ࡱ> g Ubjbjpp . j j&rr4%>  B%D%D%D%D%D%D%']*fD%9" " " D%}%.$.$.$" *B%.$" B%.$.$.$pgL!V.$.%%0%.$*#*.$*.$" " .$" " " " " D%D%#v" " " %" " " " *" " " " " " " " " rY : Interview with WV Poet Laureate Marc Harshman, August 2024 By David O. Hoffman and Sylvia Bailey Shurbutt D&S: You have been a successful and prolific childrens author, winning many awards for the profundity and sagaciousness of your picture books. Talk about the connection between your poetry and your childrens volumes. MH: Let me first say that I dont seem able not to write poetry. I could perhaps not write childrens books even though it is those works upon which much of my reputation as a writer has been built. It is also only the childrens books that have ever regularly put any bread on the table. However, long before I ever thought of childrens books, I was writing poetry and so believe I remain first a poet. That said, I love writing childrens books, and I love being a childrens author. Theres no greater pleasure than to walk into an auditorium filled with children who know and have read my books and who utter a collective sigh when the cover of one of my more popular titles comes onto the screen such as The Storm or Rocks in My Pockets. With the poetry and the childrens books, I am, in a way, trying to get across as much information and provoke as much emotion as possible while using as few words as I can. Theres a succinctness of form thats really quite similar between writing for children and writing poetry. Even with my prose poems, the idea of trying to tell a complete story in a single paragraph betokens that aforementioned succinctness. Ive often been asked if I had a particular genre in mind as I start writing, and I have to say that I dont. I simply start out chasing after the words on the page and see where they lead. For instance, I might start writing something and have in mind that its a prose poem but will come back a month later and think, No, this would be so much better with room to breathe, with line breaks and the altered phrasings and rhythms that come from that. Sometimes Ive got something in front of me, and I dont know whether its an adult poem or a childrens book. I really dont. I often say that about one of my more successful childrens books, Only One. Its written for really young children, so its especially sparejust a sentence per pageand the first line is There may be a million stars / but theres only one sky. When I scribbled down those words, I truly didnt know if they were going to be in a picture book or ignite a poem, or, who knows, become the first lines to the great American novel. I really didnt know, but I liked the sound of those words and so I kept fiddling and eventually those words led to the picture book it is today. D&S: In some sense, all poetry is meant to be heard, as is music; however, your poetry in particular is meant to be experienced through the sense of sound. Talk about the importance of the audial experience specifically of your work. MH: As I read other poets I can usually tell within just a few lines whether there will be any music and sadly I find that very little of what Ive read in recent years really achieves what I would call true poetry-music. Sometimes I feel like Im reading a diary entry broken into couplets or quatrains but with little sense of music. Other times I hear a kind of rant with a beat that seems derived more from pop music than from the inner subtleties of language. Dont get me wrong, there are moments of poetry in the pop world from Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell to Alicia Keys and Tracey Chapman but . . . great poetry should be able to sing from the page without any props. Even though to some ears poetry in the modern era seems to possess less music than it once did, I would maintain there is music in the best modern and contemporary poems that can be heard as long as the reader is willing to listen. Ive always loved the following anecdote regarding the American composer Charles Ives, who valued music more as human activity than as sound in its own right. He cared less how it sounded as long as it was vigorous, healthy and daring. He presumably once challenged someone in an audience booing modern music to stand up and use your ears like a man! Forgiving the dated gender bias, it seems a good antidote to those who might feel they miss more obvious forms of rhythm and rhyme in todays poetry. Ill admit that I dont know if my shorter poems, say ones consisting of only three or four lines have much music to them, but I do like to think in some way or another most of the rest do. Revision for myself must always include reading the work aloud, preferably many times, and in so doing I most often hear whats working and what is not, what possesses music and what does not. I like to think this even includes my prose poems for there is a voice to be heard in any good prose and, in fact, its my determination of a good novel that it contain a voice with an undeniable rhythm and pulse, a word by word construction that can come easily and smoothly off the page. I think of novelists like Elizabeth Bowen and Virginia Woolf, Joyce and Faulkner, and our own Keith Maillard, Ann Pancake, Meredith Sue Willis, Rajia Hassib, Denise Giardina, and Jayne Anne Phillips to name only a few who all have this ability in spades. In poetry, the list would simply be too long though I must acknowledge that during the first serious decade of my writing I was haunted by the magnificent, subtle and beguiling music of the British poets, Gael Turnbull, Edward Thomas, Norman Nicholson and Elizabeth Jennings, and just a little later by the always wondrous work of Appalachians Robert Morgan and Charles Wright. D&S: Your early volume Turning Out the Stones (1983) appears to set the tone for other books in terms of a longing to be one with nature and the Mystery of the natural worlda longing which sometimes yields partial fulfillment but more often is unachievable. Can you talk about your sense and value of the physical world in your poetry. MH: Curiously, Ive never set out to write about the physical world by which I think is meant the out-of-doors, nature writ green and, to varying degrees, wild. However, I cant deny its presence in a large number of my poems. I was raised first on a farm and when the farm was lost, we remained in the countryside where summer work continued to include farm labor of all sorts like baling hay, shoveling manure, setting fence posts, etc. From the moment I left the house, whether as a boy or later as a teenager, most of this work I did with an open sky and fields all around me. The out-of-doors has thus always been a