“Tom Gannon’s new collection of poetry, Food for a Journey, is filled with treasures. In this autobiographical journey in poems, Gannon paints one vivid memory after another, each one so filled with telling details that it’s like living a whole new life which we get to discover line by line, stanza by stanza, each moment more moving than the last. The poems are filled with lights and darks, joys and concerns, laughter and the kinds of deep observations that give us the pleasure of seeing the world with a fresh perspective. The poems move from growing up in South Philadelphia to the priesthood, to war, and on to the what-ifs of politics, all the while creating the kind of shock of recognition reserved for only the best of literature, the kind that we savor and keep close at hand. This is a book to read and read and read again with the deepest pleasure of being in the hands of a master poet.”

Ken Ludwig, Tony Award-winning playwright for Lend Me a Tenor and
Crazy for You, author of How to Teach Your Children Shakespeare.