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Geffrey Davis Reading


Geffrey Davis reading
On Tuesday, April 9th, WVU was honored to hear poet and author Geffrey Davis read from his new collection, Night Angler. Davis is the author of two full collections of poetry: Night Angler (BOA Editions, 2019) and Revising the Storm (BOA Editions, 2014), winner of the A. Poulin Jr. Poetry Prize and a Hurston/Wright Legacy Award Finalist. He is also the author of the chapbook Begotten (URB Books, 2016), coauthored with F. Douglas Brown. His honors also include the Anne Halley Poetry Prize, the Dogwood Prize in Poetry, the Wabash Prize for Poetry, an Academy of American Poets Prize, and fellowships from Bread Loaf, Cave Canem, and the Vermont Studio Center. His poems have been published or are forthcoming in Crazyhorse, Mississippi Review, New England Review, New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, PBS NewsHour, Ploughshares, and elsewhere. A native of the Pacific Northwest, Davis teaches for the University of Arkansas’s MFA in Creative Writing & Translation and for The Rainier Writing Workshop low-residency MFA program. He also serves as poetry editor for Iron Horse Literary Review.

Geffrey Davis reading and audienceWVU students also enjoyed an earlier Q&A with Davis. He answered questions on family, inspiration, and process. The WVU community felt so grateful for Davis' work and his honesty about his craft. Below is a poem
Davis wrote about West Virginia: 


West Virginia Nocturne

      One grief, all evening—: I've stumbled

upon another animal merely being
       itself and still cuffing me to grace.

       This time a bumblebee, black and staggered
above some wet sidewalk litter. When I stop
       at what I think is dying

       to deny loneliness one more triumph,
I see instead a thing drunk
       with discovery—the bee entangled

       with blossom after pale, rain-dropped blossom
gathered beneath a dogwood. And suddenly
       I receive the cold curves and severe angles

       from this morning's difficult dreams
about faith:—certain as light, arriving; certain
       as light, dimming to another shadowed wait.

       How many strokes of undivided wonder
will have me cross the next border,
       my hands emptied of questions?

 --Geffrey Davis