familiar place to me and so perhaps I can count it a gift that I can be comfortable there, unafraid, and yet can at the same time recognize the sheer power of all that is so much more than my single, small, and mortal self. As Ive said countless times including in at least one childrens book, I loved those moments when Id sit with my father on the back porch and watch a thunderstorm roll up, watch its spidery lightning shake the darkness into light. D&S: We discern a number of influences in your early poetry volumescertainly, a strong Christian component given your theological and educational background, but we also discern ideas from Eastern influences such as Hinduism. Talk about your reading and studywhat books of philosophy have impacted your thinking and the ideas in your verse? Who were your important teachers; what poets were an influence on you, and what poets do you most admire? MH: As an undergraduate, I actually never quite understood what was going on in my philosophy and history classes, both of which subjects I thought I liked! With hindsight I realize in at least one, if not both subjects, I simply had poor instruction. Curiously, though, my religious studies classes were taught well, and professionally, and without any hint of proselytizing. With them, I realize now, I was imbibing a strong dose of history and philosophy. Albeit, yes, those understandings were drawn primarily more from European sources than elsewhere, but there was also a comparative religion class that helped a little to rectify that bias. At about this same time there also was a wonderful English and Religion professor, Larry Grimes, who would help me discover Erasmus, Mircea Eliade, Gabriel Marcel, Suzanne Langer, and Joseph Campbell. With Campbell you might say my fate was sealed. I wanted . . . , no, I hungered to study the interface between religion and literature, between mythology and truth. And so off to Yale University Divinity School I went where I was provided the umbrella under which I might discover more and further enrich my understanding of what kind of fruit such topics might bear, fruit I can scarcely articulate even now but which I like to think my poetry points toward. I would complete my Master of Arts in Religious Studies at Yale but also realize Id not be continuing on for a Ph.D., primarily because I realized I didnt want to teach at the university level. Id begun in those years to know I wanted more than anything simply to write. And what I was reading from Rilke and Shakespeare, from Dickinson and Linda Pastan and a host of others was beginning to reshape my vision not only of the mysteries of living and dying, but of my place in that process. My brother died at the age of twenty during this time, and so living and dying were more dramatically present to me than they ever had been before. I was raised in a reasonably progressive branch of Protestantism, the Disciples of Christ, whose founding institution was my WV alma mater, Bethany College, but I would drift from there through other denominations and eventually settle into an Episcopal parish where my unending doubts, my disavowal of creeds coupled with my love of music and the arts allow a kind of faith with which my good priests seemed untroubled. I still dont get religion, but I faithfully show up for Sunday services week after week, year after year. I hang around because I believe one approach to the mystery of this hell and heaven mixture of life is through story. And the stories of religion are good ones. Ive always thought religion was best understood for me when I look at the Greek definition that it is that which can tie things together, connect living and dying, linking them together into some kind of understanding. This is what underlies the great stories: they last, and even if only as myth they can point a way forward, can reassure us theres more than just whatever little it is we comprehend. What we comprehend I readily admit seems pretty damned dark some days, but when coupled with the light of the various joys we also encounter along the way, joys often offered through the artswell, this leads me to lean toward hope, even the slippery hope contained within religious praxis. How was I led here? Beyond those earlier influences I can only say through the various epiphanies of life offered in nature, in love, in story, and reinforced by writers and teachers like Richard Rohr, Thomas Merton, Cynthia Bourgeault, and Marcus Borg to name a few of the non-literary touchstone authors. D&S: Your journey as a poet has followed a lovely road of childhood in Randolph County, Indiana, to theology school to university professor to teacher in a three-room schoolhouse to poet. Talk about your intellectual and creative journeythe different stages, twists and turns that led to your becoming West Virginias Poet Laureate. MH: I usually say that I became a writer because of the good example of my parents. They were not educated beyond high school, but they were avid readers and our weekly trip to town from the farm for groceries was always, as well, a trip to the library. I learned to read by seeing my parents read. Secondly, I was often sick as a boy, so books kept me company. John McGahern, the wonderful Irish novelist and short story author, once said There are no days more special in childhood than those not lived at all, those days lost inside a favorite book. I had many such lost days, and they shaped me. The third thing which I say with a certain glint in my eye is that a table turned me into a author, a dinner table, not so much my parents as my grandparents. They lived close by, just down the road, and I spent much of my childhood with them. I remember that after the dinner dishes were cleared away from that table that we didnt all go a million directions at once. For one thing there was no televisiongood luck I now realize. Instead, we sat and talked. We kids might sometimes have found the grown-up talk boring, but Grandma, bless her heart, would go into the back room and bring out games. Still, Id be listening. If it were a lucky night beyond hearing whose cows were down sick, what went on at Wednesday nights prayer meeting, maybe Id hear Grandpa talking about how his father had hunted the last wildcat to ever be hunted in that part of the world, in that very woods behind that very house, in which we sat at that very table, or . . . maybe Id hear Grandma talk about how her father had killed a black snake so long that when he strung it up over a telephone wire, it touched the ground on either side. I loved those kinds of stories! The award winning and always impressive African-American childrens writer, Virginia