MOSES LAKE — Washington poet laureate Tod Marshall will discuss poetry and read a selection of his works in a presentation at 7 p.m. Thursday at the Moses Lake Museum & Art Center.

Admission is free. Marshall’s visit is a joint presentation of the museum and Humanities Washington.

Marshall is a professor at Gonzaga University and has published three poetry collections. His latest, Bugle (2014) won the 2015 Washington State Book Award.

The poet laureate position, Marshall said, “exists to ‘increase awareness and appreciation of poetry throughout the state.’ I travel and speak at universities and kindergarten classes, in bookstores and bars, in correctional facilities and retirement homes about the joys and insights that poetry can bring to our lives.”

Sometimes the humanities and science are presented as being at odds with each other, but Marshall said he doesn’t think that’s the case. “Any routes toward understanding what it is to be human, what our world provides us with every day; those explorations are important. I think it’s very short-sighted of educational practices to avoid recognizing what the humanities bring to scientific discourse – and what the sciences can bring to the arts.”

Poetry sometimes gets the reputation of being a challenging art form. Marshall said that’s wrong. “When poetry is taught as a riddle, as complicated, as something to figure out, then it creates obstacles for readers. A friend and fellow poet calls that “the HDM method,” he said, “the idea that each poem has a hidden deep meaning (HDM) in it, and that only poets and teachers can ferret out that understanding. That’s simply not the case.”

In reality poetry is infinitely variable, he said. “When we recognize that there are many sorts of poetry, many ways that we can enjoy poems, then we can learn to appreciate the many ways poets make poems and the different things readers can find in poems.”

Marshall said he “came to poetry little late. “I was always a reader, but a great teacher turned me onto the wonders of poetry – how it can tell stories, the musicality of words (that poetry often utilizes) that makes it close to song. How the figurative aspects of poetry – metaphor and symbol and others – can put us in touch with non-literal ways of seeing and understanding the world.”

People who have questions about the lecture or any museum event can contact museum officials at 509-764-3830.