Wild Indigo Poetry Reading Series, featuring Peggy Robles Alvarado and Airea Dee Matthews
Wild Indigo Poetry Reading Series, featuring Peggy Robles Alvarado and Airea Dee Matthews
Monday Poets, hosting Denice Frohman and Selina Cvgebird Carrera
Monday Poets, hosting Denice Frohman and Selina Cvgebird Carrera
Reading and discussion with ire’ne lara silva at Kelly Writers House
More information coming!
Poet Laureate Open Hours
Poet Laureate Open Hours
Want to know what a poet likes to read or what they are working on these days? Need some feedback on a poem? Want to talk about what it means to be a poet or how to become one? Come to Poet Laureate Raina León's open hours at the Parkway Central's Literature Department on the Second Floor. There's a typewriter that is calling your name!
Attending Dodge Poetry Festival
I’ll be attending Dodge Poetry Festival this year. Going to all the panels, celebrating the poetry, enjoying the family fun day with my children and husband, and generally delighting in all things Newark. I’m hoping to also do some research on the life of my Aunt Doris Rheubottom while I’m there!
Wild Indigo Poetry Reading Series, featuring Patricia Smith and Selina Cvgebird Carrera
Wild Indigo Poetry Reading Series, featuring Patricia Smith and Selina Cvgebird Carrera
Swing Mezzo Workshop performance
Swing Mezzo: Ancestral Reclamation through Jazz, Poetry, and Projection
Swing Mezzo is a community-rooted, artist-led performance reclaiming the legacy of Doris Rheubottom, a Swing-era vocalist erased by racism and sexism who lived in Philadelphia for over 30 years. Though featured in Black newspapers and the film Smash Your Baggage, she and her peers remain absent from jazz histories. This project transforms archival fragments into visual-poetic performance, weaving projections of press clippings, playbills, and photographs with live poetry, jazz, and ritual. The result is both art and communal intervention. For over 40 years, her grave went unmarked, but Doris Rheubottom still wants to sing. Her grave is now marked; now it’s time to celebrate her and her voice.
Project supported by The Velocity Fund, the Puffin Foundation, and the Leeway Transformation Award
Featuring contributions from Kendrah Butler-Waters, Stephanie Cole, Hiwot Adilow, Karen Smith, and blew kind
Poet Laureate Open Hours
Poet Laureate Open Hours
Want to know what a poet likes to read or what they are working on these days? Need some feedback on a poem? Want to talk about what it means to be a poet or how to become one? Come to Poet Laureate Raina León's open hours at the Parkway Central's Literature Department on the Second Floor. There's a typewriter that is calling your name!
Wild Indigo Poetry Reading Series, featuring Sarah Browning, Dan Vera, and Sue Scheid
Wild Indigo Poetry Reading Series, featuring Sarah Browning, Dan Vera, and Sue Scheid
Poet Laureate Open Hours
Poet Laureate Open Hours
Want to know what a poet likes to read or what they are working on these days? Need some feedback on a poem? Want to talk about what it means to be a poet or how to become one? Come to Poet Laureate Raina León's open hours at the Parkway Central's Literature Department on the Second Floor. There's a typewriter that is calling your name!
Open Hours at Blanche A Nixon (Cobbs Creek) Library in Philadelphia
Open (Office) Hours with the Philadelphia Poet Laureate at Blanche A. Nixon Library. Want to know what a poet likes to read or what they are working on these days? Need some feedback on a poem? Want to talk about what it means to be a poet or how to become one? In this series, poet laureate, Raina León will be going to library locations across the city. Check the calendar for details.
Workshop: The Watering Hole
Mercury may be in retrograde, but the archive always has something to say
In this workshop, we consider the stars and the archives as parallel technologies: the star map and migration maps, photographs of the true colors of the moon and photographs of the body’s joys and survival, the names of returning comets with the repeated names on a family tree … and more. We will read poems of the stars and archival transformations. We are star dust; act like you know.
Poet Laureate Open Hours
Poet Laureate Open Hours
Want to know what a poet likes to read or what they are working on these days? Need some feedback on a poem? Want to talk about what it means to be a poet or how to become one? Come to Poet Laureate Raina León's open hours at the Parkway Central's Literature Department on the Second Floor. There's a typewriter that is calling your name!
