A tribute to the Brooklyn-born Irish poet John Montague will be among the highlights of the 4th annual 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 (553 West 51st Street).

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."

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 the husband-and-wife team of 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.