CENTER VALLEY, Pa. — Erin Murphy, the 2026-27 Penn State Laureate, will visit Penn State Lehigh Valley on Monday, Oct. 19, to present “With These Hands: A Collaborative Poetry Experience,” an interactive program that combines poetry, conversation and creative participation.
The presentation will take place during Common Hour in Room 135 at Penn State Lehigh Valley.
Murphy, a professor of English at Penn State Altoona and an award-winning poet, prose writer and educator, will read from and discuss her latest books, “The Book of Jobs: Poems About Work” and “Swoon: New & Selected Poems.” Attendees also will have an opportunity to create their own lines of poetry as part of Murphy’s collaborative project.
“Events like this remind us of the power of imaginative self-expression to bring people together,” said Margaret Christian, professor of English at Penn State Lehigh Valley and host of Murphy’s campus visit. “Beyond inspiring our campus community, engaging with the Laureate’s work helps our students broaden their perspectives, spark new ideas, and experience the joy of creativity.”
The Lehigh Valley visit is part of Murphy’s yearlong tour of Penn State campuses and communities across Pennsylvania. Her schedule includes more than 20 events featuring “With These Hands,” through which Murphy is gathering individual lines of poetry from participants across the University. At the conclusion of her term as Laureate, she plans to use those contributions to create a collaborative poem representing voices from across Penn State.
The project invites participants to consider work performed by parents, grandparents, family members or others and to write from that person’s perspective, beginning with the phrase “With these hands I…” The exercise connects with themes of work, family, memory and lived experience explored in Murphy’s poetry.
Murphy is the author or editor of 16 books and joined the Penn State Altoona faculty in 2005. Her teaching includes poetry, nonfiction, fiction, editing and medical humanities. Her work has earned numerous honors, including the University-wide Penn State Alumni Teaching Fellow Award. Most recently, her poetry collection “Human Resources” received the 2026 Storytrade Book Award in Poetry.
Collaboration has been a recurring theme throughout Murphy’s work as an educator and community arts practitioner. As Penn State Laureate, she is bringing that approach to audiences throughout the commonwealth, inviting people from different disciplines and backgrounds to participate in the creative process.
The Penn State Laureate is a full-year position awarded to a full-time faculty member in the humanities or arts. The program is designed to bring greater visibility to the arts, humanities and the University’s broader mission, with each laureate bringing a distinct scholarly or artistic perspective to audiences across Pennsylvania.