Hamilton, once said: All people are storytellers, and the most basic kind of tale-telling is gossip. She didnt mean the nasty kind of spiteful whispering, but the kind of talk that can deliver a delicious story about our everyday lives, and when these tales are shaped and polished, passed from one hand to the other, from one generation to the other, they become a kind of folktale, or as I like to say, simply a good story. So I have my parents example of reading, I have my sickness, and I have the storytelling that went on at the table with my grandparents. I was lucky to have had grandparents and great-grandparents that lived long lives and from whom I heard lots of stories before they were gone. And it shows in the childrens books, as well as in certain of my more narrative poems. The library was without doubt my favorite place to visit with the exception of my town grandparents home. It was an original Carnegie Library so it also had those lovely Greek columns that often adorned such buildings and in a small town like mine thereby setting it apart from every other municipal structure. This library was also set on a nice bit of miniature parkland with large trees. There was even a separate entrance into the childrens room. All this somehow contributed to making it a very magical place. On Saturday afternoons old 16 mm. films would be shown of Woody Woodpecker and other cartoons. I can still smell the books and see the orange bindings of the innumerable Childhood of Famous Americans series, as well as see the worn covers of the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew. I even came to own some of the later Hardy Boys novels. A funny little side story here that illustrates perhaps my hunger to read is that my Aunt Becky, who was only a few years older than I, was also a voracious reader. And when shed read all the Nancy Drew stories, and I all the Hardy Boys we then secretly borrowed from each other. Gender divisions meant a lot in those days even for nerdy readers like ourselves. I remember, too, that when I felt Id read every book in the childrens room, one day my father took me upstairs into the adult section and there helped pick out for me some of his own favoritesadventure stories by Rafael Sabatini, for instance, who an earlier generation might remember for the film adaptations of Captain Blood, The Sea Hawk, and Scaramouche. The other choice I remember was for the then contemporary novelist, Alistair MacLean, whose stories were also made into popular movies The Guns of Navarone and Ice Station Zebra. To jump way ahead and arrive at the start of my laureateship, Ill share this memory. Irene McKinney, my wonderful predecessor, died in early February of 2012. I knew, of course, that someone would be replacing her, but I never dreamt it would be me. And to this day I dont know who was behind my selection, nor how it came about. Anyway, I was somewhere in central West Virginia teaching a workshop for young students when my mobile phone rang out with the tune from Indiana Jones. I was still unused to this rudimentary cell phone, a flip phone handed down to me from my teenage daughter. Embarrassed, I immediately flipped it off. Later, on my way to another school further downstate on a Friday afternoon, I rang the number left behind to discover it was a secretary for Governor Earl Ray Tomblin asking if I would be the next Poet Laureate of West Virginia! And as only I can do, I asked the polite young woman if I could perhaps think about it over the weekend and get back to her! My wife rightly asked me later what kind of idiot I thought I was, and I had no answer only that I have an instinctual mistrust of good news. Miraculously, when I called the Governors office the following Monday and spoke with more enthusiasm and grace than I had previously, they kindly agreed to still let me have the position! D&S: Share with us how you have honed your craft as a poet. Who were your important teachers, creative colleagues; what poets were an influence on you, and what poets do you most admire? MH: To expand upon what I said earlier about my youth, I recall that the earliest memory of home was of my mother in one chair, father in another, a stack of books at both their elbows. I recall, too, the similar good fortune of hearing my father's voice wrapped around the poems of James Whitcomb Riley, still the most famous poet from Indiana, and this was Randolph County in Indiana near the small town of Union City, where legend has it that Riley, once a sign-painter, had painted the Lucky Strike advertisement image on the side of the local five-and-dime. My father would recite the following: "Little Orphant Annie's come to our house to stay, / An' wash the cups an' saucers up, an' brush the crumbs away, . . . " I was mesmerized, hooked. Words could sing. And to this day I am enchanted by dialect, by real voices informed by local culture. I believe that had I not had such a "language-rich" extended household as I did, I would never have gone on to write a single, published word. This early start I earnestly believe was far more important to my development as a writer than all the university education I would later receive. Beyond childhood and into adolescence Id next discover the poetry of Khalil Gibran, Richard Brautigan, rock & folk lyrics, and all the beat poets: Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, Ferlinghetti, Corso, McClure, Diane di Prima, and Kerouac. These beat poets were major influences when I began writing. They were huge at the time, and some of their influence was probably more negative than positive, but theyd lit a fire that drove me to scribbling and for that Im ever grateful. Theyd also led me to lace my poems with every curse and obscenity I could find, but those were early days and I thankfully grew out of that! Dont misunderstand, there were some terrific poems penned by the beats, but as an impressionable and untrained young writer, I was misreading them in the worst way. However, Bethany College would prove the saving of me, not only as a poet, but Bethany kept me from getting too lost in sex, drugs, and rocknroll which I think wouldve happened had I been at a larger university. I had superb teachers at Bethany. The aforementioned Larry Grimes would point me to the Whitman lurking behind Ginsberg. There were, of course, other teachers who helped bring not only amazing pop music to campus but great artists of all kinds including poets. I recall a precious fifteen minutes with Galway Kinnell who read my obscenity-laden lines without flinching and asked if I might like to read a little more broadly than a diet of the Beats, maybe even pen