2025 WINNER OF THE ARTHUR SMITH POETRY PRIZE, MADVILLE PUBLISHING

FOR THE FORTHCOMING COLLECTION

A HEART THAT STRETCHES THE LENGTH OF THE BODY

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David B. Prather’s collections of poetry include We Were Birds from Main Street Rag in 2019, Shouting at an Empty House from Sheila-Na-Gig Editions in 2023, and Bending Light with Bare Hands from Fernwood Press in 2025. He is past president of West Virginia Writers, Inc., a statewide non-profit organization, and he taught English Composition, American Literature, and Creative Writing at West Virginia University at Parkersburg and English Comp at Marietta College in Marietta, Ohio. Prather also served as poetry editor for Confluence Literary Journal and for Tantra Press, and he hosted the Blennerhassett Reading Series. He currently serves as the director of the West Virgnia Writers, Inc. Annual Spring Writers Conference. His poetry, essays, and reviews have appeared in many journals, including New Ohio Review, Colorado Review, Seneca Review, Prairie Schooner, The Comstock Review, The Literary Review, Poet Lore, and others, as well as having garnered nominations for both Best of the Net and Pushcart Prizes.  His work has also appeared in many anthologies, including Voices From the Fierce Intangible World (from South Florida Poetry Journal) and Endlessly Rocking: Poems in Honor of Walt Whitman’s 200th Birthday (Unbound Content, Englewood, NJ). Prather studied acting at the National Shakespeare Conservatory in New York, and he appeared in a couple of local (West Virginia/Ohio) independent movies. He received his MFA from Warren Wilson College in North Carolina, and he was included in the West Virginia Literary Hall of Recognition in 2023. He lives in the town where he was born—Parkersburg, West Virginia.

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