James Magner papers

James Edmund Magner, Jr., was a poet and Pulitzer prize for poetry nominee in 1965, 1968, 1973, 1976, and 1978. Magner was born on March 16, 1928, in New York City and grew up in New Rochelle, New York. During the mid-1940s, he worked with underprivileged children, taught boxing, and washed windows before attending college at Notre Dame for a couple of months. He then went into newspaper work.

Magner served in the United States Infantry from 1948-1951, and was discharged as a sergeant. He was initially stationed at Fort Devens, Massachusetts, where he was the heavyweight boxing champion. In the first winter of the Korean War, he was wounded in the knee.

Magner returned to the United States and served in Roman Catholic monasteries at Dunkirk, New York, Pittsburgh, and Hartford, spending five years as a Passionist seminarian (1951-1956). He then attended Duquesne University, and received his B.A. in Philosophy. After graduating, he taught at a Christian Brothers High School in Pittsburgh for four years.

He received his M.A. in English at the University of Pittsburgh in 1961, where he was a graduate fellow for one year. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh in 1966.

He began teaching at John Carroll University in 1962, and eventually became a majority member of the English faculty. His poetry was first published in small literary journals in the late 1950s. He wrote and published eight books of poetry.