On Sunday, April 21st at 2:30pm, poet BJ Ward will follow other writers like Meg Kearny and Renee Ashley as April's featured artist in DeBaun Auditorium's Spoken Word Artists Series.

Recently awarded the New Jersey Governor's Award in Arts Education for 2001, BJ Ward's career has been filled with many accolades. Last year he was nominated for a Pushcart Prize and has been the recipient of Poetry Fellowships from the NJ State Council on the Arts/ Department of State and the Alliance for Arts Education in New Jersey.

His most recent volume of poetry, 17 Love Poems with No Despair, was chosen by Borders.com as one of the 62 Essential Books for the 1998 Dodge Poetry Festival as well as remaining on Amazon.com's Top 40 Best-selling Books of Love Poems for over three years. His work has appeared in publications such as Poetry, The New York Times, Puerto Del Sol, The Paterson Literary Review, Long Shot, Natural Bridge, Kimera, US 1 Worksheets, Lips, Poet Lore, The Hiram Poetry Review, The Journal of New Jersey Poets and many others.

All events in this series are FREE and open to the public and will continue on the third Sunday of each month until June 2002. David Vincenti will be the next headliner for the Stevens Alumni Reading Event in May as the series' next featured artist.

All are welcome to come and be part of the reading series. It is not necessary to pre-register for these events, either to attend or to read during open-microphone times. If you would like more information on this series, please contact Karen Schotter, DeBaun's Managing Director; at 201.216.8960 or by e-mail her at kschotter@debaun.org.