Poet Laureate Open Hours
Poet Laureate Open Hours
Want to know what a poet likes to read or what they are working on these days? Need some feedback on a poem? Want to talk about what it means to be a poet or how to become one? Come to Poet Laureate Raina León's open hours at the Parkway Central's Literature Department on the Second Floor. There's a typewriter that is calling your name!
Poet Laureate Open Hours
Poet Laureate Open Hours
Want to know what a poet likes to read or what they are working on these days? Need some feedback on a poem? Want to talk about what it means to be a poet or how to become one? Come to Poet Laureate Raina León's open hours at the Parkway Central's Literature Department on the Second Floor. There's a typewriter that is calling your name!
Poet Laureate Open Hours
Poet Laureate Open Hours
Want to know what a poet likes to read or what they are working on these days? Need some feedback on a poem? Want to talk about what it means to be a poet or how to become one? Come to Poet Laureate Raina León's open hours at the Parkway Central's Literature Department on the Second Floor. There's a typewriter that is calling your name!
Poet Laureate Open Hours
Poet Laureate Open Hours
Want to know what a poet likes to read or what they are working on these days? Need some feedback on a poem? Want to talk about what it means to be a poet or how to become one? Come to Poet Laureate Raina León's open hours at the Parkway Central's Literature Department on the Second Floor. There's a typewriter that is calling your name!
Poet Laureate Open Hours
Poet Laureate Open Hours
Want to know what a poet likes to read or what they are working on these days? Need some feedback on a poem? Want to talk about what it means to be a poet or how to become one? Come to Poet Laureate Raina León's open hours at the Parkway Central's Literature Department on the Second Floor. There's a typewriter that is calling your name!
Poet Laureate Open Hours
Poet Laureate Open Hours
Want to know what a poet likes to read or what they are working on these days? Need some feedback on a poem? Want to talk about what it means to be a poet or how to become one? Come to Poet Laureate Raina León's open hours at the Parkway Central's Literature Department on the Second Floor. There's a typewriter that is calling your name!
Poet Laureate Open Hours
Poet Laureate Open Hours
Want to know what a poet likes to read or what they are working on these days? Need some feedback on a poem? Want to talk about what it means to be a poet or how to become one? Come to Poet Laureate Raina León's open hours at the Parkway Central's Literature Department on the Second Floor. There's a typewriter that is calling your name!
Cohosting Breedlove
Pecola Breedlove & The Freedom Party is a popular West Philadelphia-based open mic poetry event and community platform, founded by KP ULTRA.
Breedlove returns to Philadelphia this summer for TEN events. Join us on Sunday, Monday, or Tuesday between June 30th and September 29th, 2026.
We will have booked feature and spotlight performances at each event.
The open mic list is first come, first served.
For more information, email hellobreedlove@gmail.com
*All events will be held at eThe Bayou - 5025 Baltimore Ave, Philadelphia.
* Sunday Events will start at 6PM, not 7PM. (July 12, Aug 9, Sept 13)
Poet Laureate Open Hours
Poet Laureate Open Hours
Want to know what a poet likes to read or what they are working on these days? Need some feedback on a poem? Want to talk about what it means to be a poet or how to become one? Come to Poet Laureate Raina León's open hours at the Parkway Central's Literature Department on the Second Floor. There's a typewriter that is calling your name!
Eastwick Southwest Mini-Poetry Series: Raina J. León
Reading from Raina J. León
The project emerged from collaboration with Eastwick Library, Khyra Lammers (Library Supervisor) and 2026-2027 Poet Laureate of Philadelphia, Raina J. León
Reading at Harlem Book Festival
The Harlem Book Fair is the nation's most recognized African American book festival. It is presented annually on the third weekend of July.
Wild Indigo Poetry Reading Series, featuring Cheryl Jones, Christopher KP Brown, LindoYes!, Phil Dyckhouse, and Khalisa
Wild Indigo Poetry Reading Series, featuring Cheryl Jones, Christopher KP Brown, LindoYes!, Phil Dyckhouse, and Khalisa
Attending Margins Virtual Conference
https://www.thewordfordiversity.org/margins
Presenting with Tongo Eisen-Martin and Tara Betts on poets laureate (times are CST)
From the Margins website
“Now is the Time When Artists Go to Work
We invite you to join us at the 5th [margins.] conference---rooted in the call to meet this moment. It is when there is no clear bright light, when our pathways are being stolen and shut down--that is when the creative and complicated ways that we can do good through our work are most called upon.