a sonnet a day as he did. And this from Kinnell who up to that moment had simply been (to me) admirable for his anti-war stance in the Vietnam eraI was so nave! Dr. Grimes concurred and to the everlasting credit of both men I became more serious. So craft, though very much delayed, did begin to enter the picture with appropriate and convincing subtlety and finesse. It was a heady time and my professors drove us, if not hard, enthusiastically as Id now went on to read D.H. Lawrence, Whitman and Dickinson, Shakespeare, Dryden, Dante, and even Joyces Ulysses. We were also reading Sylvia Plath. I think on my campus those who thought about poetry in those days all carried a copy of Ariel. Im not sure if the rest were as ill-informed as I was, but Plath seemed so current that I was sure she had died just the year before when, in fact, I now know shed been gone for nearly a decade. Thats the kind of scholar I was! During my three years in New Haven attending Yale, I often traveled by train down to New York. And one day he was at a bookstore in New York City always bookstores, my wife Cheryl will interject shaking her head. I was buying the works of my favorite writers at that time, American writers mostly. While at the bookstore, the famous Gotham Book Mart, Cheryl and I were invited to a party where some of the luminaries of that time were gathering to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of The Jargon Society, Jonathan Williams landmark publishing entity. Ginsberg, Joel Oppenheimer, Michael Rumaker, Fielding Dawson, and Paul Metcalf were all there, as well as Williams himself. Cheryl and I were definitely country mice in the big city at this event and mostly we just stood in a corner, stared, and listened. There was a catalogue available listing The Jargon Societys many books, as well as a short list of the best book stores carrying their titles, locations in London, New York, San Francisco AND an odd address in the farmlands of rural Ohio, not far from where Cheryl lived, and so a few months later we went there and opened the door to James R. Lowells Asphodel Book Shop after having traveled through the corn fields of northeastern Ohio to get there. The shop was a garage that had been converted into a bookstore, but once inside there were books and journals I had only ever seen in catalogs. The shelves held an amazing array of writers from all over the world, though especially the Commonwealth nations of Great Britain and Ireland. There was, as well, original sheet music by Eric Satie, Charles Ives, first editions by James Joyce, William Faulkner, Virginia Woolf and so many others. I learned more from this bookseller than I ever did at Yale. He opened my eyes to an astounding array of writers I had barely known up until that time, especially, as I say, writers from the Commonwealth countries, and my influences became a lot of younger Irish, Welsh, British, Australian, and Canadian writers, and through them, slowly, an increasing number of European writers, as well. Before I go too far with Jim Lowell and his influence, I should note that at Yale I did audit a gem of a course in modern poetry held on the main campus, a course that ran from Yeats to Charles Olson and was taught by the inimitable Norman Holmes Pearson, mostly remembered as H.D.s biographer, but who was, as well, a superb teacher. I never learned what he made of this older Divinity School student in his class but I loved him, an old school professor who taught by telling stories. And his course certainly added more fuel to the flames of my appetite for poetry. For now, Ill just say that he nudged me to yet another level of maturity in my reading and writing. He got me reading Charles Olson in depth and that interest in Olson continued with Jim Lowell who had known Olson personally. When I think of Olson now, both his prose and poetry, I recall liking his out of the box thinking on all manner of things poetic, especially his idea of the open field, but his Maximus poems never quite did it for me, nor do they now. In the end its some of his smaller poems and prose essays that matter to me most, which is an awful lot when you think of the enduring brilliance of so many of his students and colleagues. Of those I would number Robert Creeley and Paul Metcalf as most fully actualizing his thoughts with Metcalf being the most direct heir and the most over-looked master of poetic prose in America. There were, as well, Ed Dorn and Robert Johnson whose work also continues to captivate me. Johnsons Book of the Green Man and Valley of the Many Colored Grasses remain highpoints for me of how imagery can be wedded to music. And then there is Denise Levertov. Im never sure how to place her. I think she fused politics with poetry, as well as a certain spirituality with poetry, better than anyone in that most political of generations, though she could also miss with these same fusions, but thats always the risk when the poet takes on the prophets mantle. Better to fail trying than not to try at all is what I say. There was also Marianne Moore and Charlotte Mew. All these I read with deep interest and affection. I realize these poets come from a generation or two earlier, but there you are. I am reminded how Ive always come at my intellectual pursuits including poetry backwards, out of order. There are two other women I should mention here, another out of order and one in order . . . sort of. The in order is Diane di Prima mentioned earlier as one of the Beats, and I say sort of because I actually only got round to reading her seriously in the last few years. Her late collection The Poetry Deal is simply marvelous reminding me that poets can still age with grace and wisdom. The out of order poet is the unmatched brilliant and quirky Lorine Niedecker, whose succinct crystalline distillations of verse are unlike anything anyone has ever written in the modern era unless you count Emily Dickinson who always seems more a 21rst century poet than a 19th century one. Niedecker remains essential to the personal canon of writers to whom I return frequently for nurture, for inspiration. I have a few shorter poems where one may catch a glimpse of my adoration for her work. I should add that there is, however, one potential inheritor of her mantel right here in West Virginia, and that is the poet and multi-faceted artist, Randi Ward. Find a copy of Wards Whipstitches to see what I mean. Niedecker also reminds me how much all the so-called objectivist poets were subjects of my devotion as a younger poet. On my own and with Pearsons class I was already swimming in Pound and William Carlos Williams, and to a lesser extent, Kenneth