CAL LUTHERAN NAMES ANNUAL POET HONOREES.

Byline: Enrique Rivero Daily News Staff Writer

Christopher Moya's lyrical poetry describes the beautiful moments in his life, while Ann Catalano's more hard-edged verse is about finding her religious identity.

Both California Lutheran University seniors earned this year's Mark Van Doren Poetry Prize from the university's English department, a prize carrying a $500 cash award which they split.

The prize also gets the two poets spots on a plaque listing winners going back to the award's establishment in 1972 - making it the longest-running scholarship on campus, said J.T. Ledbetter, the English professor who established the prize.

``That means a lot to the students, because it has a lot of tradition,'' Ledbetter said. ``They appreciate being steeped in that tradition.''

About 15 students submitted manuscripts of up to five poems to the English department, whose 10 members judged the work, he said.

The prize was named in memory of Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Mark Van Doren, who taught at Columbia University and who was Ledbetter's mentor when the CLU professor first began writing poetry. Van Doren, father of John and Charles Van Doren - the latter was involved in the quiz show scandals of the 1950s - died in 1972.

Ledbetter characterized Moya's poetry as very lyrical, full of coined words and lush imagery, and comparable to the work of Dylan Thomas.

Catalano, who began writing poetry only recently, produces religiously based poetry that Ledbetter called biting and edgy, with a strong feminist strain running throughout.

``They're very good, they're very sharp and incisive as Chris's are very languid and musical,'' he said.

Moya, who lives in Simi Valley, said he has been writing since he was 12, focusing on fiction and drama. Though he had written poetry when he was younger, he didn't produce anything he deemed worthwhile until his freshman year in college.

That was when he began seriously studying poets, which sparked his interest and led him to dedicate himself to verse, said Moya, 22, who graduates on Saturday with a degree in English.

``I learned a lot about what makes good poetry, if you can talk about it that way,'' he said. ``I took more interest in the reader, communicating a message, rather than being mysterious and cryptic.''

Moya's real interest lies in filmmaking, and he hopes to get his foot into Hollywood's door by getting a job as a production assistant. Still, poetry will always be part of his life.

``I'll always pursue that for my own satisfaction and share it with others,'' he said.

Moya said he was stunned to get the award, his first. ``Just the thought that the English Department thought so highly of my poetry - to honor me like that - was pretty exciting.''

Like Moya, Catalano, 21, had written verse as a youngster that she thought of as nothing more than scribbles.

Last fall, during a lull in her work as an assistant in the English Department office, she felt a sudden rush of inspiration. ``I felt the urge to write something and out came a poem.''

Since then, Catalano - an English major with minors in drama and women's studies - has produced a number of poems based on religious figures and ideas.

This stems from the important role that religion has played in her life.

Baptized a Lutheran and confirmed in both the Episcopalian and Catholic churches, Catalano said her religious identity has always been ``kind of a muddle'' - something expressed in a poem such as ``What Are You?''

``It is religious in a sense,'' she said about that poem, which expresses many of her typical concerns. ``It is also very much a personal searching out of where are you, where do you belong?''

Catalano, who plans to be a high school teacher, said the poetry prize will encourage her to continue to produce verse. But prize or no prize, poetry is in her soul.

``My poetry is an expression of what's going on inside of me, and it's going to come out whether I want it to or not,'' she said. ``If there are people I can share that with, that's great.''