Ohio County author Marc Harshman has spent decades writing poetry and children’s books. He has served as West Virginia’s state poet laureate since 2012, and his 2023 poetry collection “Following the Silence” is a 2024 West Virginia Common Read selection.
This year, Harshman was recognized by Shepherd University as the 2024 Appalachian Heritage Writer-in-Residence. During his visit to Shepherdstown, Harshman sat down with reporter Jack Walker to discuss his work and Appalachian literature at large.
Listen to the extended conversation below:
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Walker: Marc, thank you very much for being here today. First I just want to ask: How has your week been? I know your schedule has been jam packed with a lot of different events. How has your visit to Shepherd been?
Harshman: It was terrific. It was a lovely time. I saw all kinds of people in all kinds of settings and visited three different high schools. There’s something very satisfying about doing that. I, of course, enjoy talking a little bit about poetry and trying to make sure that students see that poetry is something that can be accessible and inspiring and fun. But I have to say, part of what I most enjoy is fielding questions from the students after I’ve spoken about poetry and read a few of my own poems and to field their questions, which in every instance, at all three schools, were highly articulate and interesting.
Walker: I was wondering if you could tell us about your background and how you get started writing poetry and children’s books.
Harshman: I was raised on a small farm in the middle of nowhere in east central Indiana. But one of my clearest memories as a boy is that once-a-week trip to town for groceries was always a trip to the little Carnegie library there in that small town near where I grew up. As far back as I can remember, I can see dad sitting in one chair, a pile of books beside him. My mother in another chair, a pile of books beside her. And myself sitting in the middle of the old braided rug, a big pile of picture books beside me. And I realized that really changed my life. I would hear my father reciting poetry, even though he was a typically taciturn farmer. I remember sitting around my grandparents’ dinner table and just hearing all the gossip of the day told, which was a kind of storytelling. So that spark was lit early. I was in love with listening and hearing stories, and would go on to repay the gift by telling my own.
Walker: At what point did that translate into writing for you, going from this love of storytelling to this love of putting pen to paper?
Harshman: I’m not quite sure. I mean, I was scribbling, and I think it became more fervent in high school, and then I went off to college. I was not exclusively an English major. I was a religion major. That’s a whole other story. But, you know, the scribbling never stopped and, at some point, I think in graduate school, I sent my first poems off to magazines and would publish my first small chapbook in 1983.
Walker: We are talking today in West Virginia’s Eastern Panhandle, but you are visiting from a different panhandle, the Northern Panhandle. So you’re already familiar with Appalachia as a region, and it’s home to you. Speaking to that, many of your works are rooted in Appalachia, its heritage, its culture. How do you see Appalachia as a region influencing your work?
Harshman: I’ll say this. I have lived my adult life in northern West Virginia. There is a sense of community and a reverence for the landscape in Appalachia that is very finely tuned. I think perhaps nowhere else in the country is that sense of heritage as rich and a matter of pride as it is here in Appalachia. Of course, West Virginia is at the epicenter of the whole Appalachian region. I consider it a privilege to have lived my life here. I think the poems, certainly many of them, reflect the natural landscape. As well, however, as reflecting some of the challenges and frustrations of living in a place that too often has been beset by political prejudice from outside and poverty. So it’s a demand that is a delight to pursue when I’m writing about the beauty of the fields and woods, but also a challenge when I think about the extractive industries that have been so cruel.
Photo Credit: Jack Walker/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Walker: Do you see your work as something that’s trying to transform the narrative around Appalachia? Is it something that’s trying to redefine what it means to be Appalachian?
Harshman: To be honest, I don’t see myself trying to do that. I’ve always thought there was a huge danger in trying to overly engage the political, certainly for me. Because if I begin to deal with something that’s more political, it sounds more like I’m on a rant, and that’s not good poetry. On the other hand, there is a kind of subversive nature to a good poem that will convince and convert, in the best of ways, someone else’s thinking about a particular issue. I can hope that the best of my work might accomplish that, even if I’m not conscious that’s what’s going on in the work. It all is, in the end, a big mystery. I simply try to write the best story I can, simply try to write the best poem I can.
You did ask earlier about the Appalachian nature of my work. I can certainly say that one of the children’s books I’m most pleased about is my third book called “Rocks in my Pockets,” which had its genesis in my hearing the renowned Appalachian storyteller Bonnie Collins telling me the kernel of that story sitting on her back porch in Doddridge County long, long ago. And I took that little kernel of a story and stretched it. It became “Rocks in my Pockets,” with my name and Bonnie’s name on the cover. It was a real treat, and it’s got all the best of Appalachia in it: the country people outwitting the city people and having fun at the same time.
Walker: A lot of your stories are rooted in the natural world, its mysteries, its complexities. What makes this a recurring motif for you?
