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Imagine a boy picking wild strawberries along a railroad track in rural Indiana and growing up in a home filled with books. Imagine him making weekly trips to town with his parents to buy groceries and visit the library. Imagine him lingering at his grandparents’ table after supper to hear stories at the “story table” and listen to his parents recite poetry at bedtime. But this is not an imaginary boy, nor an imagined life. It is the treasured childhood of acclaimed West Virginia poet, children’s book writer, and storyteller, Marc Harshman.
Born and raised in Randolph County, Indiana, Harshman lives with his wife and daughter in Moundsville, West Virginia. He is the author of 11 children’s books, including “Uncle James,” “Snow Company,” “Only One,” and “The Storm,” a Smithsonian Notable Book. His third poetry chapbook, “Local Journeys,” was published by Finishing Line, and his poems have appeared in The Georgia Review, Wilderness, Southern Humanities Review, Shenandoah, 5 AM, and The Progressive. Harshman’s prose poems and flash fiction recently won awards from the Newport Review and Literal Latté and have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
WV LIVING – Your father used to recite the poem “Little Orphant Annie” to you as a child. What enchants you about this poem and how did it help you become the writer you are today?
Marc Harshman – James Whitcomb Riley was a Hoosier, and when my dad shared that poem, it was a voice deep with the resonance of years gone by, an exact replica of my grandfather’s voice. The enchantment may lie in the way its hypnotic pulse of rhyme and rhythm is wedded to its slightly scary content. The most important ingredient that stoked the fire and led me to write is simply the presence of my father reciting the poem, and my mother, as well. Together they provided a living example that words and their stories are important, important enough to be shared. To this day I am fascinated by dialect, by real voices informed by local culture. I believe that had I not had such a language-rich household, I would never have gone on to write a single, published word.
WVL – When you were a boy, stories were told around your grandparents’ supper table, long after the meal was finished. Take us back to one of those evenings.
MH – I remember my grandparents well—the supper table there, how when the dishes were “red up” (or clean), we would continue to sit for what seemed to me hours at a time. We would stay put, sitting and talking and, I realize now, story telling—the rich reminiscence of the old ones mixing with the day’s gossip and news: whose cows were down sick, how Great Grandad had shot a wildcat in the woods behind the very house where we were now sitting, giant black snakes, the talk from the Wednesday night prayer meeting. It was all there, creating what I think of now as a story table.
WVL – Up until 10 years ago, you taught 5th and 6th grade at Sand Hill School in Marshall County, one of the last three-room country schools. Did you read stories or poems to your students?
MH – I often tell my students stories for both pleasure and instruction. I loved to utilize the Appalachian folk tales I knew as a way of painting a picture of what the early days of West Virginia might have been like. And, yes, there wasn’t a year that went by that I didn’t read “Little Orphant Annie.”
WVL – I know you made many memories at Sand Hill School, but is there one that stands out from all the rest?
MH – It was to take my students out the back door and straight into the woods and fields that surrounded our little school and explore what living nature could teach us regarding science. Our absence rate due to sickness was far less than any other school in the county! It also meant that if we felt like holding class at a picnic bench overlooking the countryside, or drawing en plein air, we simply could and did.
WVL – How important were books and libraries to you as a boy?
MH – The weekly trip to town for groceries always included a trip to the library—my favorite place after my grandparents’ to visit. It was an original Carnegie Library, so it had those lovely Greek columns, and, in a small town like mine, that set it apart from every other municipal building. Built on a nice bit of miniature park land with large trees, there was even a separate entrance into the children’s room. On Saturday afternoons, the library would show old 16-mm films of Woody Woodpecker and other cartoons. I can still smell the books and see the orange bindings of the innumerable “Childhood of Famous Americans” series and the worn covers of the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew.
WVL – I’m swept away by your excellent storytelling, peopled with children facing challenges from moving to a new house and taking shelter from a storm to learning that a beloved uncle is an alcoholic. Tell me about the genesis of your ideas?
MH – My stories generally spring from real life incidents, from re-tellings of older tales, and from that magic that sometimes hits me over the head and is most easily called “the imagination.” And, yes, if I’m working from a real character, like my great-grandfather who was the real Uncle James, that recollection is an invaluable aid to keeping a certain truthfulness in the portraiture.
