The Stadler Center for Poetry

at Bucknell University

Mission Statement

The Stadler Center for Poetry seeks to foster in a wide and varied audience an appreciation for the diversity and richness of contemporary poetry and the other literary arts. We also provide support for writers at various stages of their development and careers. Our programming serves the following individuals, groups, and communities:

Members of the Bucknell University community (students, faculty, staff, and alumni)
Individuals in the local area & in the central Pennsylvania region
Community organizations (local schools, libraries, etc.)
Students from other colleges and universities across the U.S.
Individual artists (emerging and established, nationally and internationally based).

A Brief History & Overview

Located at Bucknell University, in the scenic Susquehanna Valley of central Pennsylvania, the Center is named for Jack Stadler (a 1940 Bucknell graduate) and his wife, the late Ralynn Stadler, whose generosity helped to establish the programs that would evolve into the Stadler Center for Poetry. In 1988, the Center was officially founded, though the earliest programs affiliated with the Stadler Center for Poetry actually began prior to this date.

In the 1981-82 academic year, the Poet-in-Residence program was created. This program brings a poet of significant stature to Bucknell for a semester-long residence to teach a class, offer two public events, and meet from time to time with members of the Bucknell and local community. In 1985, the Bucknell Seminar for Younger Poets was inaugurated. The Seminar brings together undergraduate poets from all across the country and from Bucknell to write and be guided by established poets for an extended and intensive period of study during the month of June.

In addition to these two programs, the Stadler Center for Poetry is home to the Stadler Center Writers Series, an annual reading series that features poets and prose writers of national and international regard; the Sandra & Gary Sojka Visiting Poet program, which brings an esteemed poet to campus each fall for a two-day visit, to offer a reading and meet with members of the Bucknell community; the Stadler Fellowship, which provides a poet working on a first book time to write and training in editing, arts administration, and teaching; the Philip Roth Residence in Creative Writing, which offers emerging poets and prose writers, in alternate years, a one-semester residency to enable the completion of a first or second book; the Stadler Center Visiting Students program, which provides opportunities for students (undergraduate or graduate) from a U.S. institution located at a distance from Bucknell to attend one of the events at the Stadler Center; and West Branch, a nationally respected semiannual literary magazine featuring poetry, fiction, essays, and reviews.

The Stadler Center for Poetry is housed in Bucknell Hall, a historic campus building that contains a large auditorium for readings, offices for the staff, and the Mildred Martin Poetry Library and Lounge, named for a former Bucknell professor and benefactor of the Center.