Join the Jasper Project and SCAA for a Reading and Launch Celebration of Southern Voices – Fifty Contemporary Poets Edited by Tom Mack and Andrew Geyer

By Cindi Boiter

Poetry and place come together beautifully in Tom Mack and Andrew Geyer’s (editors) new book, Southern Voices – Fifty Contemporary Poets (Lamar University Press) Which launched on October 1st on the campus of University of SC at Aiken, where Mack is a distinguished professor emeritus and Geyer serves as chair of the English Department. The two previously worked together editing the fiction anthology, A Shared Voice: A Tapestry of Tales (Lamar University Press, 2013), and have joined forces once again to bring us a new and intriguing look at contemporary poetry from the South.

“Because of the overwhelming success of that collection of paired tales, the folks at Lamar University Literary Press wondered if we could put together an equally attractive book of poems,” Mack says. Mack also edited Dancing on Barbed Wire (Angelina River Press, 2018) which Geyer co-wrote with Terry Dalrymple and Jerry Craven. “We knew from the outset of the multi-year project that we wanted to cover the whole South from Virginia to Texas, from Arkansas to Florida; and we thought that 50 would be the minimum number of poets (4-6 poems by each) that we would need to do justice to the complex geography and culture of this distinctive region of the country.”

South Carolina poetry aficionados will not be surprised by the list of distinguished contributors to Southern Voices, among them Jasper’s own poetry editor and inaugural Columbia city poet laureate, Ed Madden, along with Libby Bernadin, Marcus Amaker, Ron Rash, Glennis Redmond, and forty-five equally accomplished poets from across the region.

“Once we decided on how many poets to include in the book,” Mack says, “we divided the South in half. Because I had edited the South Carolina Encyclopedia Guide to South Carolina Writers (USC Press) and managed the USC Aiken writers’ series for over a decade, I volunteered to invite 25 poets from the Atlantic coast, the part of the South I know best. Drew (Geyer), a native of Texas and a member of the Texas Institute of Letters, focused on Southern states from Alabama to west of the Mississippi.”

The theme of “place” features prominently in this collection, Mack says. “It thus made sense to invite as many state and local poets laureate as possible since those individuals had already been selected by governmental entities to represent a particular locale. All of the Southern states have state poets laureate; and some states, such as South Carolina, have poets laureate who have been selected to represent cities and towns. Columbia, Charleston, Greenville, and Rock Hill, for example, have municipal poets laureate. Thus, we were expecting that most of the poems submitted by each invited poet would focus on place: physical, emotional, spiritual, or psychological. We were not disappointed.”

But the co-editors recognized early on that the representation of contemporary Southern poets looks increasingly different than in decades past, as it should. “From the very beginning of the process, we wanted to put together a book that reflected the changing demographics of the region, its growing diversity and burgeoning equality of opportunity. Thus, in choosing our invitees, we kept gender, ethnicity, and sexual orientation in mind,” Geyer says.

In his introduction to the volume Mack writes, “Perhaps no other region of this vast country is haunted more by the past. In the case of the American South, heavy lie the legacy of slavery and the specter of the Civil War. … Yet, the winds of change can be felt throughout the American South, due in large part to both a generational and demographic shift—the region is consistently being enriched by transplants from other parts of the country and other nations of the world.”

“This Southern Voices collection is a testament to how far we’ve come,” Geyer agrees. “The poets in this anthology are Black and white and brown, straight and LGBTQ+, native Southerners and northern transplants—a mélange of artists from across the Greater South most of whom have served as the poets laureate of their states and/or local communities. These are the poets whose work everyday folks living in the South chose to represent them. The diversity of voices that you’ll find in this incredible volume is reflective of the people who make the place what it is.” 

Launch celebrations and readings for Southern Voices are scheduled  throughout the state. The public is invited to attend the Columbia event, sponsored in part by the Jasper Project and the South Carolina Academy of Authors, from 6 to 8 pm on November 14th at All Good Books in Five Points. Poets scheduled to read from the collection include Ed Madden, Glenis Redmond, Libby Bernardin, and Ellen Hyatt.

A version of this article appeared in the Fall 2024 issue of Jasper Magazine - Available now throughout Columbia

Celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month by Supporting Local Hispanic and Latino/a Creators by Christina Xan

National Hispanic Heritage Month runs from September 15 – October 15 and highlights and celebrates Hispanic and Latino heritage and identity in the United States. Hispanic (those from Spanish-speaking countries) and Latin (those from Latin America) culture is rife with history that enriches the communities we dwell in.  Columbia is one of these diverse spaces, and the art that emerges from this city, specifically, is inundated with a multitude of cultural perspectives. This Hispanic Heritage Month, Jasper encourages all patrons to seek out multidisciplinary art from Hispanic and Latino/a artists and to explore how the creators’ backgrounds affect their work.  Don’t know where to start? Jasper talked with six Columbia-based artists about how their cultural identity affects their creative process. Learn about them and their work below.

Daniel Esquivia Zapata

Daniel Esquivia Zapata – Visual Artist

 Describe the kind of art you make.  

Daniel’s work explores ideas about historical memory, official historical narratives, and what he terms the politics of remembering. He does this through life-size figurative drawings that combine historical texts, the human body, plants, and animals to generate strong spaces that work as poetic imagery, probing the dynamics of narratives in history and historical memory. This represents an exercise not only of why and what, but also of how we remember, especially in societies with conflicting narratives, obfuscated historical memories, and legacies of colonialism. He uses a combination of traditional figure drawing techniques, liquid charcoal and fragmented print and hand-written texts to draw on several layers of mylar, creating life size drawings that combine representations of the human body, plants, and animals to create news bodies that work as metaphors for political bodies intersected by history, newspaper articles and archives. With these drawings Daniel seeks to unveil the "place of memory" within our bodies amid intersecting discourses, making tangible the essence of our collective past and present. His work has driven him to create images that replace the common container metaphor of memory with one that understands memory as something dynamic and interconnected; something alive, inhabited by ideas, narratives, and discourses that live, age, die (or are killed); something like an ecosystem of memories and narratives, and ecosystem that is inhabited by beings of texts.  

Describe the role your cultural identity has in your work.  

In Daniel's life, a multiplicity of narratives and multinational experiences has made him think deeply about the dynamics of discourse and narratives in our societies, especially as an Afro-Latino in the Americas. For Daniel, the intersection of different identities has profoundly influenced his work. His experiences as the son of a human rights lawyer and a social worker in a multiethnic and multiracial family in Colombia; as a victim of forced displacement from his hometown in 1989; as an Afro-Colombian who studied at a HBCU in the US South [Benedict College]; and as a citizen living in Colombia and grappling with the legacies and present realities of its civil war; these experiences have all presented points of encounter with the forces of history’s multiple faces—unofficial, alternative, contested, surviving—that build and situate someone’s identity. 

Alejandro García-Lemos

Alejandro García-Lemos – Visual Artist

Describe the kind of art you make. 

Alejandro García-Lemos is a visual artist based in Columbia, South Carolina and New Orleans, Louisiana. He holds a MA in Latin American Studies from Florida International University in Miami, and a BA in Graphic Design from the School of Arts at the National University in Bogotá, Colombia. His work focuses on social issues, mostly on aspects of immigration, sexuality, biculturalism, religion, and community. His works have been shown mostly in the Southeast. Alejandro is a former member of the National Association of Latino Arts and Culture (NALAC), as well as the founder of Palmetto & LUNA, a non-profit organization promoting Latino Arts and Cultures in South Carolina since 2007. Lately his work has been shown in Colombia. 

Describe the role your cultural identity has in your work.  

For this particular question I had to look up the exact definition of cultural identity … Cultural identity is a part of a person's identity, or their self-conception and self-perception, and is related to nationality, ethnicity, religion, social class, generation, locality, gender, or any kind of social group that has its own distinct culture. Therefore my cultural identity is omnipresent in my work, as I had mentioned many times before, I am three times a minority, I am Latinx, gay, and immigrant, how could you avoid those aspects as an intrinsic part of all your art? 

Emily Moffitt

Emily Moffitt – Visual Artist

 Describe the kind of art you make. 

The type of art I create boils down to what I have the most fun with. I'm still trying to make my way in and have my foot in the door of the Columbia art scene! Like most Gen Z artists, I got into art from a young age via immense media consumption: video games, anime, cartoons, comics, and the list continues. As a result, the kind of work I create typically falls under the "illustration" category. I go back and forth between illustration and fine art, and sometimes I still think the distinction shouldn't even matter! As a recent college graduate who has now experienced the adulthood rite of passage that is working a 9-5 while still having time for hobbies, as long as I take even 10 minutes of my day to get my hands moving and draw something in my sketchbook, it's a successful day for me. 

Describe the role your cultural identity has in your work.  

The "fine art" I created started with a body of work that explored my heritage and connected to it more after my grandmother passed away in 2021, and I aim to continue it either by maintaining the "dreamscape" title or by starting a new collection. My goal in the fine art world is to create a body of work that I'm constantly thinking about, called "My Mother's Kitchen," since the closest ties I have to my Puerto Rican heritage stem from cuisine, my relationship with my mom, and the amount of time I spent growing up in and around the kitchen watching my mother make the recipes she grew up making with my grandmother. At this point, it's just a matter of me finding the time, and holding myself accountable, that's preventing me from following through! I do find that my mixed heritage sometimes feels like an obstacle when I do work, however, and that's an internalized hurdle I try to overcome when I create, too. Taíno symbology persists throughout my heritage-based work, and I wanted to also focus on the importance of my relationships with my mom and sister. My Puerto Rican heritage has been driven and shaped only by women in my life, and I wanted to pay homage to that, especially since my sister and I feel the same internalized obstacle of sometimes feeling "not Latina enough."  

Claire Jiménez – Author

Describe the kind of art you make.  

Claire Jiménez is a Puerto Rican writer who grew up in Brooklyn and Staten Island, New York. She is the author of the short story collection Staten Island Stories (Johns Hopkins Press, 2019) and What Happened to Ruthy Ramirez (Grand Central, 2023). She received her M.F.A. from Vanderbilt University and her PhD in English with specializations in Ethnic Studies and Digital Humanities from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. In 2019, she co-founded the Puerto Rican Literature Project, a digital archive documenting the lives and work of hundreds of Puerto Rican writers from over the last century. Currently, she is an Assistant Professor of English and African American Studies at the University of South Carolina. 

Describe the role your cultural identity has in your work.

My writing is very much influenced by the work of past Puerto Rican writers, especially the Nuyorican poets. I am thinking of Pedro Pietri's "The Puerto Rican Obituary" and the work of Judith Ortiz Cofer. I remember reading Silent Dancing and "The Story of My Body" for the first time as a young person, who had a hard time finding books by any Puerto Rican authors in the bookstore in the nineties. These texts were inspiring to me as a young reader, and they definitely shaped me as a writer.

Loli Molina Muñoz

Loli Molina Muñoz – Author 

Describe the kind of art you make. 

I write poetry and fiction. I have just finished my first poetry chapbook manuscript in English, and I also have a feminist dystopia novella in Spanish, both of them searching for a warming publishing house.  

Describe the role your cultural identity has in your work.  

Being born and raised in Málaga, Spain, I grew up immersed in both Spanish and English language thanks to literature, music, and pop culture, which deeply influenced my work. However, I have also lived in Coventry (UK), Wisconsin, and finally moved to South Carolina in 2013. For this reason, my work explores themes of identity, feminism, migration, and the intersections between cultures.

[ALMA] SPANISH

Querida madre:

Estos días pienso mucho en usted.

Ayer me acordé de su guiso de 

carne y quise hacer uno yo. 

No me supo igual. 

Me faltaba el sabor añadido de sus 

manos y el olor de su delantal. 

Los niños dijeron que estaba muy 

bueno. Yo les di las gracias y sonreí.

Dos lágrimas que se escaparon 

disimulando para no ser vistas. 

Tampoco vieron las dos cartas del

banco avisando del desahucio. 

Les dije que vamos a pasar unos 

días en casa de Alejandra.

Les hizo ilusión pasar un tiempo 

con sus primos y eso me alivió. 

Luego recordé aquella vez que

usted me dijo que eligiera mi 

muñeca favorita.

Crucé el desierto de la mano de 

Alejandra con la muñeca pegada 

a mi pecho como un amuleto. 

Aún conservo mi muñeca.

Aún tengo a Alejandra. 

Voy a estar bien. 

No se preocupe. 

[ALMA] ENGLISH

Dear mother,

These days I think about you all the time. 

Yesterday I remembered your beef 

stew and I made one myself. 

It did not taste the same. 

It did not have that extra flavor from 

your hands or the smell of your apron. 

The kids said that they liked it. 

I thanked them and smiled. 

Two tears escaped trying not 

to be seen by them. 

They did not see the two eviction

 letters from the bank either. 

I told them that we are going to stay 

some days at Alejandra’s. 

They were happy about spending 

time with their cousins and that soothed me. 

