Wordplay Podcast
Current Show
Air Date: January 31, 2025
When Is ”Work Naked Day” Celebrated?
Last Week’s Show
Air Date: January 24, 2025
Polar Death Vortex
More past shows listed below
Now You Can Listen to Wordplay On Demand!
For the last 15+ years, the half-hour Wordplay poetry program has been aired live on the WJCU FM radio waves to the University Heights community of Cleveland, Ohio. Now you can access the show here and on-demand — from anywhere and any time.
Wordplay presents an offbeat mix of poetry, comedy, and an ongoing exploration of the possibilities of the spoken word. Wordplay’s opening monologue blends music and language into a surreal, funny, often darkly serious meditation on the state of one man’s struggles to live in the bewildering world of contemporary America.
Co-hosts George Bilgere and John Donoghue read short, interesting poems by important writers. They banter about poetry, argue about it, and generally give each other a hard time. The Plain Dealer called Wordplay “the Car Talk of poetry.”

George Bilgere and John Donoghue at their weekly recording session in George's dining room.