George Bilgere

George Bilgere (born 1951) is an American poet.

Life
Bilgere grew up in Riverside, California, and earned his B.A. at the University of California, Riverside. He received his M.A. in English Literature from Washington University in St. Louis and earned a Ph.D. in contemporary British and American Poetry from the University of Denver in 1988.

He lives in Cleveland, Ohio, and teaches at John Carroll University. He also hosts Wordplay, a spoken-word radio program that has been called "the Car Talk of poetry."

His poems have appeared in such publications as Poetry Magazine, Ploughshares, Agni, The Iowa Review, The Sewanee Review, The Kenyon Review, Shenandoah, Chicago Review, New England Review, and Prairie Schooner.

His poems appear frequently on Garrison Keillor’s NPR program, The Writer's Almanac, and in Ted Kooser’s American Life in Poetry.

Recognition
Bilgere has received grants in poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts and from the Ohio Arts Council and has been twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

Awards

 * Pushcart Prize 2009
 * May Swenson Poetry Award (2006)
 * The Ohioana Helen and Laura Krout Memorial Poetry Award (2006)
 * Cleveland Arts Prize in Literature (2003)
 * The University of Akron Poetry Prize (2002)
 * Devins Award for Poetry (1994)

Poetry

 * The Going. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 1994.
 * Big Bang. Providence, RI: Copper Beach Press, 1999.
 * The Good Kiss. Akron. OH: University of Akron Press, 2002.
 * Haywire. Logan, UT: Utah State University Press, 2006.