Wheeling Arts Fest: Reading Plus Workshop with March Harshman

June 21, 2014
11:00am - 11:00am

The Ohio County Public Library will serve, along with West Virginia Northern Community College and West Virginia Independence Hall, as one of the venues for the annual Wheeling Arts Fest on Saturday, June 21. As announced by the History and Literature Committee of the City of Wheeling Arts and Cultural Commission, the theme for the library events will be the “Art and History of Photography.”

The first program will begin at 11 AM in the library’s auditorium, and will feature West Virginia Poet Laureate Marc Harshman, who will conduct a special reading plus workshop concerned with ekphrastic poetry, that is, poetry that is inspired by or offers comments upon another art form, such as photography. He believes ekphrastic poetry provide an exciting prompt for a writer and suspects that people know more of such work than they may realize citing the pop song “Starry Night” by Don McLean, as one example, and Bob Dylan’s many allusions to Shakespeare, as another. Harshman will conduct a reading of some of the seminal verse arising from this peculiar yet often popular perspective. Following the reading he will lead participants in a writing exercise designed to draw them into a full engagement with a work of art that will fuel their own literary art, their own work of words.

Harshman was appointed poet laureate by Governor Earl Ray Tomblin in 2012. His eleven children’s books include THE STORM, a Smithsonian Notable Book, and he has three new children’s books forthcoming. His full-length poetry collection, GREEN-SILVER AND SILENT, was recently published and his fourth chapbook, ALL THAT FEEDS US: THE WEST VIRGINIA POEMS came out from Quarrier Press just last year. Last year, Marc was commissioned by the Wheeling National Heritage Area to write a poem in honor of West Virginia’s Sesquicentennial. On June 20th his poem “A Song for West Virginia” was presented in both Charleston and Wheeling as a part of the day-long festivities. A new, full-color edition of this poem will be available at the Wheeling Arts Fest.