Bugeja will serve a two-year term as chancellor and attend writing workshops nationwide promoting poetry. The 1995 Ohio Poet of the Year, Bugeja is adviser on standards at Ohio University and teaches ethics and magazine writing at the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism. He writes a 2000-word monthly poetry column as contributing editor for Writer's Digest. All writers, at some level, are interested in truth. I became a journalist because I wanted to report the truth.
Truth is universal in poetry, and fundamental in ethics, too.
But there is also a key difference between nonfiction of any kind and poetry. Poetry is made up of words, not only in the best order, but in the right voice. It's emotion, tone and texture. Bugeja's ability to both write and explain poetry is what sets him apart from many poets, according to Ohio State University English Professor David Citino, a former director of OSU's Creative Writing Department. It is the teacher in him.