter.com
Martín Espada is celebrating his new book Floaters: Poems ($26.95, W. W. Norton & Company, 978-0393541038).
“Vintage Espada―essential, topical, political, irrepressible; in his poems, mercy acquires muscle and close attention confers value―reminding us that protest and praise rise from the same source. Such eloquence in comradeship, elegy and homage to those who lit the path, and, oh, a fresh bounty of love poems, written ‘not in lust but in astonishment.'” — Eleanor Wilner
Floaters takes its title from a term used by certain Border Patrol agents to describe migrants who drown trying to cross over. The title poem responds to the viral photograph of Óscar and Valeria, a Salvadoran father and daughter who drowned in the Río Grande, and allegations posted in the “I’m 10-15” Border Patrol Facebook group that the photo was faked.
Espada bears eloquent witness to confrontations with anti-immigrant bigotry as a tenant lawyer years ago, and now sings the praises of Central American adolescents kicking soccer balls over a barbed wire fence in an internment camp founded on that same bigotry. He also knows that times of hate call for poems of love―even in the voice of a cantankerous Galápagos tortoise.
Martín Espada has published more than twenty books as a poet, editor, essayist and translator, including Vivas to Those Who Have Failed and Pulitzer finalist The Republic of Poetry. His many honors include the Ruth Lilly Prize, the Shelley Memorial Award, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Born in Brooklyn, he now lives in western Massachusetts.

Afaa M. Weaver (尉雅風)
“Afaa Michael Weaver reaffirms the value and necessity of a worker’s poetics in his latest collection, Spirit Boxing. Here, work is not celebrated for its own sake or merely derided as drudgery but is considered as a primary source of hardship, solidarity, pain, pride, and joy.” —the Literary Review
Born in 1951 in Baltimore, Maryland, he spent fifteen years (1970-85) working in factories and developing himself as a poet, editor, and free-lance journalist. Near the end of that period, he received a 1985 NEA in poetry. He has published fifteen books of poetry, the most recent of which is Spirit Boxing. From 1997 to 2001, he was the editor of Obsidian III. His awards include the 1993 PDI playwriting award, multiple Pushcarts, a 2002 Fulbright at National Taiwan University, the Beijing Writers’ Gold Friendship medal in 2005, the 2014 Kingsley Tufts, the 2015 Phyllis Wheatley award, and a 2017 Guggenheim. In 2019, Afaa was given two lifetime achievement awards, from the St. Botolph Club Foundation in Boston and in Taiwan the 96th National Medal in Art & Literature. His poetry has been translated into Arabic and Chinese. Afaa is a lifelong student of Chinese language and culture. In 2017, he retired from Simmons U, after twenty years holding the Alumnae Endowed Chair. He now teaches at Sarah Lawrence.

Moonstone Poetry @ PhillyCAM: Dilruba Ahmed with Charles S. Carr
2021-03-02 18:30
Watch the live broadcast:
Comcast Cable 66/966HD/967 | Verizon FIOS 29/30 in Philadelphia | PhillyCAM TV:
https://phillycam.org/watch2021
2021 Philly Loves Poetry Interview and Readings Series
Dilruba Ahmed is the author Bring Now the Angels (Pitt Poetry Series, 2020), with poems featured in New York Times Magazine, The Best American Poetry 2019, and podcasts such as The Slowdown and Poetry Unbound. Her debut book of poetry, Dhaka Dust (Graywolf Press, 2011), won the Bakeless Prize. Her poems have appeared in Kenyon Review, New England Review, and Ploughshares. Ahmed is part of the low-residency MFA faculty at Warren Wilson College’s MFA Program for Writers and Chatham University’s MFA Program. She also teaches with Hugo House and The Writing Lab. Website: www.dilrubaahmed.com/

