Meet the Director

Eileen D’Angelo and the Mad Poets are everywhere, turning up the volume and fueling poetry unceasingly.  Without them, the region would be sadder and way too quiet.    ~Barb Daniels

Eileen M. D’Angelo, MPS Executive Director

Eileen M. D’Angelo, author of several books, including “The Recovering Catholic’s Collection,” (Moonstone Press, 2023), is the Executive Director of Mad Poets Society and former Editor of Mad Poets Review, has coordinated over 2000 special events in the tri-state area and was the subject of a tribute event and anthology by Philadelphia’s Moonstone Arts Center. She has twice been nominated for a PA Governor’s Award in the Arts and Pushcart Prize, and published in Rattle, Manhattan Poetry Review, Paterson Literary Review, Drexel Online Journal, Wild River Review, Philadelphia Stories, Philadelphia Poets and others. Additionally, she has commentary forthcoming in an anthology from WordFire Press, Shadows and Verse: Classic Dark Poems with Celebrity Commentary, edited by NY Times bestselling author Jonathan Maberry. D’Angelo judged open auditions for the pilot program of Russell Simmons’ and HBO’s Def Poetry Jam, at New Market Cabaret, as well as conducted workshops and performed original songs and poetry on WXPN’s (88.5 FM) World Café Live, BCTV (Berks County Public Television), at the Painted Bride Art Center, at South St. Arts Festival at Rosemont College, Hedgerow Theatre, St. Joe’s, Montco Writers’ Conference, Kelly Writers House, Manayunk Art Center, Delco Community College, National Federation of State Poetry Societies, and Delco Women’s Conference, Philly Fringe Festival, and other venues. In 2019, D’Angelo compiled and edited a poetry anthology, Art Through the Eyes of Mad Poets, An Ekphrastic Poetry Collection, arising out of the Inside Out Exhibitions with the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The collection includes fifty locally and nationally known poets and prints of the masterpieces that were the subject of the book.

Founder of the women’s performance group, Wild Women, in 1990, which was featured at area venues such as the Philadelphia Fringe Festival and the Philadelphia Ethical Society, she has performed original music and poetry all over the East Coast, and for several public television arts programs including “Café Improv” in Princeton, New Jersey, and “Poets’ Pause” in western Pennsylvania. D’Angelo was featured on Moonstone’s PhillyCAM program several times and portions of a performance at Godfrey Daniels Coffeehouse and interview by Kenn Michael were aired on WBIY, 88.1, Lehigh Valley; and was interviewed by Dee Patel of KYW News Radio in Philly. She was a former PA Poetry Society Officer, Trustee, and former Chair of the Endorsement & Review Committee, and a member for over forty years and received several Community Service Awards, including awards from the Delco Parks Department, Chester School District, and the Philadelphia Writers Conference.

Former Board Secretary of Musehouse: A Literary Arts Center in Chestnut Hill, and former six-term President of the Board of the Philadelphia Writers Conference, Eileen is an advocate for domestic abuse awareness and Founder of Arts Against Abuse, which offers multi-media arts events for the benefit of Domestic Abuse Project of Delaware County and other area shelters. She was the recipient of the 23rd Annual Victim Rights Award given by the Delaware County District Attorney’s Office and the Domestic Abuse Project, for raising awareness and over $16,000 to date, through Arts Against Abuse, and editing two chapbook anthologies of poetry by survivors: Hush: An Anthology of Poems on Domestic Abuse and Unbreakable: Poems of Survivors of Domestic Abuse.

She is co-founder of the Delaware County Paralegal Association (in 2011); and was named the 2017 Paralegal of the Year by the Delaware County Community College Paralegal Studies Program, to which she was later nominated to the board by the Honorable Barry Dozor, Judge of the Delaware County Court of Common Pleas. D’Angelo was a Pennsylvania Notary Public and

the full time Pennsylvania Certified Paralegal to criminal defense attorney G. Guy Smith, Esq. for 38 years, until her retirement in 2023.