Maine’s Poet Laureate to speak on Jan. 29

    DOVER-FOXCROFT — Wesley McNair, Maine’s Poet Laureate, returns to Dover-Foxcroft on Thursday, Jan. 29, when he will read from his new book “The Lost Child: Ozark Poems.” McNair’s free appearance will begin at 5:30 p.m. at the Thompson Free Library on East Main Street.

    McNair, who also appeared before an appreciative crowd at the Thompson Free Library in March of 2014, said “The Lost Child” is the only new book of poems he has published since taking over as the state’s Poet Laureate in 2011. The book was inspired by the journey he made to southern Missouri after the death of his mother, Ruth Willard, at age 91. McNair’s mother left the Ozark Mountains at a young age and long ago made her home in New Hampshire, but the reunion with family in the Ozarks gave the Maine poet a fresh understanding of his mother and himself. Writing the volume of long-form poetry also helped him process his grief over her death. Although the poems are fictional, they are based on his reconnection with his Missouri relatives.
    The 73-year-old Mercer resident is Professor Emeritus and Writer in Residence at the University of Maine at Farmington, where he directed the creative writing program and received the Distinguished Faculty Award and Libra Professorship. He is the author of 10 volumes of poetry and 20 books, including poetry, nonfiction and edited anthologies. His poetry has been featured on National Public Radio’s Weekend Edition and on Garrison Keillor’s Writers Almanac, and has appeared in over 60 anthologies and textbooks.
    McNair is the recipient of grants from the Fulbright and Guggenheim foundations, two Rockefeller Fellowships, a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship in literature, and two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships for creative writers. In 2006, he received a United States Artists Fellowship as one of “America’s finest living artists.”