“In Bring Now the Angels, Dilruba Ahmed sings a complex song of loss: loss of a father, loss of a culture, and loss of country, both the original country and the one in which one is raised. In tightly-wound lyrics, Ahmed questions what it is to live in this present moment where loss seems to build almost hourly. With stringent rhetoric and beautiful imagery, Ahmed shows us what it means to be ‘[c]aught between one world / and the next . . .’”—C. Dale Young

“There are books of poetry whose service approaches public ritual of private feeling, Dilruba Ahmed’s Bring Now the Angels is one of those books. It is a prayer to see more clearly one’s grief and one’s relationship to the vibrancy and complexity of parents and children and the natural world. This is a book that asks about neglect and regret in order to understand how we might care for the living and the dead. What a healing collection of poems Ahmed has given us.” —Patrick Rosal

“Dilruba Ahmed’s luminous second book of poems, Bring Now the Angels, considers layered relationships and identities: adults to parents and children; bystanders as public witnesses; humans to angels, to water, or bureaucracy — or, as in ‘Zodiac,’ to the self.” —Naomi Shihab Nye, New York Times Magazine
Charles S. Carr, Host

Virtual Poetry Reading: Nathan Antoine, Philip Dykhouse, Susana Praver-Pérez, with Elijah Pringle
2021-03-03 19:00
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84308329737?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 843 0832 9737 Passcode: [REDACTED]

Nathan Antoine – “I’m an introverted poet living somewhere in my mind. Although, Charlotte, NC is where you’ll find me. I’ve been writing poetry for over 15 years, specializing in poetry that details our specific thoughts, feelings, observations, rage or whatever comes mind. I mix current and traditional style poetry, prose and story telling and create art from my mind, that you feel in your soul.”

Philip Dykhouse lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His first chapbook, Bury Me Here, was published by Toho Publishing in 2020. His work has appeared in Toho Journal, Moonstone Press, everseradio.com, and Spiral Poetry. He was the featured reader for the Dead Bards of Philadelphia at the 2018 Philadelphia Poetry Festival. Visit his website philipdykhousepoetry.home.blog

Susana Praver-Pérez is an Oakland-based, Pushcart nominated poet. By day, she works as a Physician Assistant at La Clínica de la Raza. By night, she can be found reading poetry at open mics from San Francisco to San Juan, By nature, she is a storyteller recounting that to which she bears witness through her poetic lens. Susana’s work has appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies including two published by Moonstone Press. Her first full-length book of poetry titled: Hurricanes, Love Affairs and Other Disasters, will be released by Nomadic Press in mid to late 2021.

Elijah Pringle, Host – Open Reading Follows

Virtual Poetry Reading in Collaboration with Serotonin: Cynthia Arrieu-King, Roseline Mgbodichinma, Theresa Rodriguez, with Sean Lynch
2021-03-06 14:00
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82855093815?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 828 5509 3815 Passcode: [REDACTED] Phone: 646 876 9923 US (New York)

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.

Roseline Mgbodichinma is a Nigerian writer whose works have appeared or are forthcoming in The African writer Magazine, West Trestle Review, X-ray lit mag, JFA human rights mag, Artmosterrific & elsewhere. In 2018, she won the audience’s favorite award powered by Union Bank and Okadabooks for her short story, Silence That Spoke. Her poem, The Giant, was published in the Poets in Nigeria (PIN) 2019 Anthology, You can reach her on her blog at www.mgbodichi.com and Twitter @Rmgbodichinma.

Theresa Rodriguez is the author of three books of poetry: Jesus and Eros: Sonnets, Poems and Songs (Bardsinger Books, 2015), Longer Thoughts (Shanti Arts, 2020), and Sonnets, a collection of sixty-five sonnets (Shanti Arts, 2020). Her work has appeared in such journals as The Scarlet Leaf Review, The Wilderness House Literary Review, Spindrift, Mezzo Cammin, The Road Less Traveled, and the Society of Classical Poets Journal. Her website is http://www.bardsinger.com, where you can view videos of her performance poetry and find information about her books. Follow Theresa on Instagram and Twitter @thesonnetqueen.