Later I remembered that time 

you told me to choose my favorite doll. 

I crossed the desert holding Alejandra’s 

hand and the doll stuck

to my chest like an amulet. 

I still keep my doll. 

I still have Alejandra. 

I’ll be fine. 

Don’t worry. 

Giovanna Montoya

Giovanna Montoya – Ballet Dancer 

Describe the kind of art you make.  

I’m a professional ballet dancer, so my art is dance. Ballet is a theatrical art form that integrates music, dance, acting and scenery to convey a story, or a theme.

 Describe the role your cultural identity has in your work.

My cultural identity represents who I am; a dedicated, driven, disciplined, strong woman, which stands up for what’s right, and never gives up. I am always aiming to move forward, trying to do better every day, even if it is little by little, and working hard to achieve my dreams and goals. These have been imperative assets to possess, that have helped me to become a professional ballet dancer with 15+ years of experience. Ballet is a beautiful but difficult art form, which requires a lot of time, sacrifice, effort, love, endless hours of training, and a great deal of discipline and dedication. I would never have become a professional ballet dancer if it weren’t for the commitment, dedication, responsibility, and integrity that my parents showed and instilled in me from a young age. Coming into this country as an immigrant it’s very difficult, and you have to work very hard to achieve success. That’s something my parents made very clear to me from the beginning, and they led by example. Always working hard, never giving up and excelling in their fields. My dad is a statistician for the Mayo Clinic. My mom is a Veterinarian doctor and was a University Professor in my home Country Venezuela. I’m so thankful for my parents and my cultural identity that has shaped me, and played a pivotal role in the person that proudly I am today.

Poetry of the People with Evelyn Berry

This week's Poet of the People is Evelyn Berry. Over a decade ago, led by Evelyn Berry, an inspired group of Aiken High School students would pile in a car and journey to Columbia to attend Mind Gravy Poetry. I am fortunate to still know several of them through the wonder of Facebook—and Evelyn continues to lead and soar above us all. Some day, we will say we knew and were energized by Evelyn Berry on her way up and be grateful for the experience.

-Al Black

Evelyn Berry is a trans, Southern writer, editor, and educator. She's the author of Grief Slut (Sundress Publications, 2024). She's a recipient of a 2023 National Endowment for the Arts Poetry Fellowship and lives in Columbia, South Carolina.

Self-Portrait at Nineteen 

All summer, I worked shifts at Old Navy

& snorted molly from an iPhone screen

in the backseat of a car parked nowhere,

a happy heathen not yet grief-plundered.

Once, I was a boy unafraid to die.

I would swallow almost anything meant

to kill me if, at first, it got me high:

pills left over from surgery pilfered

from my parents’ medicine cabinet,

coffee cups of dark liquor, gas station

feasts, bounty of grease, sugar, cigarettes.

How else to parachute from the body?

Aliveness, this useless extravagance

I have wasted once before, but no more.

prodigal daughter 

what I know of sin, i learned in the sty

amid the swine, slurped mud and called it wine.

femme-fouled boy, faggot-spoiled sacrifice

offered at the altar and abandoned.

forgive my reckless want, lord, to belong

as more than soiled sacrament, fat sow

knife-split to gorge the prophets of gendered

violence. prayer, in their hands, a blade.

what do i know of penitence, patience,

except once the lord sent frenzied demons

into a drove of blameless pigs to drown?

how did we decide which beast to slaughter?

lord, i too am an impure animal.

i left home a son, return a daughter.

Eos 

After Mary Evelyn Pickering De Morgan

Once, the goddess of dawn cried out, forlorn,

her son cast into dirt beyond the walls of Troy,

Achilles’ sword drawn through his chest,

his soul gone, replaced with a feathered flock.

Her tears poured graceless as swans,

like a vase overflowing with morning dew

until grief bloomed new gardens.

Describe to me the weight of this.

Mourning replenishes the earth, ushers

Soil into rebirth, new river traced

from the boy’s doomed blue veins.

What is a song worth without its wound?

Let me, for once, taste paradise without the tinge of blood.

Let me glimpse the cusp of dawn without the flood of night.

The Decoy

            After John Collier

To be painted femme fatale, condemned fatal:

a woman’s beauty is a dangerous deception

in the hands of a man who demands

to own her like a plucked rose.

Let me be the decoy instead,

damsel in undress, glinting

luminescent like a knife

bound to my ankle.

SCETV and USC Press Celebrates Jazz Legend Marian McPartland with Book Launch Event at Koger Center for the Arts

South Carolina ETV and Public Radio (SCETV), in partnership with the University of South Carolina Press, is proud to announce a special event celebrating the launch of Shall We Play That One Together: The Life and Art of Jazz Piano Legend Marian McPartland, a biography by acclaimed jazz historian Paul de Barros. The event will take place on Oct. 1 from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. in the Gallery on the second floor of the Koger Center for the Arts in Columbia.

This unique evening will feature live music from a jazz trio led by Mark Rapp of ColaJazz, light refreshments, hors d'oeuvres and a cash bar. Attendees will have the opportunity to meet author Paul de Barros, purchase signed copies of the book, and delve into the life and legacy of one of jazz’s most influential figures- Marian McPartland.

Paul de Barros, known for his extensive work in jazz, has crafted a compelling narrative that chronicles McPartland’s journey from the British novelty circuit to becoming a revered jazz pianist and the voice of jazz in America. Shall We Play That One Together: The Life and Art of Jazz Piano Legend Marian McPartland explores McPartland’s 30-year tenure on her NPR show, Marian McPartland’s Piano Jazz, where she introduced tens of thousands of listeners to jazz music through interviews and performances with legendary artists.

The event will also mark the kickoff of a new season of ColaJazz Presents, a series dedicated to showcasing the rich jazz culture in South Carolina, featuring the ColaJazz Trio.

Shall We Play That One Together? Book Launch and Jazz Celebration

October 1, 2024, 6:30 - 8:30 p.m.

The Gallery, 2nd Floor, Koger Center for the Arts, 1051 Greene Street, Columbia, SC

Free admission; books available for purchase onsite

This event is free and open to the public.

The University of South Carolina Press is a leading academic publisher, dedicated to advancing knowledge and scholarship through the publication of outstanding books across a range of disciplines, including history, literature, and the arts.

Al Black's Poetry of the People featuring Tre Fleming aka Poetré

This week's Poet of the People is Tre Fleming aka Poetré. Tre is an insightful poet and spoken word artist known professionally as Poetré. A multi-talented performer from Columbia; you should check him out the next time he hits the stage.

