Live Poetry: Herman Beavers, Anisha Bhat, Steve Burke, and Octavia McBride-Ahebee
2026-01-14 19:00 - 21:00 (America/New_York) | Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, PA, United States
Live Poetry: Herman Beavers, Anisha Bhat, Steve Burke, and Octavia McBride-Ahebee
Wednesday January 14, 2026 – 7pm
Fergie’s Pub, 1214 Sansom Street
Herman Beavers is an African American writer and the author of The Vernell Poems and Geography and the Political Imaginary in the Novels of Toni Morrison. Beavers’s honors include the Charles Ludwig Distinguished Teaching Award. He is currently a professor of English and Africana studies at the University of Pennsylvania. He lives in Burlington Township, New Jersey.
Anisha Bhat, originally from Chicago, Illinois, is a writer and staff member at Temple University where she directs research and creative programs for undergraduates. She has an MPhil in World History from the University of Cambridge and an MA in History from Northwestern University. In her free time she can be found buying too many books at used book stores, eating at the same five restaurants in South Philly, or working on her first poetry chapbook.
Steve Burke’s poems have been published in numerous journals & magazines; has three chapbooks – After The Harvest, For Now, & Small Answers – published by Moonstone Press. He has been a featured reader at the Painted Bride Arts Center, Moore College of Art, the Free Library, the Philadelphia Poetry Festival, the Big Blue Marble Bookstore, the Mad Poets’ Festival, the Green Line Café, along with Fergie’s Pub. He worked for 25 years as a labor and delivery nurse; lives with wife Giselle in the Mount Airy section of Philadelphia.
Octavia McBride-Ahebee’s work is influenced by the convergence of cultures and the many ways in which people move throughout the world, she explores relationships within the broader framework of global inequality and contributes to The Africa Migration Report Poetry Anthology Series (exploring African and diasporic migration through poetry and is involved with Forced Migration and The Arts.) Her work has appeared in journals and anthologies including For Harriet, Raising Lilly Ledbetter; Women Poets Occupy the Workplace, Yellow Medicine, South Philly Fiction, Damazine; A Literary Journal of the Muslim World, Fingernails Across The Chalkboard: Poetry And Prose on HIV/AIDS From the Black Diaspora, Under Our Skin: Literature of Breast Cancer, The Journal of the National Medical Association, Art in Medicine Section, International Quarterly; Faces of the Americas, the Beloit Poetry Journal. Her poetry collections include Assuming Voices, Where My Birthmark Dances and Praise Song for the Gravediggers.
Liz Allen Host – Open Reading Follows

Live Poetry: E. Lynn Alexander, Holiday Noel Campanella, Shannon Frost Greenstein & C.L. Liedekev
2026-01-21 19:00 - 20:00
Live Poetry: E. Lynn Alexander, Holiday Noel Campanella, Shannon Frost Greenstein & C.L. Liedekev
Wednesday, January 21st at 7pm
Live at Fergies Pub: 1214 Sansom St.
E. Lynn Alexander is an artist, poet, maker of unlikely things from other things, independent publisher, and cemetery walker. She cohosts The Friday Collapse reading series and has a book of meandering femwarrior poetry called Find Me in the Iris. She says the following: “Why are we destroying everything at such an alarming rate, turning the corner on so much that is irreversible? Our path is one that rewards extremes: self centered, immediate and empty gratification, consumption, competition, exhibitionism, self interest. To commune and cooperate is to be “weak”, to share knowledge is to lose “advantage”. Where shame is the tool, coerced participation is the result. The desire to diminish and destroy pushes us to channel our energies defensively and we are depleted.”

Holiday Noel Campanella is a multi-disciplinary writer and artist from South Philadelphia. Her work has been published in numerous lit mags and journals, (Gigantic Sequins, San Pedro River Review, Pink Disco, Meow Meow Pow Pow) exhibited and sold nationally, (The Smithsonian Museum, Anthropologie, The Clay Studio) and collected in public and private collections (The Free Library of Philadelphia, Vanderbilt Libraries Special Collections). She has a BFA from the University of Pennsylvania and The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in painting and creative writing. You can find out more at holidaynoelcampanella.com.

Shannon Frost Greenstein is the author of Through the Lens of Time, and These Are a Few of My Least Favorite Things. Her work has appeared in McSweeney’s, Pithead Chapel, Nimrod Journal, and elsewhere. Shannon’s passions include Friedrich Nietzsche, anti-racism, the Seven Summits, the Hamilton Soundtrack, and acquiring more cats.

C.L. Liedekev is a poet living in Conshohocken, PA, with his real name, wife, and children. He is a two-time nominee for Best of the Net, with his poem “November Snow. Philadelphia Children’s Hospital” being a finalist in 2021. His poem, The Hungry, was a 2023 Inaugural Plentitudes Prize finalist. Alien Buddha Press released his debut collection, No Damage Visible, in 2024.
Open Reading Follows