Sean Lynch, Host – Open Reading Follows

Virtual Poetry Reading: 34th Street Poets
2021-03-07 14:00
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84532069956?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 845 3206 9956 Passcode: [REDACTED]
The 34th Street Poets, one of the longest-running poetry groups in the Philadelphia area (since 1992), meets weekly and currently comprises seven members: Alyson Shore Adler, Deidra Greenleaf Allan, Sandra L. Chaff, Barbara Daniels, Minna Duchovnay, B.E. Kahn, and Nina Schafer. The group includes poetry book and chapbook authors, a Montgomery County poet laureate, Leeway Foundation award winner, Pushcart Prize nominee, and recipients of grants from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and NJ State Council on the Arts. Works by the group have appeared in numerous print and online journals including Adirondack Review, American Poetry Review, The Mid-American Review, Harrisburg Review, Passager, Poet Lore, and West Branch. The 34th Street Poets are currently based at the University of Pennsylvania’s Kelly Writers House.

Alyson Shore Adler has been writing poetry for the past 20 and has workshopped with and been mentored by many brilliant poets, including AV Christie and now Nat Anderson.

Sandra Chaff’s poetry has appeared in Poet Lore, Full Bleed, Unlocking the World: An Anthology of Found Poetry, among other publications. Her poetic subjects these days tend towards non-human sentient beings; philosophical musings on phenomena; and – no surprise here – mortality.

Barbara Daniels is author of Talk to the Lioness, Black Sails, Quinn & Marie, and Moon Kitchen. Her poetry has appeared in Cleaver, Faultline, and elsewhere, and she received four fellowships from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts.

Minna Canton Duchovnay left business to study Latin and translates early 16th Century Renaissance Latin love poetry. Minna has been a featured reader in the Philadelphia area and has been published in Mad Poets Review, Premier, The Elixir, and the anthology, Embers and Flames among others.

B.E. Kahn, Pushcart Prize Nominee, recipient of both a PCA and CBE grant, among other awards. Her poems have appeared in Philadelphia Stories, Harrisburg Review, Mad Poets Review, Apiary and other journals. Author of 3 chapbooks, her book, Moon Writing to be published in 2022.

Deidra Greenleaf Allan has been published in American Poetry Review, Apiary, Haibun Today.com, Poetry Miscellany, and Puerto del Sol, among other journals. In 2001, she was selected as Montgomery County Poet Laureate and has received a Leeway Emerging Artist Award and been a finalist for a Pew Fellowship in poetry.

Nina Schafer is a member of the Lansdowne Poetry Workshop and the 34th Street Poets, and works with many poets at The Frost Place in New Hampshire every summer. She created The Unexpected Poetry Project through which she distributes (before the pandemic-induced hiatus) 12,000 poems a year, one-by-one, to unsuspecting people waiting in grocery store lines, at the gas station, in the elevator. The responses have been unexpected.

Virtual Poetry Reading: Mama Poets From Eastern Europe: Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach, Luisa Muradyan, Alina Stefanescu, with Larry Robin
2021-03-08 19:00
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85477352895?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 854 7735 2895 Passcode: [REDACTED]
Mama Poets From Eastern Europe, Celebrate International Women’s Day

Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach (www.juliakolchinskydasbach.com) is the author of three poetry collections: The Many Names for Mother, winner the Wick Poetry Prize (Kent State University Press, 2019) and finalist for the Jewish Book Award; Don’t Touch the Bones (Lost Horse Press, 2020), winner of the 2019 Idaho Poetry Prize; and 40 WEEKS, forthcoming from YesYes Books in 2023. Her recent poems appear in POETRY, American Poetry Review, and The Nation, among others. She holds an MFA from the University of Oregon and just defended her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature at the University of Pennsylvania. She lives in Philly with her two kids, two cats, one dog, and one husband. Books@https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1GblDW6X0ARL1NLSsHTYhNQ_FrUqIZax86fw1GXR9YoI/edit
Luisa Muradyan is originally from the Ukraine and holds a Ph.D. in Poetry from the University of Houston. She is the author of American Radiance and was the Editor-in-Chief of Gulf Coast: A Journal of Literature and Fine Arts from 2016-2018. She was also the recipient of the 2017 Prairie Schooner Book Prize and the 2016 Donald Barthelme Prize in Poetry. Additionally, Muradyan is a member of the Cheburashka Collective, a group of women and non-binary writers from the former Soviet Union. Previous poems have appeared in Poetry International, the Los Angeles Review, West Branch, Blackbird, and Ninth Letter among others.

