Liberal, Kans.— Eric McHenry, 2015-2017 Poet Laureate of Kansas, will judge Seward County Community College’s seventh annual poetry contest and will give a reading at the Poetry Coffee House set for 7 p.m. April 26, 2017, at Seward County Community College. McHenry will also do a noon Poetry Reading at the SCCC library that day.
The contest has featured prominent poets as judges the last few years, but this is the first year the judge will appear in person at the Poetry Coffee House, according to Janice Northerns, SCCC English instructor.
“We are excited to have McHenry judge the contest and appear in person,” she said. “It will be a treat for the contest winners to meet the judge, and I think everyone will enjoy hearing him read his poetry.”
McHenry is a fifth-generation Kansan who holds an M.A. in creative writing from Boston University. His poems have been featured in many publications, including The Harvard Review, Slate, and Poetry Northwest, whose editors named McHenry winner of the Theodore Roethke Prize for best poems published in the magazine in 2010. He is a winner of the Academy of American Poets Prize, and his book Potscrubber Lullabies won the Kate Tufts Discovery Award. He currently lives in Lawrence and teaches creative writing at Washburn University in Topeka.