Lansdowne poet Janie McNeil will be accepting two awards from West Chester University this week at the 24^th annual Poetry Conference, June 5-8, writes Ruth Rovner for the Delaware County News Network.

The nation’s only all-poetry writing conference is dedicated to formal poetry, drawing renowned poets, teachers of poetry, poetry lovers and student poets.  The university’s Poetry Center was flooded with hundreds of submissions from 65 colleges and universities nation wide.

McNeil won first place and second place in one of the contests and was one of two West Chester University students to receive an award.

One of her poems, titled “The Birth,” has an especially unusual theme.

”It’s written from the perspective of an unborn child, having the responsibility of being born thrust upon it,” she said.

McNeil wrote her first poem at age six.  Her work has appeared in the Pittsburgh Press, Au Courant and the former Labyrinthe, a woman’s newspaper.

She has served in the National Guard, worked with mentally challenged individuals, worked six years as a bartender and was a block sergeant at the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections at Graterford before deciding to return to college as an English major.

Learn more about poet Janie McNeil here.

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