Calendar of Events

Poetry in the Garden - Richard Blanco and Benjamin S. Grossberg

A Poetry Festival in the Heart of Ridgefield's Cultural District!

July 13, 2026 · 7 p.m.
Walled Garden
Free

Now in its sixth season, Poetry in the Garden welcomes poetry lovers and the culturally curious to a season of readings, music, and workshops. This year's theme is "Voices of the New Revolution": each Monday evening in July, nationally acclaimed poets will share works that stand defiant of oppression and injustice, opting instead for empowerment, creativity, and empathy. 

Poetry in the Garden readings are free for all to attend. Doors open at 6:30pm and readings begin at 7pm. Bring a lawn chair or blanket to enjoy the events, held in KTM&HC's historic walled garden. In the event of inclement weather, the readings move inside, to KTM&HC's Garden House.

July 13th features poets Richard Blanco and Benjamin S. Grossberg.

Selected by President Obama as the fifth Presidential Inaugural Poet, Richard Blanco was not only the youngest person to serve in that role, but also the first Latinx, immigrant, and gay poet to do so. Blanco's many collections of poetry includes his most recent, Homeland of My Body. He has received the National Humanities Medal presented by President Biden, the Agnes Starrett Poetry Prize, the PEN American Beyond Margins Award, the Patterson Prize, and a Lambda Prize for memoir. Currently, Blanco serves as Education Ambassador for The Academy of American Poets. He served as the inaugural Poet Laureate of Miami-Dade County.

Benjamin S. Grossberg's poetry collections include My Husband Would (2020), winner of the Connecticut Book Award, and Sweet Core Orchard (2009), winner of a Lambda Literary Award. His novel The Spring before Obergefell was selected by Percival Everett for the James Alan McPherson Prize and also won a Lambda Literary Award. Two new poetry collections will be published this fall: Detail from an Illustration of Paradise, selected by Ellen Bass for the Two Sylvias Press chapbook award; and When You Read a Novel the Dead Would Like, a full-length collectoin. His poems have been included in The Pushcart Prie and Best American Poetry anthologies.

Poetry in the Garden is generously supported by Books on the Common, Ridgefield Library, and The Fountain Inn.

» View the full calendar of events