International Women’s Day Reading, March 6

I had responded to a call for entries from the Moonstone Arts Center in Philadelphia for poems for an anthology to be published for International Women’s Day & my poem “Waiting for Jacqueline Robinson” was published in the 2-volume anthology. There was also a Zoom reading by the contributors, hosted by Larry Robin, director of the Moonstone Arts Center that I attended & read. Others from our local scene also reading were Naomi Bindman & Nancy Klepsch, & Julie Lomoe also has work in the anthology but was not on the Zoom reading. The Moonstone Arts Center sponsors in-person poetry readings in Philadelphia, online readings, & publishes individual chapbooks & anthologies. Visit their website for more information & their bookstore.

The readers mostly read their work that was published in the anthology, proceeding, mostly in alphabetical order, while a few of us "guys" read, most were women. The readers were Madeline Artenberg (“At the Butterfly Conservatory” in the persona of a butterfly”); Naomi Bindman (“Tea Ceremony”); Sylvia Beverly (“Our Best is High-Ranking”); Zechariah Butler-Stevenson (“I Could Never Be a Woman,” said it was his 1st time); Oksana N. Mauricio.

Lynda Crawford (dialing in from California, “Women talking, and then she said”); David Eberhardt (“To a Woman” for Anne Frank, not in the anthology); Bryan Franco (“My Mother the Picture Frame Model”); Phillip Giambri (“Queen Beebe” (his mother in a nursing home); Linda Goss “(Women of Mother Earth” with singing & bells); Joanne Grumet (“The Dinner Party” about the Judy Chicago exhibit); Maurice Henderson (“a  multi-language, tribute poem, not in book); Beejay Grob (“Palmyra Station, 1971”). 

Nikole Hood [2.41.16] (“never tell a goddess”); Jacqueline Jewell (“Suhaila” “…a little palestinian girl…”); Irving Jones aka, Karamo Sulieman (“for The Liberation of Women”); Chris Kaiser (“Menstruating Women are Unclean & other lies intending to subjugate them”); Rachel Kiskaddon (“I, Woman”); Linda Kleinbub (“The World is on Lockdown/ We are Sheltering in Place”); Nancy Klepsch (“Shopping for a Goddess”); Josephine LoRe (“Mother’s Hands”); Deirdre Maher (“Sisters”).

Sara McAulay (“*glorious* *glo*" descriptive tribute of a friend with wild typography & the best teeshirt of the afternoon;)  [2.58.30] Aniqua McHardy (“I Love that We Are Different”); L. Anne Molin (“Mayfly” with seqoia); Hermond Palmer “Organs of Obligation”); Faith Paulsen (“She/Her”); Kay Peters (“Miscarriage”); Linda Romanowski (“New Beginnings”); Renée Szostek (“Fighting for my right to learn, achieve, and succeed”, a tanka). Diane Murray Ward (“The Pieta Beheld Her Twice”); Me (“Waiting for Jacqueline Robinson (“Women & the Liberation of Humanity”). Samantha Wright ("In Praise of Women"); Steven Halpern ("Women and the Liberation of Humanity").

Last year I was also included in an anthology put out by the Moonstone Arts Center Protest 2021: Celebrating 100 Thousand Poets for Change. Look for more poetry & social justice action from this group out of Philadelphia.