Harshman: I suppose part of the answer simply is that I was raised in the country, even after we lost the farm we spoke about. We probably left the farm when I was about 10 years old, but I would continue to live in the country. So my friends were all farm boys or farm girls, and I grew up pitching hay and shoveling manure and helping paint barns and so on. So, that sense of the natural world and the work of the rural has been a part of me all my life.
It’s also true, I realize now, that on my mother’s side, her brother and my grandfather were both avid hunters and fishermen, and I would go with them, especially fishing. So there was that little ingredient of the natural world, too. I mean, I’m a terrible fisherman, but I could sit by the edge of a river or stream for hours, if not days, and be perfectly happy just to look and watch, see what birds flew by, see what fish neglected to bite my worm.
Walker: What do you think an Appalachian writer’s responsibility is to address these topics? What power do you think literature has to make real change in that regard?
Harshman: I do think there’s a kind of seduction that could go on with good literature about certain issues like that. And I do think that when I think of something like mountaintop removal mining or the fracking industry in my part of the state, they’re horrific practices. In the end, they are not going to have been worth the degradation to the environment that they’ve caused. It’s climate change, it’s a climate crisis. The best thinkers, the best scientists, make it quite clear: There is no escaping the urgency that faces all of us to change and do something in our private lives. Now, whether a creative writer has to — I mean, yes, I do think creative writers have the ability to do something about that. I’m not sure that I’m the best at doing that, but I will bear witness however I can in my work and in my own private life.
Photo Credit: Jack Walker/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Walker: You’re an author who obviously stretches across genre. In an August 2024 interview, you described the link between your dual pursuits of writing children’s books and poetry, saying: “There’s a succinctness of form that’s really quite similar between writing for children and writing poetry.” Could you expand on this interplay between the genres that you write in?
Harshman: I think the best thing I could do there is simply reiterate what you read, that there is a succinctness of form that’s similar between writing a children’s picture book and writing a poem. You try to say as much as you possibly can with as few words as possible. Now yes, of course, the audience is distinctly different, and that means that the language will be perhaps a different level for those two. But that impulse to say as much as one can in a condensed form, that’s something shared, I think, between some of my poetry and certainly my children’s books.
Walker: I know that your newest poetry selection, “Following the Silence,” was West Virginia’s 2024 Common Read. You also have served as the West Virginia poet laureate for, forgive me if I’m wrong now, 12 years now? Is that right?
Harshman: 12 or starting my thirteenth. I was appointed in 2012 of May.
Walker: Got it. And I was wondering, could you just tell me a little bit about you know this role you have in terms of representing the Mountain State, representing West Virginia. What has that meant for you?
Harshman: It’s been an honor and a privilege. I’m humbled by it. I never dreamed that I would get the call from the governor’s office appointing me to be the next poet laureate back in 2012. As I’ve said numerous times, not just this week, but ever since my appointment almost, my understanding of the role has grown. Not only do I want to obviously trumpet the achievements of my fellow poets here in West Virginia, but very quickly I realized I want to promote the achievements of all the literary arts, — fellow poets and novelists and short story writers. Quickly, I began to realize that this has to include the non-fiction writers as well as journalists. Then suddenly, because it’s such a small state, I realized what a unique platform I have to speak. So it’s a pleasure to also begin promoting dancers and sculptors and painters and musicians. So whenever I can, if somebody has a new piece of music out, or somebody’s got a great art exhibit being placed somewhere, I want to make sure people know about it.
Walker: This week, you’ve had the chance to meet aspiring writers and writers of different levels of experience. What advice do you have for people looking to pursue creative writing?
Harshman: It sounds idiot simple, Jack. But what I say, and have even said in front of audiences — I suppose I should be embarrassed to say such things because it sounds so simple — but truly, if you feel you’ve got this itch, better yet, this passion to put pen to paper, then read. Read everything as much as you can, all the time. If you think you want to be a poet, for God’s sake, make sure you’re reading novels and short stories and nonfiction. Then, when you do start writing, don’t just write poetry. Make yourself write prose. You want every tool you can possibly get as a writer. Learn the craft of good writing and you’ll get there. You will get there. The reading comes first, and then the scribbling.
Walker: The last question I had for you is: You’ve been a very prolific writer. What’s next for you? Are there any other books on the horizon?
Harshman: I hope I can just go to the end scribbling. I mean the end the end scribbling. I’ve got a new book coming out from the Vandalia Press of West Virginia University in the spring, called “Dispatch from the Mountain State.” I’ve got a whole host of other poems that I’ve been neglecting for a little while, and I’m very eager to be pulling them into a full-length collection. I’ve got that project, and I’ve got at least a couple of children’s stories that I’ve also neglected this past year or two, and I really want to get back to them. So I’ve got the new book coming from WVU and rough drafts and all kinds of other things on my desk at home.
Walker: Well, Marc, thank you very much for taking the time to sit down with us as this year’s Appalachian Heritage Writer-in-Residence. I greatly appreciate it.
Harshman: You’re very welcome. It’s been a pleasure.