WEST LIBERTY, W.Va.– Deep in the hills of West Virginia, on the hilltop of West Liberty University, sits one professor
who has a story to tell. Dr. William Scott Hanna has released his own poetry anthology, reflecting on his own life. “The Only House on the Left” serves as a memoir of Hanna’s life from early childhood to adulthood and raising his children, to the present.

Background

Dr. Hanna has been an English Professor at West Liberty University for 17 years, but his love for poetry runs deep into his childhood. Hanna has been writing poetry since high school, and he has always wanted to be a college professor. He completed his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. in English, his dissertation topic being on American poetry. 

“I never wanted to focus on academic writing, so in 2012 after getting my Ph.D., I started to focus on creative writing. And my goal was to have enough works that were good enough to put together for a book,” he said. “I wanted to wait until I could recognize a central theme to hold it all together.” 

The Only House on the Left

“The Only House on the Left” is organized chronologically. There are five different sections in the structure of his anthology that are to be read as a memoir in verse. Some of the poems in this collection were written before he attended college, while others are recent works. 

“If I look at some of the pieces in there, they were written about 14 years ago. Some are older than that from when I was teaching high school. There are a lot of long works in progress,” he said. 

These works follow central themes such as the importance of family, grief from loss, and happiness. The themes presented truly show just how deep poetry can be and how talented Dr. Hanna is. 

“I’d say it’s a lot about the importance of family, and being rooted in a place. It’s called “The Only House on the Left,” which is the one I grew up in. I have a lot of long-ago memories there, and a lot of recent memories, too,” he said. “I wanted to focus on the power of family and place, and how you can see it helping you understand grief.”

“One of the more challenging things was getting to the point of my dad passing away. I took a while before writing about that: I needed enough distance from the loss to write about it. Other than that, there are challenges to the business of writing poetry itself,” Hanna said. 

Poetry can be interpreted in many different ways, and the form that it is written in has a large influence on the meaning. 

“The style I would say is influenced by a lot of different poets, like James Wright, Li-Young Lee, and Mary Oliver, and a lot of different poetic styles. You’ll see a lot of differentiates of shape and line break and how it looks on the page. There are a lot of couplets, step down lines, and a number of prose poems. The style is very eclectic. I was trying to find and get the idea and shape that I liked,” Hanna said. 

Personal Reflection

Almost every author will tell you that one of their works is their favorite, or at least, one is their best-written work. Dr. Hanna’s answer truly embodies the idea of reflection, and he took the time to look back and decide what he want his readers to see on the first page. 

“I am most proud of the prologue. It goes back and forth between the present of dealing with my dad’s health, and past memories of him teaching me how to swim. I am really proud of how it came together, so I put it as the prologue because it encapsulates what the book is about,” he said. 

With the trials and tribulations of every work, every author has an idea of what emotions they want their writing to evoke for people.

“I try to write poems that do the same things as the poems that I respect. I want to reach out to the reader through my writing in a compassionate way about some aspect of the human condition,” he said. 

For the Readers

“Poetry is important in the world, and it shows us and helps us connect with other human beings. It teaches empathy and hopefully helps, but it doesn’t answer all the questions. I think it grapples with the big questions and shows us that we are not alone and when you read a poem, you’re with the voice of the poem in a sort of conversation. It can hopefully provide some comfort,” Hanna said. “I learned from this experience that if you look and read the book cover to cover and go through the ups and downs of life experience and put together a structure, you go through loss and grief and fear, but you also learn a lot about gratitude and appreciate the beauty of living.” 

You can find Dr. William Scott Hanna’s book on Amazon at https://a.co/d/0j9xykQc. You can
also visit wscotthanna.com for more information about the book and see illustrations by Kathryn Weir, the cover artist, that were inspired by the poems.

You can also see Dr. Hanna read his poems in person on April 15th at 12 p.m. on the top floor of the Paul E. Elbin Library as a part of
the College of Liberal and Creative Arts (CULCA) Faculty Lecture Series.

“I want people to have gratitude for the natural world and being alive and having family.” – Dr.William Scott Hanna.