By JAMES BELL
Hays Post

Kansas Poet Laureate Eric McHenry will speak on the Fort Hays State University campus at 7:30 p.m. Friday in the Fort Hays State Ballroom.

The event is being sponsored by the FHSU’s chapter of Sigma Tau Delta, the International English Honor Society, and will be the keynote event of the Delta’s High Plains Regional Conference, held Friday and Saturday.

The event is free and open to the public.

McHenry was named the Kansas Poet Laureate this year and will serve in the role until 2017.

“Eric brings to the Poet Laureate of Kansas position an abundance of talent and enthusiasm,” said Julie Mulvihill, executive director of the Kansas Humanities Council, in a release announcing his appointment. “As a writer, his words seem effortless, although we know how meticulously and thoughtfully he deliberates on each. As a teacher, his intelligence and humor make poetry come alive. The combination of these qualities will make Eric an exceptional poet laureate for our state.”

“There’s nothing I love more than sharing poetry with people, and I look forward to doing that in every corner of Kansas over the next two years,” McHenry said. “I think we’re all grateful when we encounter language that’s equal to life’s richness and complexity. Poetry can provide that.”

McHenry’s official page can be found here.

In the video below, here some of McHenry’s work, as read by “Star Trek” icon Leonard Nimoy: