Sandra & Gary Sojka Visiting Poet Series

Stadler Center for Poetry

The Sandra and Gary Sojka Visiting Poet Series was established in 1995 through the generosity of Gary Sojka, who served as president of Bucknell University from 1985-1995, and his wife, Sandra. The Sojka Visiting Poet Series brings a distinguished poet to Bucknell for a two-day visit each fall. In addition to presenting a reading, the Sojka poet meets in an informal venue with students and other members of the Bucknell community.

Poets are chosen by invitation only; the Stadler Center for Poetry does not accept applications for this position.

Sojka Visiting Poet, Fall 2009: Baron Wormser

Baron Wormser is the author of seven books of poetry, most recently Scattered Chapters (Sarabande), a volume of new and selected poems. He has also authored two books on teaching poetry, a collection of short stories, and the nonfiction work The Road Washes Out: A Poet's Memoir of Living off the Grid (University Press of New England), which has gone through four printings.

Wormser teaches in the Stonecoast MFA program and the Fairfield University MFA program and directs the Frost Place Conference on Poetry and Teaching in Franconia, New Hampshire. He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. He served as poet laureate of Maine from 2000 to 2005 and received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from the University of Maine at Augusta in 2005. He has received the Frederick Bock Prize from Poetry and the Kathryn A. Morton Prize along with fellowships from Bread Loaf, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Wormser lives with his wife on twenty-six acres in Cabot, Vermont.

Events for Baron Wormser:

Question & Answer Session
Tuesday, October 6, 4 p.m., Willard Smith Library, Vaughan Literature Building

Poetry Reading
Tuesday, October 6, 7 p.m., Bucknell Hall

Both events are free and open to the public.

Former Sojka Visiting Poets

1995-96 Ellen Bryant Voigt
1996-97 Donald Justice
1997-98 Lorna Goodison
1998-99 John Haines
1999-00 Eavan Boland
2000-01 Robert Pinsky
2001-02 Paul Muldoon
2002-03 Maxine Kumin
2003-04 Stephen Dunn
2004-05 Elizabeth Alexander
2005-06 Philip Appleman
2006-07 Cornelius Eady
2007-08 Robin Becker
2008-09 Adam Zagajewski