Rexroth and so no surprise that I would continue reading their work, and did; but it was meeting Jim Lowell that I would begin to read exhaustively poets like Charles Reznikoff and George Oppen. Louis Zukofsky was too challenging and Carl Rakosi, too slim though I realize now that judgment likely unfair. Still, its Niedecker, then Reznikoff, then Oppen, in that order that mattered most to me as a developing poet. As I get older, I try to make fewer presumptions. I dont know that the objectivists were better than any other poetswhat the hell does better mean anywaybut they were what I needed at the time. They were doing what good poetry always does, helping one see the world new, afresh, and for me it was a new way of seeing new. Their poems were often spare, yet with a certain rhythmic pulse, an off-balance rhythm, off-balance as my life often felt, and so resonated well with me. Ill add a final thought about Jim Lowell and his remarkable bookshop. He cemented the influence of several poets, as well as deepened in me my desire to write no matter what might come. I remember Id already started sending my poems to magazines while in New Haven and my first poetry publication was in Salted in the Shell edited by Gary Lawless in Maine. That wouldve been 1974 or so. It was a ten or twelve page mimeographed and stapled journal with some connections to the wave of counter-cultural poetry proliferating at that time, and I was made happy to be included. Somewhere soon, (I think through Lowells influence), Id start sending submissions to various smaller Commonwealth magazines: Kris Hemensleys The Ear in the Wheatfield in Australia, Tim Longvilles Grosseteste Review in the Penines of England, and Jim Burns Palantir from nearby Manchester, England. All three would eventually publish me, but its the friendships and work of their contributors that are most important. Jim Lowell told me straight up that the writer I had most missed in my education so far was Basil Bunting. Bunting knocked me outline after line of astounding language and always the poems singing, begging to be heard aloud. I couldnt get enough. I asked Jim what other poets were writing like that in the wake of Buntings monumental collection Briggflats? Jim then pointed me to various journals in the UK, as well as told me the poets to look for including Tom Pickard, Roy Fisher, and Gael Turnbull. A million blessings upon Pickard for his work in rescuing Bunting from oblivion, but its Turnbull whose work spoke to me most deeply and still does. Im not sure why, but it seems a lot of the poets whose work I most admire are also poets who have been or still are overlooked by the larger culture. Mind you, I realize, poetry is often just plain overlooked by all. Anyway, of all these, there is no one, absolutely no one in my estimation who is more shamefully overlooked than Turnbull. As I said about Bunting, Turnbull had a pitch perfect command of voice and rhythm, as well an unerring eye for the telling detail. The only truly critical writing I ever did about poetry was a small essay about Turnbulls book-length poem, Residues, published in Sagetrieb in 1986. The phrasings, insights, wonders in that poem still haunt me. There are in his shorter poems work that I read and re-read for their sheer beauty, as well. He was also a generous and courteous correspondent, as well as a kind friend whom I was fortunate enough to have visited twice. Once we met at his home in Ulverstonsame house where Laurie Lee had once lived. Gael took Cheryl and me for great ramble on the fells west of Coniston Water facing Ruskins Brantwood including eventually a brief tour of the same after which we went off to the pub for drinks and dinner with Turnbull and Jill, his wife. The next day Gael dropped us at the train station for Windermere; however, after hed left we discovered there was no train on Saturdays. So, we hoofed it and with luck had glorious weather and were surprised to walk by Beatrix Potters home! Heavenly serendipity for budding childrens authors as we both were at that time. I remember most the thick clutches of pink and blue hydrangeas banking the stone walls of the house. It seems Ive been sketching a certain trajectory here within a certain tradition, which leads from Whitman and Dickinson to Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, and Marianne Moore and on to the Beats and Black Mountain, Charles Olson and Denise Levertov and parallel patterns abroad. That said, one would have to look hard to find these influences reflected in the actual poetry Ive produced over the years. And hows that? Id simply reply that I had a hunger for all poetry, and so despite this seeming predilection for what seemed in those years a kind of avant-garde, or at least, a penchant for mostly non-academic writers like the Beats, Black Mountain alumni, and the Objectivists there were others. Lots of others. Truth is that I would read anything that came my way and try to give it a chance, good or bad, with good and bad results. The latter I put down to my impatience and lack of scholarly intelligence. To this day Ive read little of Robert Lowell, Anne Sexton, Robert Hass, Jarrell, Ransom, e.e. cummings, to mention only a few. Nor have I read much of currently well-known contemporary poetry. And I mean to pass no judgment in saying this. I have friends who respect the work of many of todays more popular poets, poets that I sincerely trust have earned their status, and hope I may someday get to them. There are exceptions, of course, and a quintet of contemporary poets without which Id be the poorer are Marie Howe, Nikki Giovanni, Dorianne Laux, Steve Scafidi, and Frederick Smock, though the latter left us in 2022. Though I lament that Ive not read more widely, I remain grateful that Ive never run out of poetry that nurtures me. I hope my ignorance in not reading as I should is counterbalanced by the nurture I take from poets and poems to whom I can return again and again, finding both richness and serendipity. I think its been a lucky poetry path from the beginning, whether it was simply my fathers recitations and hearing from him that words can sing in that old-fashioned way or discovering the stories and imagery behind some of my favorite musical lyrics or poetry that nurtures the soul. A dear friend from my teen years, Jan Campbell, would give me a copy of Roethkes Words for the Wind, and though I dont think I got much of his work then, I know I read it with a kind of devotion and awe that made me hunger for more. Im still hungering. D&S: There are many memorable characters and types in your poetry but one which stands out is the grandfather figure. What