West Virginia University is hosting a book reading by celebrated poet John McKernan at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 13, in the Mountainlairs Gold Ballroom.

The event, sponsored by the WVU Department of English and the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences, is free and open to the public. The reading will be followed by a reception and book signing.

McKernan is the author ofResurrection 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, along with poems in dozens of literary magazines in the United States, England and Ireland.

McKernan edited The Little Review from 1968-1980 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 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 Harms at 304-293-3107, ext. 33451 or James.Harms@mail.wvu.edu .