Poetré is a writer, comedian, poet, film producer, and podcaster from Columbia, SC. His works are inspired by his love of hip hop, mental health, social commentary, and self reflection. In 2024. He represented Columbia, SC as a part of the Tribe Slam team in the annual Southern Fried Poetry Competition in Florida, as well as competed in his first King Of The South Slam. He can be found on IG, and TikTok under @PoetreIsLife and for business inquiries at Poetreislife@gmail.com. 

____

LIVING OUT LOUD

If I have to stand onstage and scream, I will.

Yes, my people have come a long way, but still.

This is about community, living in unity.

My country, my world, not just you and me!

I am a voice for the voiceless, ones not in the room

Ones who have passed on, and ones in the womb.

I am justice for those who feel like it's just us.

And my Tribe will fight, even if it's nobody but us.

We are a generation of speakers, activist, and thinkers.

Not longer waiting for the cue from our leaders.

We are about that action, standing on business

Waiting on the revolution to be televised?

This is the internet!

We want it instant.

We will put our foot on your necks, until you show us respect

No matter race, gender, religion, I need us to shout.

Cause no longer will the minority be quiet.

WE ARE LIVING OUT LOUD!

FACES IN THE STREET 

The city is crowded, per usual.

Everyone busy in their own pursuit. 

A homeless man asks for spare change, if possible. 

A mother just got a call from her son in the hospital. A kid is lost. 

He knows where he is, but not in life.

A man texts a woman that's not his wife.

Someone is late for their first day of work.

Just trying to make sure there were no wrinkles in his shirt.

Someone is just out for exercise. 

Another person is smiling, but crying inside.

A couple is holding hands. They just got married.

A couple is holding hands. The wife just miscarried.

A girl scout is selling cookies, but people rarely stop.

A person is looking at a window of a store where they can't afford to shop.

A young teenager is looking for a place to stay.

The parents kicked him out because came out today.

A veteran is enjoying his first day home from war.

A lady holds her purse tight, cause she's been robbed before.

All these people around that I never get to meet.

Their stories untold. Just faces in the street.

BAD MEMORY

Remember when we first met?

It was on a day I'll probably forget.

It was raining,

Nope, it was sunny outside 

Things get foggy as the days go by.

Remember that time we laughed till we cried?

Couldn't remember what was so funny, no matter how hard I tried. 

Or how about that one trip you kept asking me to go?

I can't remember the name of the resort,

I just remember the snow.

Remember singing karaoke in front of everybody?

I forget what song we sang, but I remember you smiling.

Or when I tried comedy for the first time.

I remember you being so supportive, but what was the punchline?

Or what about the time we volunteered at the shelter?

I can't remember that one lady's name, but I'm glad we could help her.

I remember so many moments, I just forget some details.

I forget the exact words, 

I even forget to make this rhyme.

So I'll make up for it some time.

I remember what is most important, not names, days, places, or what we wear.

I just ask that when you remember those times, don't forget that I was there.

HEAVEN

She looks like heaven 

She's what angels sing about

She's what pastors scream and shout

She's my eternity

Cause being without her is hell to me

Those pair of eyes are paradise 

And her smile cause from somewhere high

She's the reason why I sing

When she laughs, an angel gets his wings

On my mind, she's my halo

Her love is Gospel, cause she says so

Her voice makes me rejoice when I hear it

When I'm down, she's my spirit

She came from somewhere far above,

She's the world, she's my savior, she is Love

Everyone knows it, the choir, the deacon, the ushers, the reverend 

I'll sacrifice everything, 

Cause she looks like heaven 

FIRST LOVE

The first time I fell in love was with a woman who loved other men before me.

Yet I was her first. 

It took me a while to build myself up to meet her.

Even though she had fallen for me way before I could greet her.

See I was nothing but love.

I had to form into an entity from God before we could meet.

Because the pain that she went through to meet me was the gift with no receipt.

The first woman that held me in her arms was the first woman I loved. 

I didn't pick a mother.

I was a choice she made and planned for.

And she prepared me for the women I would love.

What she did was traumatized me from light skinned girls!

Not, I'm just playing.

She taught me what love was through how she loved me and my siblings and to how she loved strangers. 

She showed what caring about someone means in the late night phone calls, the 2 am Emergency room calls, one call from jail, the cosign on a student loan, the "hey I love you" texts at 11:42 on a Tuesday just because. 

She taught me how to walk. Walk away from a fight that you don't need to win, walk away from a toxic relationship, walk away from a lie, and walk away with my head held high.

She taught me how to talk. Like literally talk. I could read before preschool. I am able to articulate what I want, how I want, to who I want. No just talking. She taught me how to speak. She taught me how to say something.

She taught me unconditional love. 

She taught me was hustling was.

She taught me how to save. 

And who not to save.

She never pushed my father out of my life.

She proved she'd never disrespect my wife.

I can never thank her enough.

And even though the roads been rough,

She's still my first love.

Poetry of the People featuring Amanda Rachelle Warren

This week's Poet of the People is Amanda Rachelle Warren. I met Amanda about ten years ago when she appeared at Poems: Bones of the Spirit with her poet, colleague/partner in life, Roy Seeger. She is a delightful and engaging read and an even better listen. She and her husband were recently included in Southern Voices 2024/25, Fifty Contemporary Poets.

-Al Black

Amanda Rachelle Warren's work has appeared in Tusculum Review, The Carolina Quarterly, Appalachian Heritage, Anderbo, and the Beloit Poetry Journal as well as other journals. Their chapbook Ritual no.3: For the Exorcism of Ghosts, was published by Stepping Stone Press in 2010. They are the 2017 recipient of the Nickens Poetry Fellowship from the South Carolina Academy of Authors. Their first full-length collection, Rituals for to Call Down Light, was published by Finishing Line Press in Spring 2024. They teach at the University of South Carolina Aiken.

____

Solus

1.

Rain knocks pollen from the air.

Everywhere it hits: an o of yellow neon.

Everywhere it runs: a spot of clean smooth, nothing.

2.

Nothing wakes me.

Not the warning sirens,

not the loud rumble, not the flash

of light outside the window.

The rain dampens everything with a soft hush.

I dream of water. Of the open window,

drops swelling the wood in its sash,

wrapped tight in my pink comforter,

the rain hits my upturned face,

and I pray the way a child prays,

though I know how pain cuts the self into paper dolls.

The light through the window does not wake me.

I am shielded by rain.

3.

In this dream I am crying.

In this dream I am always crying.

What never happened will keep
never happening.

4.

I am tired. The rain does not stop.