memories of your own grandfather come to play here. What was his influence on you as a lad; what was his life like as a farmer and your own memories of life on a farm? MH: The real grandfather figure standing behind my early poems was my great-grandfather who was never a farmer when I knew him but had known farming and planted out my grandparents large garden every year almost until his death. He was also, as theyd say then, a drunkard, but as a boy I never knew this. What I knew was that he had a beard to his chest, wore bib overalls, a broad-brimmed hat, and was another voracious reader whod let me sit on his lap and look through books filled with old rotogravure photos. I see now that this was another puzzle piece in that assemblage that led me to writing. I loved my other grandfathers, as well as grandmothers, and its perhaps simplest to say that the overall influence was that with their age they all had stories and I was always a keen listener. Add to this that I was fortunate to have them all close by and none of them would die until I was already into my teens so my memories of them are clear and rich. Otherwise, I think the poems answer this question with greater depth and truth than anything else I could write here. D&S: Talk about the impact that your teaching has had on your writing. MH: I had a great teaching supervisor at Pitt named Bill Coles [William E. Coles, Jr.], and he made me a better teacher than I could ever have hoped; and, ironically, I found that his instruction paid huge dividends in my teaching of children which I continue to do when I lead workshops as a childrens author in the public schools. I do believe that my classroom experience as a grade school teacher had, and continues to have an influence upon my writing for children. Curiously, the usual question Im asked concerns whether I use particular incidents or students for plot or character. To that question, Ive always answered, no, I havent. The influence is not that, but rather a honing of my ear, if you will, in being reminded of how children talk, how they interact, and so much else. I am, clearly, no longer that age and have not been for a very long time, but having that recall from the classroom keeps my voice more believable, more relevant for the readers of my childrens books. D&S: One of your gifts as a poet is to bring us such serious and deep subjects cloaked in what is sometimes a whimsical style that makes us eager to read on and engage with the profound and even the uncomfortable. This is a gift that only a few poets possessEmily Dickinson comes to mind, in particular. Share with us how a poetic idea comes to you: from an image, an observation, a sound or a word or a memory. MH: Im very grateful, in fact, nearly speechless to hear such kind words said about my workthank you. I dont think I accomplish that attainment of whimsy often but it is, very much, a quality I deeply admire in those poets who can pull it off. I think of Dickinson, yes, but also Jonathan Williams, Samuel Menashe, Michael OBrien, and always Lorine Niedecker. I also think of the slant-wise approach to poetry I find in certain Appalachian poets like Richard Taylor, Randi Ward, Steven Scafidi, and long-time Appalachian resident, Jonathan Greene. For myself, I can describe my general approach in the following way and here I am borrowing from remarks prepared for the WV Writers conference in 2018. Concerning my actual daily praxis, I most often write long hand with a cheap hotels plastic pen and then transfer those words to the screen where often the lions share of the work gets done, the endless revision and proofing. I do revise long hand, though these revisions tend to be preliminary ones, so no more than a second or third read-over of the hand-written notebook poems will receive these inked hen-scratchings. The beginning of a poem often grows out of whatever it is Im reading at the moment. If its summertime, Ill be sitting out under the porch roof with a pile of books and journals beside me on one side, a cup of tea somewhere, and my notebook and pen on the other side. The notebook is a large Canadian Biengfang journal whose top half of the page is blank and whose bottom half is lined. No idea why this writing material appeals to me, but it does. Maybe that top half encourages me to feel freer. Otherwise, Im facing a grassy hillside with trees beyond and a small potato patch off to one side. There are birds about as well as Sadie, the cat, and Max, the dog, both neighborhood fixtures, occasionally a squirrel or rabbit, and drifting in the breeze the scent of mock orange if June. Then Then, the reading. Often something just sparks in my brain when Im reading and the next thing I know, without much in the way of forethought, Im scribbling something: a line, a phrase, perhaps a little more, and if you were to take a look at what Id just read I suspect nine times out of ten youd find it hard to see what the connection wasme, too! It just seems to happen that way. On more than one occasionthis is predictablea cat or dog or bird or scent will find their way onto the page. Sometimes, theres a particular artist Im reading whose work will, over the course of months, become a touchstone for inspiration. Again, though, I could not point to a specific connection. For instance, a poet like John Ashbery really gets my juices flowing. When I started with Ashbery, well, to be kind, I was not a fanHarold Blooms gloating over him one afternoon at Yale when I saw Ashbery read put me off him for years. Even when I returned to reading him, I was still not won over. However, I have developed a grudging respect for his exuberant word play, and that exuberance is what I will somehow channel into my work. And for that I m very grateful. Michael O Brien and Tomas Transtrmer and WisBawa Szymborska are three other poets whose work always energizes me in a similar way and whom I admire with greater ease than I ever did Ashbery, God rest his soul! Thinking of the whimsy mentioned above and the question about how my poems come into being, let me consider two poems from my volume Believe What You Can (WVU Press), titled Worries and Evidence. EVIDENCE A rusted trestle high over the gully, Norfolk and Western running out of town, out of steam, out of here forever. Coltsfoot spangles the graveled bed. Spears of broken glass glint, go dark under clouds. Deftly as it can, the unwary pup limps home, a whimper outside the arguments inside. What goes unnoticed will disappear. Cats know how to do it better. A child knows only how to ask. WORRIES Brittle and wan fronds of tall grass slice the dry air and the crumbs gather moisture at night and mold