Guest Poet George Bilgere Reading at Del Mar College April 6

George Bilgere headshot

With humor and compassion, George Bilgere continues his explorations of the human predicament. The settings of his newest work, Central Air: Poems, range from Cleveland to Berlin, from childhood to old age. Bilgere’s subject, in the largest sense, is America, in all its craziness, its haunted past and imperiled future. 

But what really centers this book is the English language itself, which these poems endeavor to renew, reinvent and reinvigorate.

Bilgere will recite from his poetry book during a free reading at Del Mar College (DMC) on Wednesday, April 6. The College’s Learning Resources, English and Philosophy Department and Cultural Programs Series are sponsors of the event.

The poetry reading begins at 7 p.m. in Room 100 of the Venters Business Building on DMC’s Heritage Campus at Naples off Kosar at Staples. For more information, contact Alan Berecka, DMC reference librarian and professor of Learning Resources, at 361-698-1933 or aberecka@delmar.edu. 

Among his recognitions, Bilgere is a recipient of the Pushcart Prize, May Swenson Poetry Award, The Ohioana Helen and Laura Krout Memorial Poetry Award, Cleveland Arts Prize in Literature, the University of Akron Poetry Prize, the Autumn House Press Poetry Prize, the Midland Authors Award and Devins Award for Poetry. 

A Fulbright scholar in Bilbao, Spain, Bilgere has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Pushcart Foundation, the Witter Bynner Foundation, the Fulbright Commission and the Ohio Arts Council. 

He has given readings in venues across the country, including the Library of Congress and the 92nd Street Y in New York. He is a Creative Workforce Fellowship in Literature, a grant funded through Cuyahoga Arts and Culture. He also hosts “Wordplay,” an offbeat mix of poetry, comedy and an ongoing exploration of the spoken word possibilities. 

Bilgere’s poems have appeared in numerous anthologies and journals including Poetry, Ploughshares, The Kenyon Review, Fulcrum and the Best American Poetry series. 

His poems also appear frequently on Garrison Keillor’s The Writers Almanac and U.S. Poet Laureate Ted Kooser’s American Life in Poetry.    

Bilgere earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of California in Riverside, a master’s degree from Washington University in St. Louis and a doctoral degree from the University of Denver. Currently, Cleveland resident Bilgere is a professor at John Carroll University.