Poet Laureate of West Virginia, Marc Harshman to speak during WVU Art Museum series

The Art Museum of WVU will welcome West Virginia’s poet laureate Marc Harshman to campus on Sept. 19. Following a day of workshops with University and public school students, Harshman will give a reading from both his Weatherford Award winning volume, “Believe What You Can,” as well as from his new collection, “Woman in Red Anorak,” winner of the 2017 Blue Lynx Prize. The reading will begin at 5:30 p.m. in the Art Museum of WVU’s Museum Education Center, which is located near the corner of Patteson Drive and Morrill Way at the Evansdale Campus North Entrance.

Additionally, in the course of the evening, he will share insights from his earlier activities with students as together they explored art and ekphrastic poetry, that is, poetry inspired by art.  This art included work from both the WVU Art Museum, as well as from collections around the world.

Harshman’s third full-length collection of poems, “Woman in Red Anorak,” will be published later this year by Lynx House/University of Washington Press. His fourteenth children’s book, “FallingWater.” co-written with Anna Smucker, was published by Roaring Brook/Macmillan in 2017. His poetry collection, “Believe What You Can” was published in 2016 by West Virginia University Press and won the Weatherford Award from the Appalachian Studies Association. Periodical publications include The Chariton Review, Salamander, Shenandoah, and Poetry Salzburg Review. Poems have been anthologized by Kent State University, the University of Iowa, University of Georgia and the University of Arizona. He was recently named a Distinguished West Virginian by WVU President E. Gordon Gee. He is the seventh poet laureate of West Virginia.

Parking is available in short-term lot ST-1, located at the intersection of Fine Arts Drive and Morrill Way. For more information about the Art Up Close! program, contact the Art Museum of WVU at 304.293.7790