Award-winning poet Mark Jarman, Mercer's 2009 Ferrol A. Sams Jr. Distinguished Writer in Residence, will give a poetry reading, a lecture and sponsor a reading while in residence at the Macon campus.

“Jarman is in the first rank of American poets, critics, and editors,” said Dr. Gordon Johnston, associate professor of English and organizer of Jarman’s visit. “He reinvents himself as a poet in each of his collections, but for all of the variety of music and subject in his poems – he writes about surfing, children, DNA, paintings, his eccentric minister grandfather – there is always an underlying reverence. John Singer Sargent’s tombstone says ‘To work is to pray.’ I think that for Mark to work is to pray.”

Jarman will give his first public reading, titled “Epistles: An Evening of Poetry by Mark Jarman,” on Feb. 4 at 7 p.m. in the lecture hall of Willet Science Center on Mercer’s Macon campus. On Feb. 16, he will give a talk about poetry at 7 p.m. in Willett, titled “Metaphor’s Matter and Spirit.” He will sponsor a reading on Feb. 24 at 7 p.m. in Willett by fellow poet Kate Daniels.

The programs are free of charge and open to the general public. For more information on the events, call (478) 301-2588.