Bucknell Seminar for Undergraduate Poets
The Bucknell Seminar for Undergraduate Poets, the Stadler Center's renowned summer poetry program, recently celebrated its fortieth anniversary. Each June the Seminar brings together a cohort of promising undergraduate poets from across the country for a week of reading, writing, and discussion under the guidance of established faculty poets. BSUP alumni include Ilya Kaminsky, Donika Kelly, Ted Genoways, Mary Szybist, Jane Wong, Kevin Young and other luminaries of the American poetry community.
Accepted applicants receive free tuition, lodging, meals, and a travel stipend. Undergraduates at U.S. colleges and universities who will complete their sophomore, junior, or senior year in the year of application are eligible to apply. The Seminar is currently directed by Jessica Nirvana Ram, the Center's Publicity & Outreach Manager and author of the poetry collection Earthly Gods.
Apply for the Bucknell Seminar for Undergraduate Poets residence program
The application portal opens on Oct. 15, 2025.
The application deadline is Jan. 31, 2026.
Chet'la Sebree is the author of the poetry collections Blue Opening; Field Study, winner of the 2020 James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets; and Mistress, nominated for an NAACP Image Award. Her debut essay collection TURN (W)HERE: A Geography of Home is forthcoming in 2026. She has received fellowships from MacDowell and Yaddo and has been published in The Kenyon Review, The Yale Review and Lit Hub among other venues. Currently, she’s an assistant professor at the George Washington University and faculty in Randolph College’s Low-Residency MFA in Creative Writing program.
Nate Marshall is an award-winning educator, editor, and author born and raised on the South Side of Chicago. His most recent book, FINNA, was hailed as one of 2020’s best poetry books by NPR and the New York Public Library. His next book, Married or Buried, will be released in 2027 by One World/Random House. His work has been published in Poetry, the Chicago Tribune, and many other venues. Marshall teaches in the creative writing program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and lives in Madison with his wife and daughter.
Jessica Nirvana Ram is the author of the debut poetry collection Earthly Gods (Game Over Books, 2024) and the chapbook in the aftermath (Fifth Wheel Press, 2025). Jessica earned her MFA from the University of North Carolina Wilmington and her BA from Susquehanna University. Jessica's work has appeared in Prairie Schooner, Poet Lore, The Cincinnati Review, and Cream City Review, among others. She was a 2022-23 Stadler Fellow in Literary Arts Administration and now works as the Publicity and Outreach Manager for the Stadler Center for Poetry and Literary Arts at Bucknell University.