In 2026, we invite you to join a conference that emerges from the common refrain of past attendees that "[margins.] feels like a retreat." This year, our workshops and panels will take on a roundtable element to each, leaning into that retreat-like feeling of community care by building sessions through conversation, reflection, and imagination that invites participants and instructors to co-create.”
Southwest Philadelphia Poetry Series at Eastwick Library: Hiwot Adilow (not hosting)
Hiwot Adilow is an Ethiopian-American poet from Philadelphia. She is one of the 2018 recipients of the Brunel International African Poetry prize and author of the chapbook In the House of My Father (Two Sylvias Press, 2018).
The project emerged from collaboration with Eastwick Library, Khyra Lammers (Library Supervisor) and 2026-2027 Poet Laureate of Philadelphia, Raina J. León
Wild Indigo Reading (Not Hosting): Tamiko Beyer, Lady Sarkazym, Artress Bethany White
Reading of Tamiko Beyer, Lady Sarkazym, Artress Bethany White, hosted by Sarah Browning
Reading at West Park Arts Festival
https://westparkcultural.org/west-park-arts-fest
Presentation of poems and poetic ttranscription from interview of community matriarch, Mrs. Callalily Cousar
Eastwick Southwest Poets Mini-Series: Featuring Saskia Kercy
Hosting a reading of Southwest Philadelphia, poet and cultural worker, Saskia Kercy
Saskia is a social scientist, educator, and writer from Philly by way of Haiti. A master of economics with accolades in research and poetry, she has been published across newspapers, magazines, and literary journals. Saskia currently serves as a visiting professor of economics, research consultant, organizer, teaching artist, and creative writer. More from this eldest daughter @saskiakercy and bysaskia.co.
At the Eastwick Branch of the Free Library of Philadelphia
The project emerged from collaboration with Eastwick Library, Khyra Lammers (Library Supervisor) and 2026-2027 Poet Laureate of Philadelphia, Raina J. León
Sail Through This to That project
Sail Through This to That by artist indira allegra is a part of the ArtPhilly What Now festival taking place this spring/early summer. The project honors and celebrates the lives of two Black women from very different times, Ona Judge and Rem'mie Fells, with the creation of vibrantly colored sails, inspired by Rem'mie's wardrobe, which will be installed and displayed on a sailboat similar to the one Ona may have escaped on.
Poet Laureate Open Hours
Poet Laureate Open Hours
Want to know what a poet likes to read or what they are working on these days? Need some feedback on a poem? Want to talk about what it means to be a poet or how to become one? Come to Poet Laureate Raina León's open hours at the Parkway Central's Literature Department on the Second Floor. There's a typewriter that is calling your name!
Poets' Studio: "Moxie and Play: Writing with the Lively Spirits of Archives"
Reading some poems about Doris Rheubottom and then encouraging people to share stories about the untold, brushed aside, erased courageous characters in archives who lived their truths and inspire us.
Swing Mezzo Residency in Uniontown
Arts and history residency in Uniontown, PA to do interviews, write and create art in response to recovering the life stories of Doris Rheubottom Hackley
Woodmere Art Museum - Children's Gallery Opening - WHM
Reading and introduction
“The Woodmere Children’s Art Exhibit is a showcase featuring student artwork from several Philadelphia schools, including a two-month art project for students in grades 3 -8 led by Woodmere’s Educational Art Instructors. This year’s theme, “I Dream a World”
by Langston Hughes, celebrates the city’s 250th anniversary and encourages students to explore creativity, identity, and community through their work. The exhibit will open with a reception and short speaking program, bringing together students, families, and
partners to celebrate their achievements, and the artwork will remain on public display throughout the summer for family and community members to visit and enjoy.
World Heritage Month will be a multi-organization collaborative celebration taking place throughout the month of May, showcasing the culture, history, and international impact of our World Heritage City. Global Philadelphia will facilitate several events that GPA
will host or partner on during the month, while community partners will contribute additional programming. Together, these events will create four weeks of programming celebrating our global city.”
Wild Indigo Hosting: Joel Dias-Porter and Olga Livshin
It's May! You know what that means: primary season, mom celebrations, graduations, and, as ever, poetry! You're not going to want to miss this month's Wild Indigo, featuring Joel Dias-Porter (aka DJ Renegade) and Olga Livshin! And for the third time, we'll be offering ASL interpretation. Please spread the word!
Sunday, May 17, 5-7 pm
Young American Hard Cider & Tasting Room
6350 Germantown Avenue, Philadelphia
$5 donation - more if you can!
