Soyka Fund for the Humanities presenting poet/author on Feb. 10

Poet and author Craig Czury will present "A Poetry of Witness: Conversation from Coal to Gas – Voices and their Echos" at Misericordia University on Feb. 10. The free program is sponsored by the Soyka Fund for the Humanities at Misericordia University in conjunction with the Department of English. It will be held in the Catherine Evans McGowan Room of the Mary Kintz Bevevino Library at 7 p.m.

Czury is a native of Dallas who lives in Springville, Susquehanna County. An author of more than 20 collections of poetry, he has been the featured poet at literary festivals around the world. Many of his books, including "God's Shining Glass Eye," a collection of poems from Northeastern Pennsylvania's anthracite coal towns, have been translated into several languages. In 2011, Czury was awarded Laureate of the Ditët e Naimit International Albanian Poetry Festival in Macedonia.

Czury's most recent book, "Thumb Notes Almanac: Hitchhiking The Marcellus Shale," is a collection of poems from interviews he conducted while hitchhiking around Susquehanna County's fracking region.

Czury has conducted writing workshops through various art foundations in schools, community centers, prisons, juvenile detention centers, homeless shelters and mental hospitals. He was awarded the Key to the City of Scranton for his inter-generational Scranton Poem Opera.

He serves as a part-time lecturer at Albright College, Reading, and teaches a life-writing, memoir and poetry class at Springville Schoolhouse Art Studios. For additional information, please contact Matthew Nickel, Ph.D., assistant professor of English, Misericordia University, at mnickel@misericordia.edu or (570) 674-8021.