For some strange reason, we tend to wait until someone dies before we express our gratitude for what they have done. Why Wait? Join us in honoring Leonard Gontarek through a reading of praise poems as well as his own work.

50 Poets have responded with poems and comments to honor Leonard Gontarek

20 of them will be reading at the event on Sunday

A Chapbook with the 50 poems will be available for purchase ($10, The Moonstone Press)

Leonard Gontarek is the author of Take Your Hand Out of My Pocket, Shiva (2016) and He Looked Beyond My Faults and Saw My Needs (2013), both published by Hanging Loose Press. His poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Poet Lore, Verse, Blackbird, The Awl, Spinning Jenny, and The Best American Poetry, among others. He teaches workshops throughout the Philadelphia area, including the Philadelphia Arts in Education Partnership, and a weekly Saturday workshop from his home in West Philadelphia. He has been Mad Poet-in-Residence since 2008. He coordinates Peace/Works, Philly Poetry Day, The Philadelphia Poetry Festival, and hosts The Green Line Reading & Interview Series. Gontarek has received Poetry fellowships from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, the Philadelphia Writers Conference Community Service Award, and was a Literary Death Match Champion. His poem, 37 Photos From The Bridge, was a Poetry winner for the Big Bridges MotionPoems project and the basis for the award-winning film by Lori Ersolmaz sponsored by the Weisman Art Museum in Minneapolis: http://movingpoems.com/poet/leonard-gontarek/