I want to sit in the closet and cover myself in wool sweaters.

I want to wash and dry everything in the house.

I want a cup of tea, so I make one.

5.

He and I are, he and I are. A dirty lie.

He and I. The window cracked to let the rain in.

Drops pattern the left shoulder of my jacket;

fall with the weight of blossoms.

The rain makes me want to smoke.

Everything looks so clean. I want to

dirty it up. Smack it around a bit.

I drive. I gnash my teeth at the car in front of me.

Move motherfucker. Jesus Christ.

The smoke tastes like a bad idea.  I want more.

I put my palm up to the sky, lick the pool that gathers there.

Angle my wrist. Roll my eyes and pray,

loving the syllables of submission.

Lord, I will do anything. Anything

you want Lord, anything. I will do anything:

I am stretched thin

I am not in a forgiving mood.

Something is coming for me, scratches towards me,

rain seeps through it, threatens,

wants me emptied, ready to fill again.

Tenure Track Appointment 

By the time I print the directions to who knows where, they're already memorized. I've overlayed the map on the overlay of my brain. I've run through the turns and gauged whether I or Google know better.

I know better. But today I've nowhere to go. I wait. There's something I should probably be doing, but what is it? Someone tell me.

It is Tuesday and my husband is divesting the blueberry bush of its blossoms. It stands there in naked glory. If we pinch back the fruit this year the bush will grow fuller. I want to run.

This fall we'll be fruitless. And we'll feed the pecan trees. And we'll see how tall the tea roses he has gentled back from nothing more than a green stub grow. And should we wait on the strawberries too? We ask, and I imagine my teeth full of small seeds. Pick a direction. For fuck's sake.

Next year will be better, tomorrow will be better, has been my motto for so long. I'll just have to work harder. If I just work harder. Then I can rest. Then I can get back to that creek- side flecked with mica so the shore shines in sunlight. Then I can learn more complicated stitches so the scarves I knit for Christmas look less like a desperate attempt to offer something of worth if not value. Then I can figure out what everyone means by self-care. Who has time to put their oxygen mask on? I'm gasping here. 

When the first real paycheck of my life arrives, I will buy a shirt not on sale to remind myself that the body exists, that it must be fed in many ways. Ways that are not cookies bought without coupons; save a dollar. Ways that are not just words.

If the inkwell runs dry, we fill the well. We dig deeper into the substrate, look for the water table. Here it's all sand that doesn't hold. Every time my husband mixes good dirt into the raised beds, the trees encroach, and the digging is harder. Some summers the tomato leaves crisp in the hard sun and offer nothing. Sometimes there is blight. Sometimes. Sometimes. Some.

Next year, maybe, I can keep my fucking hands off my fucking face like my mother says to and stop picking. Stop damaging myself because there's nothing wrong: food on the table, internet too. I can stare half-asleep at puppy videos, glut myself on other people's recipes and how-tos--never lift a finger. Next year, I'll paint the risers on the stairs. Each step a lighter blue so it looks like I'm rising with them.

And we'll do something about that railing, right? So many coats of thick cheap paint rounding the edges of good wood. But I haven't even refinished the cabinet I bought last year. I haven't even hung the pictures in the hall because first the hall needs painting and before that we've got to spackle the seams and make decisions. Hopefully not wrong ones. But paint is cheap, my husband says. Whatever decision you make it's fine.  And “it's fine” is not meant as apathy. Don't tell me what I mean. 

Maybe instead, I'll run...map each road from here to where with a good pen on blank newsprint rolled across the hood of my car like it's already full of someone else’s' directions. Fishcamps. Right of ways. An exclamation point in thin black ink where the cartographer suddenly realized that wayfinding isn't a competition. A circle near Level Church because that's where the local radio station cranked CCR's "Lodi" and where some ghost whispered the lyrics by heart through the speaker's rough crackle. 

In two years, the lowest branch on the pecan tree by the front gate we do not use, will touch the hundred-year-old house it took us 20 years to afford.

There's a map to two years from now that I have neither printed nor read. But “the man who plants the date palm…” some wise jackass once said.

Tomorrow, I'll convince myself to stay until the goddamn blueberries arrive. Right now, my hip hurts. Right now, my hair is a mess. Right now, I am afraid to get in the car because I don't know if I'll stop.

In the fall, I will move into my second-floor office and worry about birds throwing themselves suicidally against the windows that do not open, and I will wonder if the smell of my bare feet will carry to the faculty office next door, or should I need a shawl to cover my arms because I've heard the offices are cold, and I am disgusted by the idea of a fucking shawl of all things nesting in my brain.

Already this is changing me. Jesus. What will it mean to not be angry? What will it mean to not humble myself before myself? What would it mean to think I somehow earned something? I hope I don't know. I hope I never know. And that this doesn’t mean that this right here is as good as it gets.  

The Dead are the Worst

Oily coffee from the gas station because

why not stay up all night?

The dead rattle on while I try to sleep,

so I rise, pick a road, ride it out, I guess.

Rain makes the sodium lights hiss like a directive:

Shut your mouth. Danger. Drink up. Remember.

The root of vulnerable is wound.
Suicides are speaking from the tree line.

Something haunts my oil pan.

I keep the radio low.

So the dead don’t surprise me.

So I can still write them off as interference.

The laughter of one gone brother leaves trails on my eyelids

like the trail of reflectors in the side view.

His memory is scar like the road is scar. How?

Like the car is hot metal, machine.  Facts.
Brake dust darkens the seam of his pockets. Wait.

The dead lie through the tinny speakers. Below the wah-wah.

Tonight, one is explaining the afterlife as matter-of-fact

as baseball plays beneath the chorus. How I’m

stuck in the middle with you. 

This car feels like a church in disrepair.

The chorus likes to point out

the things I already know. Jokers to the right.

I drive to the top of the ridge to make things clearer and fail. 

I try to find some direction in the mid-station static,

where the dead hiss and crackle their EVP. I find

one word: Sincere. Piercing, and loud. Then, Stupid.

Well, fuck you too.

I’m down to a quarter tank.

The moon is completely gone.

Which of the dead is saying Break a leg, boys?

Which is just repeating sorry?

One of them slips his foot on the gas beside mine,

in a voice all slick with temptation says:

We could really make this sucker fly.

 Brother, You Don’t Even Know

 In his wallet, he carried

a stack of business cards: coal black, no

text, no nothing, on either side. We

in our confusion, passed

them between us, forgetting

momentarily, that Uncle Hugo is

what we quaintly call "gone."

