By Janice Sheffler, C 05

The Saint Vincent College English Department will present the Ragan Poetry Reading on Thursday, April 21 at 7:30 p.m. in Placid Hall, Dining Room B.  Student winners of the Ragan Poetry Competition will present their work alongside this year’s judge, poet Jim Daniels.  The reading is free and open to the public. 

The student winners include: first place, sophomore biology major Bethany Evans of Pittsburgh; second place, junior biology major, Ben Kleifgen of Pittsburgh; third place, sophomore history major, Christopher Mannerino of Rochester; Honorable Mentions include: senior communication major, Sarah Bachner of Pittsburgh; sophomore business management major, Nathan Sylvester of Hollidaysburg; and junior English major, Aliesha Pocratsky of Scottdale.      

The first prize poem, “My Grandfather’s House,” by Bethany Evans will appear with the other winning poems in Saint Vincent College’s literary magazine, Generation.  Free copies of the magazine will be available at the reading.

This year’s judge, Jim Daniels, is the author of eight books of poems, including, most recently, Show and Tell: New and Selected Poems, University of Wisconsin Press (2003).  Show and Tell was a finalist for the 2004 Paterson Poetry Prize.

His eighth chapbook (small book of poems), Digger's Blues, was published by Adastra Press in 2002.

His second book of short stories, Detroit Tales, was published by Michigan State University Press in 2003. Detroit Tales received a bronze medal for the 2004 ForeWord Book of the Year in the fiction-short stories category.

In addition, he has edited or co-edited four anthologies of poetry, including Letters to America: Contemporary American Poetry on Race, Wayne State University Press (1995), and American Poetry: The Next Generation (2000), Carnegie Mellon. Mr. Daniels also wrote the screenplay for No Pets, an independent feature film directed by Tony Buba (Braddock Films), and wrote "Heart of Hearts," a one-act play produced at the 13th Street Repertory Theater in New York.

Mr. Daniels has received two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and two from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. His poems have appeared in the Pushcart Prize and Best American Poetry anthologies.  Mr. Daniels is the Thomas Stockman Baker Professor of English at Carnegie Mellon University, where he directs the Creative Writing Program.

The Ragan Poetry Contest is designed to recognize and encourage student writing of poetry.  The competition is made possible by a gift from Dr. James Ragan, a 1966 graduate of Saint Vincent College, who is Director of the University of Southern California’s Graduate Professional Writing Program.  His poetry has been awarded the Emerson Poetry Prize, the Gertrude Claytor Memorial Award from the Poetry society of America, and has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, two Pushcart Prizes, the Walt Whitman Center Book Award and the PEN Center West Poetry Prize. 

A Fulbright Senior Lecturer to China and Yugoslavia, Dr. Ragan has read his work extensively in Asia and Central and Eastern Europe, including the Moscow International Poetry Forums of 1985 and 1990.  His own work includes In the Talking Hours, Womb-Weary, Lusions and The Hunger Wall.  In addition, he is a working screenwriter and dramatist with numerous stage and screen credits.