Get your tickets in advance here: https://bit.ly/25wildindigo26
Poets will have books for sale.
The venue is wheelchair accessible and the event is mask friendly. Bring your poem for the open mic! (It's best to arrive a few minutes early to sign up - this is a popular mic and spaces are limited!)
Co-sponsored by the progressive organization Reclaim Philadelphia, who will be sharing out about this important election season, and by our fabulous venue, Young American Hard Cider. With support from the Tommy Raskin Memorial Fund for People & Animals.
Featured poets:
Joel Dias-Porter (aka DJ Renegade) is originally from Pittsburgh, PA & resides in South Jersey. The 1998 & 1999 Haiku Slam Champion, his poems have been published in POETRY, Mead, Best American Poetry 2014, Callaloo, Asahi Shimbun, Ploughshares, the New York Times, & the anthologies, Short Fuse, Role Call, Def Poetry Jam, 360 Degrees of Black Poetry, Slam (The Book), Poetry Nation, Beyond the Frontier, and Catch a Fire. A Cave Canem Fellow, in 1995 he received the Furious Flower "Emerging Poet Award.” His collection “Ideas of Improvisation” is on Thread Makes Blanket Press (Jun 2022).
Olga Livshin’s poetry recently appears in Poetry, The Southern Review, Ploughshares, and other journals. She is the author of A Life Replaced: Poems with Translations from Anna Akhmatova and Vladimir Gandelsman (2019) and co-translator of Lyudmyla Khersonska's Today Is a Different War (2023). In the early days of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Livshin co-organized “Voices for Ukraine,” an online reading of Ukrainian poets and their translators, attended by over 800 people. Livshin's poetry in support of Ukraine has been read at fundraising events in St. Louis, Miami, Baltimore, and Philadelphia. Philadelphia is also home.
Seen, Sound, Scribe (Mind and the Muse)
Since 2022, Brooklyn’s own Mahogany L. Browne—a prolific writer and avid advocate for public art—has held the role of Lincoln Center’s inaugural Poet-in-Residence. Browne has written works of fiction, stage plays and critical essays, edited six anthologies, and authored another half-dozen poetry collections. For her ever-expanding Seen, Sound, Scribe series, Browne curates thought-provoking evenings of spoken word, spirited conversation, poetry, and presentations of new work, presenting major poets and emerging voices on the New York literary scene.
Featured Artists include:
Laura K Chung (Astrologer)
Idris Goodwin (YA Author/Playwright)
DJ Belinda Becker
Radha Blank (Actress, Filmmaker)
Raina Leon (Philly Poet Laureate)
Virtual Workshop with Carolina African American Writers Collective
Holding space for the Carolina African American Writers Collective
Workshop with Natural Creativity, Philadelphia
Revealing the layers of the world through language
What do we know about poetry? What do we want to know? Let’s delight in great poems and create some of our own.
Poet Laureate Open Hours
Poet Laureate Open Hours
Want to know what a poet likes to read or what they are working on these days? Need some feedback on a poem? Want to talk about what it means to be a poet or how to become one? Come to Poet Laureate Raina León's open hours at the Parkway Central's Literature Department on the Second Floor. There's a typewriter that is calling your name!
Reading at Celia's
Celebrate poetry at Celia Bookstore with a vibrant evening hosted by poets Dilruba Ahmed and Sham-e-Ali Nayeem!
Poetry followed by light snacks, and music. Dancing encouraged!
Plus, mingle with other local writers. Raina J. León, Poet Laureate of Philadelphia, will read her poetry, along with three Swarthmore College students. Books will be available for purchase and signing.
Tickets $5 online or at the door.
Reading at Fergie’s Pub
Dilruba Ahmed (Ruba) is the author of Bring Now the Angels and Dhaka Dust, which won the Bakeless Prize. Her poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Kenyon Review, New England Review, Ploughshares, and Poetry. Her poems have also been anthologized in The Best American Poetry 2019, Halal If You Hear Me, Literature: The Human Experience, Indivisible: An Anthology of Contemporary South Asian American Poetry, and elsewhere. Ahmed is the recipient of The Florida Review’s Editors’ Award, a Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Memorial Prize, and the Katharine Bakeless Nason Fellowship in Poetry awarded by the Bread Loaf Writers Conference.
