One of our most popular events each season is the Poetry and Barbeque, held in April in honor of National Poetry Month. This event combines great poetry, live music, delicious barbeque, and a silent auction and raffle that helps us raise funds to support our programming.
13th Annual Poetry and BBQ
April 13, 2024
at the Richardson Center, IRSC Mueller Campus, Vero Beach
Tickets Now Available!
This year’s event features poets John Balaban and George Bilgere.
John Balaban is the author of thirteen books of poetry and prose, including Words for My Daughter, a National Poetry Series Selection. Other awards include the William Carlos Williams Award and The George Garrett Prize for Service to Literature. In addition to his poetry, he is the author of prose works in both fiction and non-fiction, as well as translations from Vietnamese, Bulgarian, and Romanian. His most recent book is Passing Through a Gate (2024).
George Bilgere has published nine collections of poetry, the most recent being Cheap Motels
of My Youth, winner of the 2024 Rattle Chapbook Prize. He is familiar to NPR listeners from his
appearances on Garrison Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion and The Writer’s Almanac. He has
received grants and awards from the Pushcart Foundation, the National Endowment for the
Arts, the Fulbright Foundation, and the Witter Bynner Foundation. Bilgere has given readings at
the Library of Congress, the Folger Shakespeare Library, and the 92nd Street Y in New York. He
teaches at John Carroll University in Cleveland, Ohio, where he lives with his wife and two very
fine young sons.
Past BBQs
Past featured poets have included:
Naomi Shihab Nye, Tony Hoagland, Brian Turner, Ken Hart, Shane Seely, Claude Wilkinson, Enid Shomer, Judson Mitcham, Patricia Waters, Rick Campbell, Sylvia Curbelo, Carol Frost, Michael Hettich, Campbell McGrath, Peter Meinke, Lawrence Hetrick, Lynn Knight, and Sean Sexton, and many others.
P.S. Do you have a copy of the Poetry and Barbeque celebratory anthology, Decade: Ten Years of Poetry and Barbeque?