We will try to ignore the symbolism

of cards that convey nothing

found in the pocket of our dearly

departed. Dear Gertie holds

the cards to the light

expecting some meaning to shine

through the coal black dark.

Cousin Ansel wonders silently if

this is all a consequence of war,

some trauma never pinned to language.

Shake before using,

read the poison bottle

Uncle Hugo slit

his throat with.

The note in his pocket,

jammed beneath

dusty peppermints, read:

forget the cognac, I didn’t think

this was a kindergarten.

Uncle Hugo would have

rather died like a wind-chime,

clunk-clunk, in the linden tree

which grows nothing but shade,

but someone, perhaps Darling Frieda,

perhaps Little Hannah, returned

the step ladder to the shed and for once

locked it.

Nothing is ever where it should be.

Except, perhaps, Uncle Hugo

sprawled casual and cold in the pantry

in his good brown suit.

Blood congealing around the jars

of blueberry jam Great Aunt Delilah-Jean

so patiently canned wishing some small

summer sweetness spooned, come winter,

over her award-winning buttermilk biscuits.

Paul will grab the mop.

When the sweet, baby-headed

undertaker comes to lift

Hugo's stiffening body,

Hugo’s false teeth will clatter

to the ground and never be found. 

Hugo, a tough nut, never cracked

a smile once he, what we quaintly call "returned,"

from the war, which he never did.

He told Aoife once that his dreams

were filled with jam-thick blood.

He told Aoife that once, when Aoife was small.

He never smiled. But we hope

he’ll have gold teeth in heaven to do so.

 

After Die Brücke (1959)

 No Peach Pie in Barstow

On Coolwater Lane my phone goes dead. Over 3,000 miles

on a single charge because I don’t talk much that way.

I just want to sink into the small kidney-shaped pool

at the Motel 8 and wash the day from me. Five fights

in fifty miles, my co-pilot finding fault in everything:

sky, mountains, other drivers, douchebags from Havasu

hauling jet skis and trophy wives, the places we stop,

the places we don’t, the distance left to go. 

The pool is closed, chained tight. It is sunset—

yellow ball of sun sinking behind the Pinos,

behind the Tehachapi, on the other side of Mojave. She

goes to bed, sprawls and scowls.

I lean on the aluminum fencing looking towards Calico,

where I would go were I alone. I wonder how far

I could get without her noticing

that I am really, truly gone.

There is a glass bottle of peach Nehi rolling in the floorboard

where it has been rolling for nine days. Picked up from a

peach pie stand on the Ace Basin Parkway in South Carolina.

I have brought it this far. And there’s not a peach pie in sight

anymore. Not a one. For the first time, I miss my actual, physical home. 

I unbraid my hair, bleached by the sun so light in spots it is like gold, release

shed strands to the hot wind along the National Road,

proof I was here wishing it were beautiful.

On the Way to Needville

 I drive to the coast and stare at the gulf for a while.

From the granite outcrop, that stays the wear of tide,

I see the edge of something which is not a horizon. 

Behind me oil derricks pump the past up, burn it away.

Beyond the breakers, platforms rise like small angry cities.

I am a small, angry city unto myself. Small and angry

and staring at the grey water like it isn’t a foreign body.

I am thinking how this is not the body I would build for myself.

But one that feels the speed of the earth I am cemented to.

I get in the car. This is pointless. I’m thinking

I could drive for days with no one passing me. I wouldn’t

even have to say my name aloud to myself. If I didn’t want it.

There’s nothing but endless Texas fences fencing nothing but scrub.

It is pointless, the way I move toward homesickness,

writing “I should have taken you with me” on postcards

addressed to some old self. We need to stop lying

about being comfortable when nothing fits this skin of skin

that holds us to the whiplash ground. The lean trees grow

twisted in the salt wind, they grow twisted in the flatlands,

they grow twisted in the deep imaginary woods I imagine I came from.

We could be anywhere and not belong. We could be everywhere.

And road burnt we’ll always find our way here, or somewhere the same.

Miles to Badaxe

Everyone in Birkenstocks, no one in moccasins.

The weather is unseasonably warm.

Corpses of fish flies heap in the sills.

Lake birds preen their fat bellies.

Everyone dusting the calcium chloride from their blue jeans

and reaching for the cooler between this town,

and that town, and that corner bar,

and party store and grab another cold one

because the green of the fields and the green

of the trees is flying by like too much goddamn green.

And the green mile markers tick higher, northing,

with the green names of German street signs

and the green moss on that Bavarian-gabled wreck

of a ruin of a house on North. And there’s the green water,

and the green shore of Canada, and the green of your shirt,

and “someone must really like green” the realtor said once

to my husband's German father who is chopping

back green branches in his green pants and green

shirt and green socks and Birkenstocks,

and I’m just glad the axe is dull, so he won’t chop off his toes.

One Book Winner Cassie Premo Steele Leads Community Discussion on Her Novel Beaver Girl

On Tuesday, August 27th, Cassie Premo Steele will offer insight into her 2023 novel Beaver Girl during her author’s talk at All Good Books (734 Harden St). 

The Jasper Project, in conjunction with One Columbia, and All Good Books, announced Steele’s novel as the selected community reading for the 2024 One Book project earlier this year.

One Book was first adopted by Columbia in 2011, modeled after the One Book, One Community project that started in the Seattle public library system in 1998. The goal is to highlight literary art by South Carolina authors and to emphasize a sense of community around storytelling. 

Beaver Girl is “set against the backdrop of a post-pandemic and climate-collapsed world” as it follows 19-year-old Livia through a journey with a beaver family in Congaree National Park. The story both reveals the unique role of beavers in the world’s ecosystem and the “redemption, resilience, and interconnectedness of all living beings.” 

Next week’s Community Book Discussion will give readers of the book a chance to pick Steele’s brain and interrogate the themes of the story. Even locals who have not had an opportunity to read the book can take advantage of the evening to get to know a local author and learn more about this community-oriented project. 

Jasper talked with Steele ahead of the event to find out just why this event is so vital—both as part of this project and beyond.

JASPER: Why does this discussion matter to you as an author?

STEELE: For the past five months, the 2024 One Book Project has hosted events giving people the opportunity to read and learn about the themes in Beaver Girl. I’ve led workshops on beaver ecology and ethics from Congaree National Park to Oregon and Washington State. I’ve engaged in panel discussions about the novel with beaver scholar Emily Fairfax online and a host of scholars and activists here in our community at the Nickelodeon Theater. And I’ve given classes on writing “the code of the water way” to writers and science educators from across the states of Oklahoma and South Carolina. 

