FARMINGTON — A reception to honor Wesley McNair, Maine’s new State Poet Laureate, takes place from 3 to 5 p.m. Monday, April 11,  in the Education Center at the University of Maine.

Theodora J. Kalikow, president of University of Maine at Farmington, invites the public to a gala celebration in honor of McNair. The event takes place in the Richard T. and Judith F. Bjorn Lobby of the Education Center on High Street.

“We are thrilled to honor Wes in his appointment to this distinguished position,” Kalikow said. “His poetry has captured the lives and hearts of Mainers throughout his career, bringing the powerful tradition of verse into people’s everyday lives. He will make a wonderful ambassador for the written word in Maine.”

During the reception, McNair will give a short reading of poems that have been suggested by members of the UMF community — faculty, staff and administration.

McNair was named Maine’s Poet Laureate by Gov. Paul LePage on Friday, March 11, at the Poetry Out Loud State Finals in Lewiston. He is Maine’s fourth poet laureate since the post was first established in 1995.

McNair, the UMF professor emeritus and writer in residence, is the author of 18 books, including poetry, prose and edited anthologies. His most recent collection of poems, “Lovers of the Lost: New & Selected Poems” (Godine, 2010), was launched at UMF’s Visiting Writers Series in 2010.

The recipient of numerous prizes for his poetry, McNair has received grants from the Guggenheim, Rockefeller and Fulbright foundations, the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities. In 2006 he was selected for a United States Artists Fellowship as one of “America’s finest living artists.”

McNair has served four times on the nominating jury for the Pulitzer Prize in poetry and was a guest editor in poetry for the 2010 Pushcart Prize anthology. Included among McNair’s many honors are the Robert Frost Prize, the Theodore Roethke Prize, the Jane Kenyon Award for Outstanding Book, the Sarah Josepha Hale Medal for “distinguished contribution to the world of letters” and three honorary degrees.

At UMF, he directed the creative writing program and shared his love of poetry with his students, colleagues and the wider community. He was the recipient of both the UMF Distinguished Faculty Award and the Libra Professorship and currently serves as a guest faculty member for UMF’s Longfellow Mountains Young Writers summer workshop.

The reception for McNair is co-sponsored by Alice James Books, the Beloit Poetry Journal and the University of Maine at Farmington — home to Maine’s only bachelor of fine arts in creative writing program and the Longfellow Mountains Young Writers Workshop.