Alina Stefanescu was born in Romania and lives in Birmingham, Alabama with her partner and several intense mammals. Recent books include a creative nonfiction chapbook, Ribald (Bull City Press Inch Series, Nov. 2020). Her poetry collection, dor, won the Wandering Aengus Press Prize and is forthcoming in July 2021. Alina’s writing can be found in diverse journals, including Prairie Schooner, North American Review, FLOCK, Southern Humanities Review, Crab Creek Review, World Literature Review, and others. She serves as Poetry Editor for Pidgeonholes, Poetry Editor for Random Sample Review, Poetry Reviewer for Up the Staircase Quarterly, and Co-Director of PEN America’s Birmingham Chapter. A finalist for the 2019 Kurt Brown AWP Prize, Alina won the 2019 River Heron Poetry Prize. She still can’t believe (or deserve) any of this. More online at www.alinastefanescuwriter.com.
Larry Robin, Host – Open Reading Follow

Virtual Poetry Reading: Lisa Alexander Baron, Rodger Lowenthal, Abbey J. Porter, with Larry Robin
2021-03-09 19:00
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81679636780?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 816 7963 6780 Passcode: [REDACTED]

Lisa Alexander Baron is the author of four poetry collections, including While She Poses, poems prompted by visual art. Her poems appear in Chautauqua, Confrontation, Fourth River, and Philadelphia Stories. She teaches writing and public speaking at two Philadelphia-area colleges. She hosts “Modern Plays Read Aloud” on Meetup, which offers Open Poetry and Monologue Readings for poets and actors.

Rodger Lowenthal’s new chapbook, fourteen, has just be released by the Moonstone Press. He has this to say:
“I started writing poetry when I was a freshman at Penn State. I had a pattern of finding a girlfriend and writing poetry, until we broke up. Then I started again with a new girlfriend.
I have been with my current “girlfriend” for 46 years, so lots of poetry.
Trivia: I have 5 grandchildren. More trivia: the historian Bernard Bailyn wrote about the “logic of rebellion.” Think about it.”

Abbey J. Porter writes poetry and memoir about people and relationships, life and loss. She holds an MFA in creative writing from Queens University of Charlotte, an MA in liberal studies from Villanova University, and a BA in English from Gettysburg College. Abbey works in communications and lives in Cheltenham, Pa., with her two beloved dogs—who help her remember to smile, particularly during these challenging times.

Larry Robin, Host – Open Reading Follows

Virtual Poetry Reading in Collaboration with E-Verse Equinox Reading Series: Steven Kleinman, Warren C. Longmire, Christina Rosso, with John Wall Barger
2021-03-10 19:00
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84308329737?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 843 0832 9737 Passcode: [REDACTED]
Steven Kleinman is the author of Life Cycle of a Bear, winner of the 2019 Philip Levine Poetry Prize. His poems have appeared in the American Poetry Review, the Gettysburg Review, Beloit Poetry Review, the Iowa Review, Oversound, American Literary Review, Tikkun, and elsewhere. He is the interim director of the University of the Arts BFA in creative writing, he is the faculty coordinator of the Art Alliance Writers’ Workshop, and a contributing editor at the American Poetry Review, where he co-hosts the podcast. Learn more at stevenkleinmanpoetry.com

Warren C Longmire is a writer, software engineer and educator from the bad part of North Philadelphia. His writing has been published in American Poetry Review, Eleven Eleven, The Painted Bride Quarterly. He is featured in the upcoming Best American Poetry anthology of 2021 and will be releasing his first full length collection through Radiator Press this year. He likes jazz, being black, video games and suffering. You can find his work and life on instagram at @alongmirewriter & @doubleyoulongmire respectively.

