LEXINGTON, Va. March 24, 2025 — Col. Steven Knepper, professor and Bruce C. Gottwald Jr. ’81 Chair for Academic Excellence in the Department of English, Rhetoric, and Humanistic Studies at Virginia Military Institute, recently won first place in three endowed categories of the Poetry Society of Virginia’s (PSV) annual contest: the Sarah Lockwood Memorial for sonnets; the Bess Gresham Memorial for poems on friendship; and the Carleton Drewry Memorial for poems about farm life or working the earth. 

It has been a goal of Knepper’s for the past few years to place in the Sarah Lockwood Memorial, so he was particularly pleased that his sonnet, “Interstate 81 Near Harrisonburg,” won first place. Though the poem was inspired by the mundane activity of interstate travel and being stuck in traffic, Knepper was able to weave splendor into the mundane. In the closing lines of the sonnet, a cloud of starlings “slice a fin / through the sky sea, swirl back, emerge / above the smoking, stalled debris.” The poem invited the reader to pause and appreciate wonder and beauty amid unpleasant circumstances.

Mattie Quesenberry Smith, Ph.D., poet laureate for the Commonwealth of Virginia and a colleague of Knepper’s at VMI, is not surprised he received the PSV awards. “He is an engaging storyteller who uses relatable, formal structures to house vivid, real-life experiences powered by emotion yet shaped by reason. His tightly woven narratives are inseparable from their concrete imagery and action-packed diction. Readers delight in the formal sonic richness of Steve’s poems as much as they delight in his narratives,” she said.     

All three of Knepper’s winning poems will be published in the contest anthology, and he will read them at the award ceremony in Richmond June 1.

Knepper maintains an online poetry journal called New Verse Review: A Journal of Lyric and Narrative Poetry, which American poet and literary critic, Dana Gioia, recently called “an important new critical forum for American poetry.” In addition to the journal website, there is also has a weekly newsletter that runs reviews, essays, and interviews. 

The PSV is a dedicated nonprofit organization advancing poetry across the Commonwealth of Virginia and beyond. Its mission is to cultivate the writing and enjoyment of poetry through a wide range of literary programs, events, and resources.

Marianne Hause
Communications & Marketing
VIRGINIA MILITARY INSTITUTE