FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: October 10, 2023 
 

For More Information:  
Glenville State University   
Public Relations Department  
(304) 462-4115 
 
The Little Kanawha Reading Series is pleased to announce a reading by the poet John Hoppenthaler. The reading will take place on Thursday, October 26, 2023, at 4:00 p.m. in the Robert F. Kidd Library.    

A prolific poet, John Hoppenthaler has written four books: Night Wing over Metropolitan Area  (2023), Domestic Garden (2015), Anticipate the Coming Reservoir (2008), and Lives of Water  (2003), all with Carnegie Mellon University Press. His poetry has appeared in many journals, anthologies, and textbooks, and he has won numerous writing awards. He taught at WVU-Parkersburg and is currently a Professor of Creative Writing and Literature at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina.  

Hoppenthaler’s fourth collection gives voice to a hardearned weariness that acknowledges but resists resignation. As songwriter Rosanne Cash put it, “Hoppenthaler’s attention to the specifics of nature—hummingbirds, Japanese maples, snowfall— are like embroidery, stitched through and holding together the sharp memories and images of loss, longing, regret,  and hope.” These powerful poems assay aging, spirituality, contemporary political concerns, death, the struggles of a mentally ill child, and related marital pressures. In the end, the poems conclude with a sense of resiliency and purpose reinscribed. 

This event is free and open to the public. It will be live-streamed via GSU’s YouTube feed.  

The Little Kanawha Reading Series provides a showcase for a diversity of literary forms and voices in order to acknowledge and enrich the cultural heritage of Appalachia and the communities around the Little Kanawha River. The Little Kanawha Reading Series is a collaboration between the Glenville State University Department of Language and Literature, the Department of Social Science and the Appalachian Studies Program, and the Robert F. Kidd Library.  

For more information, contact Jonathan Minton at jonathan.minton@glenville.edu. 

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