Christina Rosso lives and writes in South Philadelphia with her rescue pup, Atticus Finch, and bearded husband, Alex, where they run an independent bookstore and event space called A Novel Idea on Passyunk. She received an MFA in Creative Writing and MA in English from Arcadia University in 2016. Her debut chapbook, SHE IS A BEAST (APEP Publications), was released in May 2020. CREOLE CONJURE, her first full-length collection, is forthcoming from Maudlin House. Her fiction and nonfiction work centers around gender, sexuality, and fairy tales, and has been nominated for Best of the Net, Best Small Fictions, and the Pushcart Prize.

John Wall Barger, Host, Open Reading Follows

Virtual Poetry Reading: Love & the Pandemic
2021-03-14 14:00
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84532069956?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 845 3206 9956 Passcode: [REDACTED]

Love & the Pandemic
How are you coping?
Has isolation made you crazy?
Do you have a love life?
If you have a family – Are you fighting with your love ones?
If you are single – what have you done for the last year?
How do you survive?
69 Poets Respond
$15 – Not All Contributors Will Be Reading
Contributors in anthology include:
Fran Abrams
Carolyn Adams
Princess Ameenah
Barbara Arzt
John Balaban
Elisabeth Bass
Vincent Bell
Byron Beynon
Erica Blatt
Julia Blumenreich
Matilda Bray
R. Bremner
Lawrence Bridges
Joseph Chelius
Christine Chesire
Phebe Ciemny
Craig Czury
Pheralyn Dove
Runett Ebo
Cole Eubanks
Hugh Findlay
Eli Goldblatt
Linda Goss
Rebecca Hartz
Christine Higgins
Alan Hill
Brenda Hodges
Halsey Hyer
Suzan Jivan
Irving Jones
Bea Joyner
Chris Kaiser
David Kozinski
Kyle Laws
Michael Levin
Warren Longmire
Marjorie Maddox
Jim McDade
Kindra McDonald
Michael Miller
Drew Miller
Ryan Mimna
Marjorie Moorhead
Bonnie Neubauer
Gloria Nixon-John
Daniel O’Hara
Kaleigh O’Keefe
Stephen Page
Randall Potts
Gouri Prakash
Peter Prizel
David Radavich
Charles Rammelkamp
Paul Rousseau
George Schaefer
Jennifer Schneider
Katherine Shehadeh
Jacalyn Shelley
Bob Small
Ashley Stahmer
Richard Stimac
Lois Villemaire
Skyler Walker
Kelley White
Linda Whittenberg
Florence Woods
Han Yang
Brendan Yukins
Sarah Zale
Larry Robin, Host

Virtual Poetry Reading: Nathalie Anderson, Thomas Devaney, Mary Madec, with Larry Robin
2021-03-17 19:00
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84308329737?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 843 0832 9737 Passcode: [REDACTED]
Nathalie Anderson is a poet, librettist, and educator based in the Philadelphia suburbs. Her books of poetry include Following Fred Astaire, Crawlers, Quiver, Stain, and the chapbook Held and Firmly Bound. Her poems have appeared in such journals as Atlanta Review, DoubleTake, Natural Bridge, The New Yorker, Nimrod, and Plume; and she has authored libretti for five operas. She also manages the list-serv Lit-Philly. A 1993 Pew Fellow, she has taught for 39 years at Swarthmore College, where she serves as Alexander Griswold Cummins Professor in the Department of English Literature, and directs the Program in Creative Writing.

