Tag: Marc Harshman

Help Choose W.Va. Poet Laureate's New Poetry Book Cover

West Virginia University Press is set to publish West Virginia Poet Laureate Marc Harshman’s latest collection of poetry: Believe What You Can in October 2016. And the publishers are looking for help in choosing a cover for the book.

In Believe What You Can Harshman explores the struggle of having an awareness of the eventual death of all living things in four sections, each of which suggests a different coping strategy.

The cover contest includes a choice between three different covers.

Voting will be open until February 15. All three covers were designed by the press’s art director, Than Saffel.

Harshman was born in Indiana and came to West Virginia first to attend Bethany College. He later settled with his wife in the northern panhandle where he was a teacher for many years. He was appointed poet laureate by Governor Earl Ray Tomblin in May 2012 following the death of his predecessor, Irene McKinney, who served as poet laureate for 18 years.

Harshman has published several children’s books, and his last book of poetry, Green-Silver and Silent was well received by fans who found roughly thirty years of his poems under one cover. Harshman is featured on a new podcast from West Virginia Public Broadcasting called the Poetry Break, where he delivers poems of his own as well as other Appalachian poets’ work.

The Poetry Break: Marc Harshman

A new podcast from West Virginia Public Broadcasting features poets from Appalachia and around the world. The Poetry Break is hosted and curated by West Virginia Poet Laureate Marc Harshman.

Harshman delivers poems and commentary, and the first episode features some of his own work from Green-Silver and Silent , and published by Bottom Dog Press (2012), and the forthcoming Believe What You Can to be published by Vandalia Press of West Virginia University in 2016.

The Poetry Break is featured on West Virginia Public Broadcasting’s West Virginia Morning every third Thursday of the month.

Mountain Christmas: A New Children’s Book From W.Va. Poet Laureate

The West Virginia Book Company commissioned a new children’s book from West Virginia’s poet laureate and author Marc Harshman. The book, entitled Mountain Christmas, was published last month and is now in stores across the state. It’s about sleighbells heard by all sorts of people and creatures in iconic scenes found throughout the Mountain State.

Harshman says the owner of the West Virginia Book Company, Bill Clements, approached him a couple years ago about writing the book.

“It’s a story about Santa coming to West Virginia. As an author wanting to make a West Virginia-friendly book I was intentional about including a diverse range of places here in West Virginia such as the state capital, the Greenbank Observatory, the Wheeling Suspension Bridge, Black Water Falls.”

Stanzas feature Appalachian professionals as well: a scientist, a coal miner, a barge captain on the river, a soldier.  Harshman wanted to write a book the whole family can enjoy.

“I wanted to capture that sense of joy and anticipation, that longing – even a certain poignancy which might not be recognizable by a child but would be instantly hopefully appealing to an adult reader.”

Harshman says the process of creating the book was unique. He worked closely with editor Bill Clements and was able to choose and work with a friend and local illustrator, Cecy Rose.

“It was a first for me, it was a real project,” said Rose, a Wheeling artist and teacher.

“[Harshman] really provided with his stanzas the visual pictures for me; Bill was all about the magic, he kept telling me, ‘Just make it magical.’ And that wasn’t hard because I had a lot of input from my students who are all very young.”

The 17 illustrations are bright and vivid acrylic paintings. In life they’re about 11 inches by 14 inches–close the actual dimensions of the hardback book which stands 11 inches tall and 8 and a half inches wide. Rose says it took seven months to illustrate the entire book.  

“Santa was the biggest challenge,” Rose recalls, “because I didn’t want him to look too comical or cartoonish, so I referred to a lot of classical children’s book, and how I remembered Santa, and he came out sort of Nordic looking. I was pleased with that and I loved the idea of the sleighbells so in every illustration the sleighbells are appearing somewhere in the picture even if Santa doesn’t.”