Barbara Siegel Carlson is the author of four books of poetry, most recently Current published by Lily Poetry Review Books, 2026. Her poetry and translations have appeared in Verse Daily, Cortland Review, Mid-American Review, Salamander, 2River, The Poetry Porch and others. Her poems have been nominated for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize. Carlson is a Poetry in Translation Editor of Solstice: A Magazine of Diverse Voices. She lives in Carver, Massachusetts.
Raina J. León, PhD, 2026-2027 Philadelphia Poet Laureate, is a Black, Afro-Boricua poet, writer, and educator from southwest Philadelphia (Lenni Lenape ancestral lands). Her work is grounded in collective action and community engagement, centering storytelling, memory, and the liberatory practice of humanizing education across poetry, visual art, and archival practice. She is the author of black god mother this body, Canticle of Idols, Boogeyman Dawn, sombra : (dis)locate, and several chapbooks, and is the founding editor of The Acentos Review, an international journal dedicated to the promotion and publication of Latinx arts. Her work has been supported by fellowships and residencies from organizations including the Obsidian Foundation, MacDowell, Vermont Studio Center, and Ragdale. León is professor emerita at Saint Mary's College of California, where she was the first Afro-Latina to achieve the rank of full professor in the college's more than 150-year history. She currently teaches creative writing in the Stonecoast MFA program at the University of Southern Maine and is a co-founder of the Wild Indigo Poetry Reding Series, the Esperimento Sul Respiro residency program in Italy, and StoryJoy,Inc.
ariel rosé is a trans gender / androgynous / queer poet, essayist, and illustrator originally from Poland, resident of Norway, a nomad. Shortlisted for the Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize and Złota Magdalenka Prize in Poland. Ariel is coming to the United States to read from Both Sides Face East. Durable Words, that they edited: well as their latest poetry collection, morze nocą jest mięśniem serca (the sea at night is a muscle of the heart) nominated for the Orfeusz Award, and Północ. Przypowieści, which had its launch at the Miłosz Festival and was nominated for the Polish-German Josepha Award (both published under the name Alicja Rosé). ariel received the Warsaw Literary Award and was named to the IBBY Honor List for their illustrations for Magdalena Tulli’s book Ten i Tamten Las (This and The Other Forest). They were also nominated for the Most Beautiful Book Award for their illustrations for Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz’s Kocia Książka (Cat Book).
Aaren Perry Host - Open Reading Follows
Attending Monument Lab: Monumaking Conference
From Monument Lab Website:
“Regular Registration is now open for the 2026 Monument Lab Summit.
The 2026 Monument Lab Summit: “School of Monumaking” invites artists, educators, activists, and cultural leaders to imagine monument-making as a living classroom.
Over three days, participants gather for a dynamic “school day” of screenings, keynote conversations, creative sessions, and collaborative workshops that explore how public memory is made—and remade—through art, care, and collective action. From bold national perspectives to intimate community histories, the Summit centers monument-making as an ongoing practice of learning together: asking who is remembered, how stories are told, and what it takes to build more just public landscapes.
Across keynote talks, “class periods,” film screenings, and hands-on sessions, the School of Monumaking celebrates experimentation, repair, and imagination in public art. Attendees will move between reflection and celebration—learning new strategies, sharing ideas, and experiencing art that expands what monuments can be. Whether joining conversations about national memory, collaborating on creative exercises, or dancing together at the closing celebration, participants will experience a Summit designed as both a classroom and a community.
What it means to attend the School of Monumaking:
Class Periods with Leading Practitioners
Participate in themed sessions with artists, scholars, and cultural leaders exploring monument-making through art, history, activism, and technology.
Monumaking 101
A hands-on workshop where Monument Lab leaders and partners share tools, strategies, and lessons from real-world monument projects—inviting participants to develop their own ideas.
Film Screenings
Experience films and digital artworks that reveal the hidden stories and creative processes behind monuments, including An American Reflection, a powerful visualization of Monument Lab’s National Monument Audit.
Office Hours
Bring your own ideas, proposals, or works-in-progress to small-group consultations with Monument Lab’s network of artists and experts.
Community Panels & Conversations
Learn from collaborative monument projects that model how public art can honor collective action and shared histories.
Celebrations & Gatherings
From the opening Back to School Night reception to the closing Promument dance party, the Summit creates space to connect, reflect, and celebrate together.
Special Summit Moments:
Recess
An evening gathering of music, art-making, snacks, and playful collaboration—because even monument-makers need time to recharge and create together.
Promument
A prom-themed closing celebration honoring the creativity, collaboration, and joy that power monument-making today.”