Thomas Devaney is a poet and educator based in Philadelphia. He wrote and co-director the film Bicentennial City with Green House Media (2020). Devaney is the author of Getting to Philadelphia, Hanging Loose Press (2019) and You Are the Battery, Black Square Editions (2019). His work is featured in Best American Poetry 2019 and he is 2014 Pew Fellow. He is on the Advisory Board of Blue Stoop: A Home for Philly Writers and he teaches at Haverford College.

Mary Madec’s most recent book The Egret Lands with News From Other Parts has been described by Medbh McGuckian as, “extraordinary, celebrating the, “crazy mystery of good agony,” in a solemn mixture of the banal and the prophetic; these are poems about poems and poets, birds and the bible, war and married life, children and childhood, insects and parents. Deeply rooted in Irish myth they explore female territories explicitly, culminating in moving dirges for the mother figure. She has a PhD, in Linguistics, from the University of Pennsylvania, a Master’s in Old English Poetry from NUI, Galway) and two other collection from Salmon Poetry In Other Words, 2010, and Demeter Does Not Remember 2014, She won the Hennessy XO Prize for Emerging Poetry in 2008.

Larry Robin, Host – Open Reading Follows

Virtual Poetry Reading: New Voices
2021-03-20 14:00
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82855093815?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 828 5509 3815 Passcode: [REDACTED]
The New Voices program consists of monthly readings by poets under the age of 25, plus a bi-annual publication. Moonstone’s objective is to expand your audience, introduce you to others who share your interest in poetry but are in different communities or go to different schools.

A Voice for Everyone
Listen, Share, Connect with Other Writers.
Open Reading Follows

Contributors in anthology include:
Isabel Acosta
Jared Alicea
Colby Bellman
Matilda Bray
Isabel Catalan
China Rain Chung
Cora Clark
Michaela Coll
Yves Marie Desir
Joanna Flynn
Stephanie Frank
L. J. Gallagher
Samuel Gunther
Lindsay Hargrave
Ryan Hiemenz
Nikole Hood
Marygrace Irvine
David Jones
Brianna Jones-Hollis
Alexandra Marino
Michaela Mazzeo
Isabella McIlvaine
Austin McLain
Shannon Montgomery
Jessica Moulder
Audrey Movsesian
Claire Petersen
Isabella Piacentino
Taleen Postian
Dani Radosh
Isabella Rice
Rachel Rosenblatt
Aimee Schwartz
Davi Schweizer
Vincent Sergiacomi
Madison Starinieri
Kelly Thompson
DuPree Walker
Han Yang

Virtual Poetry Reading: National Be Nasty Day & International Women's Day
2021-03-21 14:00
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84532069956?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 845 3206 9956 Passcode: [REDACTED]
March 8th is National Be Nasty Day and International Women’s Day.
It reminded me of an event we did 2017 when “Nasty Women Poets: An Unapologetic Anthology of Subversive Verse” edited by Grace Bauer & Julie Kane came out. It is an excellent anthology, and the event was lots of fun, as women responded to Donald Trump’s comment that Hillary Clinton was a Nasty Woman.
“Like beauty, “nasty” is in the eye of the beholder… The call for poems made it clear that we were looking for broader—and more varied—perspectives on women’s experience. Women poets have always been resisting, reclaiming, and reinventing—sometimes subtly, sometimes more overtly. To my mind, any refusal to allow others to define what it means to be a woman is a kind of resistance.” – Grace Bauer
Poets respond in this spirit, in the second year of the pandemic.
Contributors in anthology include:
Emily Batemon
Aja Beech
Wendy Blaxland
Eve Chilali
Minna Duchovnay
Suzanne Eaton
RUNETT EBO
Sophia Falco
Christine Ferrari Strickland
Hanoch guy
Rachel Haas-Gutin
Dolores Hayden
Emiliann Lorenzen
Jerri Ketcham McDermott
Emily Rose Miller
Liz Minette
Claire Nolan
Isabella Piacentino
Kate Potter
Susanna Rich
George Schaefer
Jennifer Schneider
Leanne Shirtliffe
Solana Warner
Kelley White
Linda Whittenberg
Samantha Wright
