Poet John McKernan
to give Reading and Book Signing

Morgantown, WV, March 20, 2006:  Celebrated poet John McKernan will give a book reading on Wednesday, April 4, 2007 in the Robinson Reading Room of West Virginia University’s Downtown Library. The reading will take place at 7:30 p.m. followed by a reception and book signing.

The free event is sponsored by the West Virginia University Department of English and the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences.

John McKernan is the author of Resurrection of the Dust, which was a finalist in more than a dozen poetry contests before its publication this year. He has also published four chapbooks of poetry, and poems in dozens of literary magazines in the United States, England, and Ireland. He edited The Little Review from 1968 to 1980 and has begun a new poetry magazine, ABZ, with its first issue appearing in 2006.

“Not many poets manage the comic mode as deftly as John McKernan,” said Dr. James Harms, Director of WVU’s Creative Writing Program. “Even fewer are able to do so while addressing so directly the ordinary sadness of loss.”

McKernan has won fellowships and grants from The Benedum Foundation, The West Virginia Humanities Council, The Marshall Research Board, The West Virginia Commission on the Arts, The National Endowment for the Arts, and The National Endowment for the Humanities.

He has received awards for his teaching and for his poetry including The Marshall and Shirley Reynolds Outstanding Teaching Award from Marshall University, The West Virginia Professor of the Year Award from The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, and The Robert H. Winner Award from The Poetry Society of America. McKernan is currently a professor at Marshall University.

For more information, contact James Harms, Department of English, at 304-293-3107 ext. 33451 or James.Harms@mail.wvu.edu.

W-V-U