in the basement where a woman rolls up her sleeves and, free there of sweat, irons shoelaces and ribbons for the childrens dolls who live in the house unaware of drought, of how meager the crumbs are this year, of whats happening beyond. Its dark whimsy in these poems, mind you, but I do believe there is a kind of fancy, an oddness, a dark play that animates them both which, for want of a better word, Ill categorize as whimsy. Im not sure how either poem was born, but I can tell you how they grew from a determination to hint that a certain and believable foreboding might be achieved suitable to the subject matter. In Evidence, that subject concerns, if you will, child abuse and in this instance its horrific link to the mistreatment of animals, as well as to poverty. This latter, I hope, is subtly indicated in the way I reference that N&W trestle, a real thing seen likely not in rural Appalachia as set here but overtop a busy street in Pittsburgh. As for Worries, its more a nameless foreboding, a foreboding without particular subject matter other than that which a reader might supply out of his or her own experience. Its also a poem where the line breaks were inextricably wedded to my voice and which hopefully give just the right weight, the right focus to each image, each brief utterance. D&S: There is a freshness and originality about your poetry that youve been able to retain throughout the duties and demands of serving as West Virginias Poet Laureate. How do you keep that freshness intact? Share your thoughts about your work as a speaker/artist for the mountain stateand indeed what are your thoughts about being the Appalachian Heritage Writer in Residence and 2024 State Common Read Author? MH: I am first of all deeply humbled to have been chosen as this years Appalachian Heritage Writer and subsequently to see my latest poetry collection, Following the Silence, named as the adult selection for the One Book One West Virginia Read project. I am thrilled, as well, to see my childrens book co-authored with Anna Egan Smucker, Fallingwater: The Building of Frank Lloyd Wrights Masterpiece named as the young readers selection for this same project. As the states poet laureate, I have from the beginning tried to support and, where I can, highlight not only our states fine poets but writers of every genre including most recently a FestivALL Authors Roundtable where I hosted three wonderful and active journalists from both print and electronic media. As time has passed, however, Ive realized that in this small state I have a unique opportunity to highlight not only the literary arts but all the arts, and this I try to do whenever I have the opportunity whether it be to salute a musician, a sculptor, a dancer, a painter, anyone who is working hard to express herself or himself with and through the arts. More specifically as laureate I have now been the host for many years of the aforementioned Authors Roundtable at FestivALL in Charleston, as well as host of the Poems While You Wait event held the following weekend where Ill be joined by a couple other regional poets in hammering out poems on old manual typewriters. For five years Ive also hosted an annual poetry reading at FestivFALL held in October and featuring some of the premier poets from Appalachia such as Maggie Anderson, Frank X. Walker, and Jeff Worley. I also created and serve as host for the Wheeling Poetry Series at the Ohio County Public Library. This series is beginning its tenth season and has featured over thirty-five poets in that time. Ive been a very happy part of the annual statewide Poetry Out Loud competition celebrating high school student recitations and sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts. Suffice it to say, as WV poet laureate, I am very busy, so busy that much as I love the opportunities afforded me as laureate, I do admit there are days when its a tricky balancing act between the needs of my own work, and that of the positions. D&S: What are any final thoughts about your work as a teacher, a poet, and a speaker/artist for the mountain stateand indeed about the creative process? MH: I keep in mind William Staffords Travelling Through the Dark, and do my best to think hard for us all. I do my best to avoid all boxes and labels including poet, including contemporary, and despite an engaged religious life, I try to avoid labels like spiritual and devout and pious, too. Id even like to say Id avoid Appalachian when its put in a box as it sometimes can be which is, of course, all the trickier as an outlier originally from Indiana. Ive always thought what Wendell Berry had to say about regionalism was perfect: "The regionalism I adhere to could be defined simply as local life aware of itself. It would tend to substitute for the myths and stereotypes of a region a particular knowledge of the life of the place one lives in and intends to continue to live in. It pertains to living as much as to writing, and it pertains to living before it pertains to writing. The motive of such regionalism is the awareness that local life is intricately dependent, for its quality but also for its continuance, upon local knowledge" ("The Regional Motive" in A Continuous Harmony, HBJ, 1972). I like that, and with that idea in mind I would be pleased to see my work associated with regionality. In my best work, I truly hope one finds that sense of local life aware of itself. Additionally, I guess what I do and have always done is go my own way, read what I like for pleasure and for enrichment. Reading has always been more than half the key to my creative life along with intentionally exposing myself to all the other arts hoping to complement my own artistry. As for the reading specifically, I have to have a shot of Dickens or George Eliot, Shakespeare or Trollope every year but must have, as well, contemporary works that can jar me into thinking anew. Beyond that, whenever possible I try to attend performances of live music whether at the remarkable Wheeling Symphony or the equally remarkable Heritage Blues Festival also in Wheeling. If Im further afield I try always to visit whatever museums I can in whatever city I may find myself in. I still believe in making my work new, as Ezra Pound urged, as well as renewing myself. Here I think of mixed-genre authors like Anne Carson, Jenny Erpenbeck, Tove Ditlevsen, and Kathleen RooneyI need them, too. And then theres the rest of the arts, rocknroll and Mozart, Henry Moore and Berthe Morisot, the Group of Seven, Le Six, Jan Gabarek or The lonious Monk, and so on listing, what makes me not only scribble each day but makes me want to get up in the morning. I also could