Tuesday’s discussion, though, will be a homecoming, returning back to the local bookstore where the Jasper Project, One Columbia for Arts and Culture, and All Good Books chose Beaver Girl for this year’s community reading selection. And as the characters Livia and Chap learn in Beaver Girl, there’s no place like home. 

JASPER: Why might people want to get a behind the scenes look for this book specifically? 

STEELE: The community book discussion will be an opportunity for people to share stories about their fears about environmental disasters and the losses the pandemic and political upheavals have caused — themes addressed in the novel— but also their [positive] experiences with the natural world, their strategies for self-care and connection, and their hopes for a future where we enjoy the abundant richness of diversity in our human and more than human communities. 

JASPER: Why should people take the time to meet local artists? 

STEELE: We have a rich, diverse city filled with creative people, and we live in a unique biosphere region that is unlike anything else on earth. The book shows us how we can learn to live together in harmonious ways — and what can happen if we do not. 

JASPER: Why should the community be excited for this event, specifically?

STEELE: In the end, Beaver Girl is really a book about family and community. Who do we love? How can we learn to trust again after great trauma? What members of our community need care, and how can we be open to communicating with those who are different from us? The moderator of our discussion, Ruth Smyrle, took care of my stepdaughter when she was a baby, so there’s an element of family woven into the event itself. I hope people will feel that reading and discussing Beaver Girl gives them an opportunity to feel part of a beautiful and diverse community. 

The Community Book Discussion will be Tuesday, August 27, from 6:00pm—7:30pm at All Good Books.

If you can’t make it on the 27th you can also meet Steele at one of the following events:

• Monday, September 9 at 6:30-7:30 PM - Queer-Themed Book Discussion with Cassie Premo Steele, Author of Beaver Girl, Moderated by Maggie Olszewski, Queer Poet and Employee at All Good Books, to be held at The Hoot, 2910 Rosewood Drive, Suite 1, Columbia SC

• Saturday, September 7 at 10 AM-12 PM - Summer Forest Journaling with the Author of Beaver Girl and Earth Joy Writing at Congaree National Park : Free but space is limited. Register here.

• Tuesday, September 17 6:00-7:30 PM - All Booked Up, the S.C. Sea Grant Consortium’s Coastal Reading Club for formal, non-formal, or homeschool educators, discussing Beaver Girl. Online. More info here.

• Sunday, September 22 at 3:00-6:00 PM - ONE BOOK 2024 Round-Up Party and Potluck Dinner with BYOB. Music, Art, DJ, Poetry, Cozy Conversations and Hugs! One Columbia Co-Op, 1013 Duke Avenue, Columbia, SC

Al Black's Poetry of the People with Ellen Malphrus

This week's Poet of the People is Ellen Malphrus. Ellen is a vibrant force in South Carolina's literary community as she links the present with the past. A former student of James Dickey, and is a fierce warrior and advocate of the literary craft. 

I am still waiting for the honor of hosting and sharing the mic with her at an event.

-Al Black

Ellen Malphrus is author of the novel Untying the Moon (foreword by Pat Conroy). Her collection Mapmaking with Sisyphus was a finalist for the 2023 Marsh Hawk Press Poetry Prize. Publications include Atlanta Review, Chariton, Weber: Contemporary West, Poetry South, James Dickey Review, Blue Mountain Review, Natural Bridge, Southern Literary Journal, William & Mary Review, Fall Lines, Yemassee, Haight Ashbury Review, Catalyst, Without Halos, and Our Prince of Scribes. She is a professor and Writer-in-Residence at USC Beaufort who divides her time (unevenly) between the marshes of her native South Carolina Lowcountry and the mountains of western Montana.

____

Mother Emanuel

                                      for Reverend Clementa Pinckney, Reverend Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, Mrs. Cynthia Graham-Hurd, Mrs. Susie J. Jackson, Mrs. Ethel Lee Lance, Reverend DePayne Middleton-Doctor, Tiwanza, Kibwe Diop Sanders, Reverend Daniel Lee Simmons, Sr., and Mrs. Myra Singleton Quarles Thompson

In her custodian’s closet the big

squeeze handle bucket

sits on its rollers, weary and dented,

stained past judgment day

when the wash water went                            

pink to red to crimson

with each faithful swath                                 

across the solemn floor                                              

and anguish                                        

flowed through city pipelines

down the river

out to sea,

mingling with millennia of

mopped up blood—

ensanguined taint of senseless history.

We bow our heads, as nine cannot,

in awe of a

congregation who chose compassion.

Chose peace—

lest Charleston roil up in                                

hot black waves of wrath.

As surely it could have.

As some say it should have.

Dozens of unassailed steeples

rise above the peninsula canopy—    

yet the grace of but one

makes this the

Holy City.

     ~

Founding Father

As you gallop

through the park

in granite stillness

children stretch from playground swings

toward the cloud-capped roof of innocence—

expecting to break the sky

                                                if they spring out far enough.

And even if they land in earthbound sneakers

they have traveled farther

than your stone horse will take you

ever again.                                                                                                                        

A child’s rein might lead away from

this block of town square immortality

but they are busy

and don’t come close enough

to notice

your green streaked face

or hear the echo

in your bloodless veins,

Hero.

They don’t know that

you die again

as they squeal in sunlight

and still more

in the sharp of night—

when floodlights point

clear and cold.

          ~

Intermission

So you pitch a blue tent

in the field out back and

carry in enough booze

to pour yourself out,              

            prove you are alive

                                    or not.

And you must be alive because

you are unfit to sleep in the house—

because you would lie in the dirt but

you’re not drunk enough to stand

the mosquitoes.

Who cares about the snakes.

You must be alive because

the knife bolts you

when you find it

in the sleeping bag—

            because it’s the trap

            you want to kill and                           

            when you slash the top of the tent

                                                            the stars step back.

And you laugh.

That happens to you.

You, who must be alive because

you’re not watching yourself

wander           

            numb

by the river—

because that’s you, laughing.

Crying.

Crying when you remember

it is your mother who’s dying—

                                                not you.

Live guilt blossoms

because you would even consider

stealing the stars

from yourself

when soon there will be so much darkness.

And they are fragile, the stars,

despite how they sometimes slice you. 

Yes, you must be alive because

look at you scraping

labels from the empty bottles

            and slinging them

                        to the recycle pile—

because you pick up the knife

and wonder where you put

the duct tape.

Nobody dead would do that.

                      ~

Conjure Woman

Maiden, I have called you.  Enter.

Closer now, and fade the lamplight.

