On May 18, 2012, Governor Earl Ray Tomblin named Marc Harshman of Wheeling the state poet laureate. He succeeded the late Irene McKinney, who’d served in the post since 1994. Harshman is the ninth person to serve as poet laureate since the position was established in 1927.
Harshman is a storyteller, children’s author, and poet. His first book of poetry, Turning Out the Stones, was published in 1983, and his 1995 work, The Storm, was named a Smithsonian National Book for Children. He co-wrote another book, Red Are the Apples, with his wife, Cheryl Ryan Harshman, and he wrote Rocks in My Pocket with the late Doddridge County storyteller Bonnie Collins.
Harshman taught for many years, first at the college level and then in grade schools. For a time, he taught fifth and sixth grade at Sand Hill School in Marshall County, one of the last three-room schools in the state. He continues to visit schools and present workshops about writing.
Marc Harshman performed A Song for West Virginia, his first major commission as poet laureate, for the state’s 150th birthday celebration in 2013.
West Virginia’s poet laureate Marc Harshman won the 20th Annual Blue Lynx Prize. Winning the national poetry competition led to the publication this year of his latest compilation of poetry entitled “Woman in Red Anorak.” Harshman spoke from his home in Wheeling.
Q: What is the Blue Lynx Prize?
The competition has been going on for several decades. I believe the press started in New England. Christopher Howell, a fine American poet himself, is the editor and director of the press and the prize. I submitted this manuscript probably 18 months ago. And the prize was, I think, initially announced late last year and publication and happened this autumn.
Q: Tell us a little bit about “Woman in Red Anorak.”
This has been a very interesting experience, to have this collection of poems come out. As you know, I had a book out from WVU just two years ago, give or take, and my collections usually don’t come this quickly. And I was doing a reading in Charleston from this new book “Woman in Red Anorak” maybe in October, and I realized suddenly, I’d never had this experience. Even though they’re my poems, I’m thinking, ‘Who wrote these? They’re so new.’ Most of the poems in my previous poetry collections have been around a while — I knew them inside and out, and I had read them before. Many of these I’d never read aloud before, and they were still very new to me. On the one hand, quite frankly, it was a little unsettling, on the other hand, it was really exciting.
As I have gotten older, I think I understand the process behind my writing poems. I realized that a certain poet or a couple of poets will get under my skin, and I know they will just drive the writing for weeks and months on end.
If you were to read Tomas Gösta Tranströmer — who’s the Swedish poet who’s been under my skin for a couple of years now, and whose influence I feel in this work — I don’t know if anybody else could tell I was reading Tranströmer. But I know that he inspired at least stylistically, tonally some of these poems. Several of these poems owe a debt — a personal debt anyway — to this great Swedish poet.
Already.mp3
Hear Marc Harshman read "Already" from his book "Woman in Red Anorak."
Q: Can you tell us more about the inspiration of Tranströmer within this poem?
That’s hard. You’re trying to suggest the story but without over telling it. Trying to give the mood. There’s a sense of foreboding in the poem and yet there’s something also light-hearted and delightful. You know something has gone horribly wrong in the human sphere, but for the mice — hey this is a gravy train! Here’s this sill, we chewed in, we’re going to get into the house, there’s abandoned birthday a birthday cake and it’s all ours!
I don’t know what the final resolution is for somebody reading this, but it gave me pleasure.
And I like discovery. I want a poem to be something that makes one make someone go, ‘Oh, that’s curious. That’s interesting.’ And that can that can be to the dark side of things or to the light side of things. Or in this case, maybe even a little of both.
Violets.mp3
BONUS: Listen to Marc Harshman read his poem "Violet" from "Woman in Red Anorak."
West Virginia’s poet laureate Marc Harshman highlights here work of the late William Bronk.
Bronk won the National Book Award for poetry in 1981 long before his death in 1999.
Do not look to Bronk for metaphor or imagery, but instead – masterful use of syntax to evoke nuances of life. Harshman pulls some of the spare poetry of the New York native William Bronk in this month’s Poetry Break.
"Bronks' spare language achieves a spectacularly heart-breaking beauty," Harshman said.
Host Marc Harshman calls her, “the most ‘can-do-anything’ poet in America.” George Ella Lyon is a novelist, essayist, teacher, activist, musician, lyricist, children’s author, playwright, and poet. She was named poet laureate of Kentucky in 2015.
"This is the room that made us who we were:/ book lovers, scholars, people of the word,/ who found a safe place between hard covers." -George Ella Lyon
Lyon says she has always loved songs, poems, and stories. “Since I was a shy kid,” Lyon wrote, “it was natural for me to use writing to express feelings and thoughts I couldn’t just say. Gradually I discovered that not only did writing help me express myself, it could be exciting, joyful, and comforting in itself. I realized I loved making things out of words. That’s why I became a writer.”
Found here:
On Those Shelves
It Got Us This Time
Interior Design
This selection was pulled from Lyon’s most recent publications Many Storied House, used with permission by George Ella Lyon and the University Press of Kentucky.
Marc Harshman, poet laureate of West Virginia has just seen his second full length collection of poetry published by the Vandalia Press at West Virginia University called Believe What You Can.
"To enter this work is to remain open to the haphazard, the lopsided, the fragile, and the bracing details that tell our times as we both know and fear them," said Maggie Anderson of Harshman's publication.
Linda Pastan has had a prolific career during the course of which she won the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize and twice was named a finalist for the National Book Award. She is, as well, past poet laureate of Maryland.
"I adore the way Pastan offers in her poems a voice at once familiar and commanding and always pointing toward the mystery of being a human being born to imagine," said Harshman.
Heard here:
Rachel
Time Travel
Somewhere in the World
Notes From the Delivery Room
The Happiest Day
Selections were pulled from Carnival Evening by Linda Pastan, Published by W.W. Norton & Company. Copyright 2011, 1998 by Linda Pastan. Used by permission of Linda Pastan in care of the Jean V. Naggar Literacy Agency, Inc. (permissions@jvnla.com)