never have reached the position I hold without more than a little help from my friends and family. There are dear friends and poets whose critical help and friendships have been essential to me over the years, men and women like Doug Van Gundy, John Freeman, Jim Burns, Maggie Anderson, and the late Peyton Houston. In childrens work the keen eye of both my wife Cheryl Ryan and my colleague on the Fallingwater book, Anna Egan Smucker, have been crucial. Finally, let me say, there are no bad poems, only poems wishing to be more, to be better, to be made whole. This takes work and the kind of revision that truly is a re-seeing which-/5:;AFNOjklmqF G K 쳟{{k{[K[>{h t$h"/POJQJ^Jh nh 5OJQJ\^Jh nh"/P5OJQJ\^Jh t$he-5OJQJ\^Jh t$h"/P5OJQJ\^J&h t$hT%5CJOJQJ\^JaJ&h t$h"5CJOJQJ\^JaJ&h t$h"/P5CJOJQJ\^JaJ h_5CJOJQJ\^JaJ&h t$hG5CJOJQJ\^JaJ&h t$h"/P5CJOJQJ\^JaJ;jkG 5 cdOS##gd: = $da$gd_ $`a$gd n $a$gd n $da$gd t$ $`a$gd t$ $a$gd t$dgd"/P $da$gd"/PK s v w z   3 5 emcdefivw󭝍}m}]}M}h nhUG5OJQJ\^Jh nh 5OJQJ\^Jh nhT%5OJQJ\^Jh nh!5OJQJ\^Jh nhe-5OJQJ\^Jh nh"/P5OJQJ\^Jh t$hG5OJQJ\^Jh t$h t$6OJQJ]^Jh t$h t$6OJQJ^Jh_OJQJ^Jh t$h t$>*OJQJ^Jh t$h t$OJQJ^J3BNOS=? }~ó|l|\h_h>r5OJQJ\^Jh_he-5OJQJ\^Jh_h"/P5OJQJ\^Jh: =OJQJh t$h t$>*OJQJh nOJQJh t$h t$OJQJh t$h"/P5OJQJ\^Jh nh"/P5OJQJ\^Jh nh b5OJQJ\^Jh nhUG5OJQJ\^Jh n5OJQJ\^J#.23Rj#-CERSVW L \ e y ݽݭݽݭݽݽݭݝݍ}pe]e]e]ee]e]e]h: =OJQJhh: =OJQJh: =5OJQJ\^Jh>rh"/P5OJQJ\^Jh_h"/P5OJQJ\^Jh_hT%5OJQJ\^Jh_h b5OJQJ\^Jh_h 5OJQJ\^Jh_h: =5OJQJ\^Jh_h>r5OJQJ\^J$h_h>r56OJQJ\]^J$ ! !!,!-!K!d!i!o!!!!!"&"'"/"3""""#N#W#[#c################$$ͽͭ}}}hh5OJQJ\^JhhT%5OJQJ\^Jhh b5OJQJ\^JhhWp5OJQJ\^Jhhe-5OJQJ\^Jhh"/P5OJQJ\^Jh>rh"/P5OJQJ\^Jh: =OJQJhh: =OJQJ,$$,$2$5$:$B$$$$$O%Q%T%U%&(*s*,,,,........0001122e23ೣ}rfrrrrhhwe 6OJQJhhOJQJhhOROJQJhhwe OJQJhh"/P5OJQJ\^Jhh5OJQJ\^JhhOJQJ^Jhh b5OJQJ\^JhhWp5OJQJ\^Jhh5OJQJ\^Jhhwe 5OJQJ\^J'#Q%s*,.e2334L?BD3F`KaKLPT $a$gd[ $da$gd[ $a$gd  $a$gd- $da$gd dgd"/P $`a$gdwe $a$gdwe dgd333333333334`4e444444444f5rbbRE:h h OJQJh h"/POJQJ^Jh3h5OJQJ\^Jh3h b5OJQJ\^Jh3h 5OJQJ\^Jh3h35OJQJ\h3h35OJQJ\^Jh3h$'5OJQJ\^Jh h$'5OJQJ\^Jh h b5OJQJ\^Jh h 5OJQJ\^Jh he-5OJQJ\^Jh h"/P5OJQJ\^Jf5g56-7.78999999:<>C?G?K?L?M?X?????LAB$BSB]BbBlBwBxBBBB4C9CLCjCtC|C}CCCDDDLEQEgEhElErE}EFFF0F3FpFqF G GLG HHLIVJWJwJ}JLK`Kh[OJQJh h 6OJQJh h 5OJQJhJOJQJh h OJQJh OJQJJ`KaKbKcKeKKKLL!LLMMMN*NLOPLQQQLSMS4T?TTLULW%X)XXXYYKYLYY&Z5Z?[{oogh=.nOJQJh[h[>*OJQJh[h3OJQJh3OJQJh[h[OJQJh[h"/POJQJ^Jh[h[5OJQJh[h[5OJQJ\h[h$'5OJQJ\^Jh[he-5OJQJ\^Jh[h"/P5OJQJ\^Jh h"/P5OJQJ\^J&TY_BbhYjoyr_tzlيڊ>?lm 7dgd-X $a$gd+dgd"/P $a$gd0 $da$gd+ $a$gd[ $`a$gd[?[H[L[g[x[L]^^_L_LaBbNbEcLcTccce!e?@ADаа𠕕}mmh+h-X5OJQJ\^Jh0=6h"/P5OJQJ\^Jh+OJQJh+h+OJQJh+h+5OJQJ\^Jh+hV5OJQJ\^Jh+h b5OJQJ\^Jh+h0=65OJQJ\^Jh+he-5OJQJ\^Jh+h"/P5OJQJ\^JDܐݐӑՑ>>lmnoq~n^nNh+hG5OJQJ\^Jh+he-5OJQJ\^Jh+h"/P5OJQJ\^Jh*h-X5OJQJ\^Jh+OJQJh+h+OJQJh+h+5OJQJ\^Jh+h-X5OJQJ\^J:h+h-XB*CJOJQJ^JaJfHph$$$q @h+h-X5B*CJOJQJ\^JaJfHph$$$q ǔΔٔ۔C >7>јҘ$ou̡͡rtΤϤ٤ڤó~h+h+5OJQJh+h+6OJQJ]hYOJQJh-OJQJh+h+OJQJh+h"/P5OJQJ\^Jh+h"/POJQJ^Jh+hT%5OJQJ\^Jh+hG5OJQJ\^Jh+hV5OJQJ\^J17ΤϤ٤ڤ.X}٥ }1$7$8$H$^`gd+ 1$7$8$H$gdY1$7$8$H$^`gd+ 1$7$8$H$gd+@ 1$7$8$H$^@ `gd+gd+ $a$gd+ $`a$gd+ $a$gdY.45X}٥ܥޥ 7VwxyЦ?HUx§ʨ˨  !#hiT&he-5OJQJ\^JhiT&h"/P5OJQJ\^Jh+h"/P5OJQJ\^Jh+hiT&OJQJhYOJQJh+h+5OJQJh+hYOJQJh+h+OJQJh+OJQJ5 7VwxyЦ?Uxgd+p^p`gd+ 1$7$8$H$gd+1$7$8$H$^`gd+1$7$8$H$^`gd+§,AZgCTU $`a$gdRd^ $da$gdRd^ $a$gdRd^ $a$gdiT&gddgd"/P $`a$gd+gd+p^p`gd+#­ĭYnR\],ϲaw/>ֵ۵ĻwwlddwwwwddhOJQJhiT&hOJQJhiT&hiT&6OJQJhiT&hiT&OJQJhiT&hiT&5OJQJ\^JhiT&h"/P5OJQJ\^Jh5OJQJ\^Jh5OJQJh^^h5OJQJhiT&hT%5OJQJ\^JhiT&h*5OJQJ\^JhiT&hE-5OJQJ\^J'%@AEFOTZ_dac|ƻsh````hFk OJQJhFk 6OJQJ]h^^h^^6OJQJ]h^^OJQJh^^h^^6OJQJh^^h^^OJQJh^^h^^5OJQJ\^Jh^^hT%5OJQJ\^Jh^^h*5OJQJ\^Jh^^he-5OJQJ\^Jh^^h"/P5OJQJ\^Jh+h"/P5OJQJ\^J%ZMNgfqC[vTUh+h"/P5OJQJ\^JUh0h^^6OJQJ]h^^h_OJQJh_OJQJh^^h^^OJQJhFk OJQJ may take months or even years. If your heart is called to it, you will get there. ,1h/ =!"#$% #x666666666vvvvvvvvv666666>6666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666hH66666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666p62&6FVfv2(&6FVfv&6FVfv&6FVfv&6FVfv&6FVfv&6FVfv8XV~ 0@ 0@ 0@ 0@ 0@ 0@ 0@ 0@ 0@ 0@ 0@ 0@ 0@ 0@66666 OJPJQJ_HmH nH sH tH N`N Normal dCJKH_HaJmH sH tH bb "/P Heading 1$$hP@&!B*CJ(OJPJQJ^JaJ(phGabb "/P Heading 2$$P@&!B*CJ OJPJQJ^JaJ phGaZZ "/P Heading 3$$P@&B*CJPJ^JaJphGaXX "/P Heading 4$$P(@&6B*PJ]^JphGaRR "/P Heading 5$$P(@&B*PJ^JphGaXX "/P Heading 6$$(@&6B*PJ]^JphYYYRR "/P Heading 7$$(@&B*PJ^JphYYYTT "/P Heading 8$$@&6B*PJ]^Jph'''N N "/P Heading 9 $$@&B*PJ^Jph'''DA D Default Paragraph FontRiR 0 Table Normal4 l4a (k ( 0No List R/R "/PHeading 1 CharCJ(OJPJQJ^JaJ(phGaR/R "/PHeading 2 CharCJ OJPJQJ^JaJ phGaJ/J "/PHeading 3 CharCJPJ^JaJphGaH/!H "/PHeading 4 Char6PJ]^JphGaB/1B "/PHeading 5 CharPJ^JphGaH/AH "/PHeading 6 Char6PJ]^JphYYYB/QB "/PHeading 7 CharPJ^JphYYYH/aH "/PHeading 8 Char6PJ]^Jph'''B/qB  "/PHeading 9 CharPJ^Jph'''T>T "/PTitledPm$ @CJ8KHOJPJQJ^JaJ8L/L "/P Title Char @CJ8KHOJPJQJ^JaJ8RJR "/PSubtitle  & F@B*CJPJ^JaJphYYYL/L "/P Subtitle Char@CJPJ^JaJphYYY@@ "/PQuote $a$6B*]ph@@@8/8 "/P Quote Char 6]ph@@@DD "/P List Paragraph ^m$H!H "/PPIntense Emphasis6B*]phGa !"/P Intense QuoteB $``hh$d &d NGa PGa ]`^`a$6B*]phGaH/H "/PIntense Quote Char 6]phGaP!!P "/PIntense Reference5:@B*\phGaPK![Content_Types].xmlN0EH-J@%ǎǢ|ș$زULTB l,3;rØJB+$G]7O٭V (BO)MBT.$@0H!A>풠Uc-zD[&!rX=}zC0` ި%.]Ssd--7 +fOZեrŵVœ\lji2ZGwm-3˵j7\ Uk5FҨ-:xRkcr3Ϣ+9kji9OP Et-j|#p;E=Ɖ5Z2sgF=8 K}*7c<`*HJTcB<{Jc]\ Ҡk=ti"MGfIw&9ql> $>HmPd{(6%z:"'/f7w0qBcF6f Iöi1(\}B5ҹ~Bcr6I;}mY/lIz1!) ac 1fm ƪN^I77yrJ'd$s<{uC>== Ƌ(uX=WA NC2>GK<(C,ݖm: &-8j^N܀ݑ$4:/x vTu>*ٞn{M.Ǿ0v4<1>&ⶏVn.B>1CḑOk!#;Ҍ}$pQ˙y')fY?u \$/1d8*ZI$G#d\,{uk<$:lWV j^ZơSc*+ESa1똀 k3Ģxzjv3,jZU3@jWu;z \v5i?{8&==ϘNX1?  O4׹ӧCvHa01 %xz24ĥ=m X\(7Xjg !Ӆqd? cG7.`~w*?, 2 nN*"Fz_&n &\ F:l[+%f &K  $3f5`K?[o8}يD#Ubdefghjklnopqrsuxyz#T7 Ucimtvw8@0(  B S  ? _Hlk174624036 _Hlk171310935Em(E(##//FFZTaT__LeUe-f6fggiijj5o@oooqqOuXuf}j}lunyITJSŷͷԷ(nv  d i h~+lz ""j)w)//34557777 <<JJLLROTOTT[[m`y`JdWdiiAoDoxx Βɤդzɷ̷(3333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333ž(/5sswz"D"D̷ͷ[v%%(:9^^E-_YFk D we 7[0! n}Y$ t$T%iT&O-e-30=668: =~AUG"/PRd^@i=.n>r)~$'VLOR bJWp GW-&H*Z,GSd"+!s -X&(@4Ѻ&@@@@H@@@UnknownG.[x Times New Roman5Symbol3. .[x Arial9Garamond9. . Segoe UI3. AptosC. Aptos DisplayA$BCambria Math"qh#ȇ#ȇ8_S8_S!20ǺǺ KQ@P  $P"/P2!xxQl Sylvia ShurbuttSylvia Shurbutt Oh+'0x  4 @ LX`hpSylvia ShurbuttNormalSylvia Shurbutt2Microsoft Office Word@@@8 ՜.+,0 hp|  S_Ǻ  Title  !"#$%&'()*+,-./0123456789:;<=>?@ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ[\]^_`abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz{|}Root Entry FData ~1Table*WordDocument.SummaryInformation(DocumentSummaryInformation8CompObjr  F Microsoft Word 97-2003 Document MSWordDocWord.Document.89q