Perhaps one other notable feature was publisher Bill Clements’ decision to use a special font called OpenDyslexic. The new, open-source font has letters that are weighted at the bottom and spaced a little more widely to make reading a little easier for folks with dyslexia. 

Public book signings are planned:

  • Wheeling Artisan Center (3rd floor): Thursday December 10, 5:30 – 7 pm
  • New Martinsville School: Friday December 11, 5:00 – 6:30 pm

A few of the stores around the state where people can find Mountain Christmas:

  • Drug Emporium in Barboursville
  • Main Line Books in Elkins
  • Tamarack in Beckley
  • Taylor Books in Charleston
  • Wheeling Artisan Center in Wheeling
  • Words and Music in Wheeling
  • Etc in Wheeling
  • South Branch Inn in Moorefield
  • Open Book in Lewisburg
  • WV Food and Things in Parkersburg

Does W.Va. Need More Poetry?

Perhaps not surprisingly, West Virginia’s poet laureate, Marc Harshman, seems to thinks so.He’s been collaborating with several organizations, including…

Perhaps not surprisingly, West Virginia’s poet laureate, Marc Harshman, seems to thinks so.

He’s been collaborating with several organizations, including West Virginia Public Broadcasting, to conceive of new events that will bring more poetry to the daily lives of West Virginians.

Eat More Poetry

When asked why poetry should be broadcast or heard more often in any event, Harshman doesn’t mince words, he prepares them:

“I have a great faith in poetry to refocus in us what it means to be human and with every passing year I feel an ever-greater need to be reminded about what it is that we hold in common as men and women who value beauty and the kind of meanings revealed in artistic expression.

"I'm not embarrassed to continue to quote as immensely relevant, William Carlos Williams' adage that 'it is difficult to get the news from poems, yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there.'"

“In a political season that is perhaps more sad and pathetic than ever before, perhaps the news that may be found in poetry will hold a brightness, a freshness more useful than the soundbites from talking heads reporting on the doings of the millionaires and corporate figureheads dominating what currently passes for news here in America.”

Poetry in Wheeling

One of the initiatives Harshman has undertaken is shaping a regular poetry series in Wheeling. The germ of the idea for the series sprouted out of conversations with Ohio County Public Library’s Sean Duffy, orchestrator of a popular weekly Lunch with Books program that features authors, poets, and more. Harshman says conversations with Duffy as well as memories of other events inspired the series.

“I recall the legendary James Wright Poetry Festival which had been held in Martins Ferry for many years and was truly a real part of the landscape for the poets in America.”

Harshman remembers how people came from all over to hear the writers who were gathered at the festival and to take workshops.

“People that were here remember that some of the events would occasionally take place in Wheeling so it seems only fitting that we can do it again, slightly differently.”

When he’s available, Harshman will host the Wheeling Poetry Series, which will occur three times each year. The inaugural event is September 29th at noon at the Ohio County Public Library and features Kentucky’s poet laureate, George Ella Lyon.

Lyon will read from her collection Many-Storied House. She’s also slated to give a workshop at West Liberty University earlier in the day, and a second reading in the evening that will kick off a second regular poetry initiative in Wheeling: The Word on the Blue Church (aptly named for the building where it will be held in downtown Wheeling).

The Word on the Blue Church will be a monthly series. Harshman, who also had a hand in shaping this series, says the plan is to rotate between more traditional readings by poets and fiction readers, feature story tellers, and on every third month there will be an open mic.
 

The Word on the Blue Church – Co-Hosted by Dr. Scott Hannah and occasionally by March Harshman

  • September 29th (evening): George Ella Lyon
  • October: Judy Tarowsky – storyteller
  • November: Open Mic

Wheeling Poetry Series – Hosted by Sean Duffy and Marc Harshman

  • Fall 2015: September 29th, Tuesday, noon , at the Ohio County Public Library – Kentucky Poet Laureate George Ella Lyon
  • Spring 2016: Steve Scafidi
  • Summer 2016: TBD
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