A tribute to the Brooklyn-born Irish poet John Montague will be among the highlights of the 4th annual Irish Arts Center (IAC) PoetryFest, which this year features ten contemporary Irish and North American poets from November 2nd to 4th at the Irish Arts Center in New York.

Joining Montague at the three-day event will be the following nine poets:

From Ireland:
Ciaran Berry, winner of the Jerwood Aldeburgh Prize
Theo Dorgan and Mary O'Malley, Laurence O'Shaughnessy Award winners
Leanne O'Sullivan, recipient of the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature

From North America:
Anne Carson, winner of the Griffin Poetry Prize and the T.S. Eliot Prize for poetry
Timothy Donnelly, winner of this year's Kingsley Tuft Award
Brenda Shaughnessy, winner of the James Laughlin award
Galway Kinnell and C. K. Williams, Pulitzer Prize-winners

Keeping Irish poetry at its core, a special highlight of the 2012 program is a tribute to poet John Montague. Montague, now 83 years of age, was born in Brooklyn and brought up in County Tyrone. He is one of the most loved and respected of contemporary Irish writers and has published many acclaimed volumes including The Rough Field, The Dead Kingdom and Smashing the Piano. His New Collected Poems was published this year by Gallery Press.  In 1998 he was named the first Irish Professor of Poetry, while in 2010 France made him a Chevalier de la Legion d'honneur for services to poetry. His awards also include a Guggenheim fellowship and the Marten Toonder Award. The U.S. poet C.K. Williams, who will read with Montague at IAC Poetryfest, has said of his work that it possesses "an acute and dramatic sense of history - Ireland's and the world's - and a gentle moral insistence".

Montague and Pulitzer-Prize winner C.K. Williams will read together on Sunday November 4th at 5pm. This reading will be preceded by a public conversation between Montague and the Irish poet Theo Dorgan, who will also read at the festival.  Joining Montague and Dorgan from Ireland will be poets Ciaran Berry, Mary O'Malley, and Leanne O'Sullivan.  Reading with the Irish poets will be Anne Carson, Timothy Donnelly, Galway Kinnell, and Brenda Shaughnessy.

IAC PoetryFest was established in 2009 as New York's first festival of Irish poetry. The festival's scope is expanded this year as major Irish poets are joined by some of the greatest poetic voices working in North America today.  Curated by husband-and-wife team, novelist Belinda McKeon and philosopher Aengus Woods, PoetryFest has quickly established itself as a highlight of the fall for those interested in literature and conversation, consistently programming a selection of the most extraordinary poets writing today.

Tickets to some of the events are free, others range from $8-$15. Booking and more information at www.irishartscenter.org or by calling 866-811-4111.