John B. Burroughs

Named Lifetime Beat Poet Laureate in 2026

John Burroughs, born in Richwood, West Virginia, and residing for much of his life in Northeast Ohio, was recently named Lifetime Beat Poet Laureate by the National Beat Poetry Foundation. He is a nationally touring writer and performer who has wowed audiences from New York to Oakland. He previously served as Beat Poet Laureate for Ohio (2019-21) and the United States (2022-23). His books include The Wrest of the Worthwhile [2023, Far Queue Press], Rattle & Numb: Selected & New Poems, 1992-2019 [2019, Venetian Spider Press] and nearly twenty poetry chapbooks including Awash, Dogging Catastrophe, You Can’t Trust It to Remain, Loss and Foundering, The Eater of the Absurd, Beat Attitude, Water Works, Electric Company, and It Takes More Than Chance to Make Change. Burroughs has also curated several regular reading series in Northeast Ohio and, since 2008, has served as the founding editor and publisher for Crisis Chronicles Press, producing over 120 titles by vital independent voices from across the U.S. and beyond.
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​Connect with him at https://linktr.ee/johnburroughs.

At the Lit Youngstown Fall Literary Festival
[photo by Sandra Feen]

With National Beat Poetry Foundation CEO
Debbie Tosun Kilday [photo by Sandra Feen]

Burroughs takes up the sledgehammer lying at the base of the wall, and like a tray of glassware hurtling down an elevator shaft, centrifugally levitated, romances blown sunflowers forever drawn to the guard rails.

—Tom Kryss, author of The Search for the Reason Why

Tell a country bumpkin who I am and then let him tell you.

Rattle and Numb

Performing with the late JJ Haaz at Mahall's
[photo by Michael Spear]