I have watched you

in the nighthawk alley

aching alone in the stillness.  But

in that courtyard news will never come.

Bound and bent they keep

            him, far from the reaches

                        of your ever listening.

Yet his cries mingle in the pale wind,

                        and I hear them every nightfall.

I will tell you where to find him,

if you choose the dread and desert.

Only then can you begin to know that

nothing stands but dark.  And

light bends to make the night more seemly.

They will tell you    

white and white and white

and never stop. They will tell you

                                                                        that but cannot keep you.

                                                                        Ride in distance

                                                            through the furied sunset

                                                past dahlias trailing

                                    wildly across black dirt.

                        When silver separates the thunder

            branch off at the thistle tree

and listen.

And if you can bear it, from

there you can hear the world.

Then you will find him.

Then you can know

why they tremble in the splintered twilight

and would sooner tear their hearts than say

that

I am of the other wonder.

~

Communion

The happy situation of a

notebook filled with lines—

no matter how poorly or

well placed on the page,

one following the next,

written here by me

or there by you

as we carefully

crashingly

longingly

lovingly

try to tell it

like it is,

was, will be.

Try.

We hold the pen and

roll our fingertips while

trains insist on distant tracks

and years bend over edgewise.

From time to time we walk away

to refill the larders

of life

but we always come back to them.

Words.

I didn’t think of you there

with your pain and tenderness

while I slow danced and

shimmied with my own.

But you are so clear to me now,

leaning over your cluttered desk  

or propped in a bed of pillows.

I have wishes for you—

to finish drafts

and publish work

and catch every train

your heart sends you.

And when I take up my pen

for the first mark of the day

I will raise a glass in your honor

whether I remember to lift it or not.

The South Carolina Writers Association Storyfest 2024

The South Carolina Writers Association will host its annual conference, 2024 Storyfest, Sept. 27 through 29 in Columbia, featuring more than a dozen acclaimed authors, agents and editors.

The event, to be held at the DoubleTree by Hilton, will include talks and classes by writers from South Carolina, Georgia, California and New York, including Lynn Cullen, national bestselling author of “The Woman with a Cure” and “Mrs. Poe;” Grady Hendrix, screenwriter and author of “How to Sell a Haunted House” and “The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires;” and Tiffany Yates Martin, author of six novels and the how-to book “Intuitive Editing: A Creative and Practical Guide to Revising Your Writing.”

Other features of 2024 Storyfest will be masterclasses, free talks, panels and keynotes addresses, manuscript critiques, craft classes, and meetings with sought-after editors and agents, including Andrew Geyer, the award-winning author or co-author of 10 books and editor of SCWA’s literary journal, The Petigru Review.

Other speakers include award-winning South Carolina novelist and short story writer Scott Gould; Southern Indie Bookstore bestselling author Mindy Friddle; Columbia poet laureate Jennifer Bartell Boykin; New York Times noteworthy author Cinelle Barnes; military science fiction and post-apocalyptic writer Alex Rath; and screenwriter and producer Alan Roth, a winner of the prestigious Nicholl Fellowship Award in Screenwriting.

Some of the South’s top publishers also will attend, including Arcadia Publishing, Palmetto Publishing and the University of South Carolina Press.

Registration is open with early bird registration fees for the full three-day conference of $250 for members and $325 for nonmembers; those fees will increase by $30 on June 16, so register early to save! Student registration for the full conference is $140. A one-day ticket for SATURDAY SESSIONS ONLY is available for $195. Masterclasses, manuscript critiques and query pitches will be available for additional charges as add-ons to your registration. For full details go to 2024 Storyfest. If you are not a member of SCWA, join now to enjoy the member rate for Storyfest along with other SCWA benefits. Membership is $75 annually; go to Join Us. (Be sure to renew if you haven't already!)

The hotel rate is $169 (plus taxes and fees) for 1 king or 2 queen beds. For reservation information, go to the 2024 Storyfest main page.

Al Black's Poetry of the People with Katie Ellen Bowers

This week's Poet of the People is Katie Ellen Bowers. Katie is a wonderful Upstate poet. She is a delightful read and a wonderfully entertaining poet to hear recite her work. She is a Charleston native now residing in Heath Springs, SC. 

-Al Black

Katie Ellen Bowers is a Southern poet and educator living in a small rural town with her husband and daughter. Her poetry can be found in several literary journals and magazines such as Kakalak, Qu Literary Magazine, and Sky Island Journal. She has been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize for poetry. She is the author of the poetry collection This Earthly Body (Main Street Rag, 2024). 

Clippings

This morning, I trimmed my daughter's fingernails,

clippings of her growth throughout this week and days

past. Uneven crescent moons—stained and sodden from

sinking her fingers into the inkwells of earth and sky—fall

to my lap, and we speak of yesterday and tomorrow and

of today: her basketball game, fried tofu with fortune

cookies for lunch.

This afternoon, I trimmed my mother’s skin from her fingers,

clippings and peelings from the ring, pointer, and thumb.

Flakes of nameless shapes rest on my lap, as my own

fingers, nervous and nimble, pull a piece of skin away as easily

as petals fall when the summer’s heat has become too heavy;

the sebaceous glands of sweat and oil no longer soften

her skin, and we speak of nothing, the only sound the

click of nail clippers, the heaviness of our breath.

On the Desire to Desire

Lately, it's all just a bunch of mylar

balloons—once blown up, puffed

out, a crinkling of nylon and foil,

maybe even getting caught in power

lines, maybe sparking a fire, maybe

even causing a blackout, but really,

mostly, it's just a deflating yellow smiley

face, stretched out—deformed and

disfigured, unsure of what it was

supposed to be good for all along.

Three Lives

                                after Sarah Russell

If I had three lives, I’d keep this one

just as it is—each early Saturday on

the soccer fields, each tangle in my

daughter's riot of curls, each syllable

she sounds out as she's reading aloud,

and I'd keep each early Friday night in,

each wink across a crowded room, each

subtle shifting of stacks of books.

I'd keep it just as it is; keep them—

both just as they are.

But me? The other two? Well, in both

I’d run in the mornings, do yoga before bed.

I'd drink protein shakes with flaxseed

and oats and collagen, and then I'd gorge

on chocolate-covered doughnuts. I'd walk

with confidence into each room, laugh

loudly at all my jokes, laugh louder at

all the inappropriate ones, unabashedly flirt

with my husband; I'd never worry if my

eyeliner was too much or if my face looked

weird or if this and if that and if and if

and if and if and if and if and

I would enjoy all the early Saturday mornings

and all the winks across crowded rooms, and

I would just exist in my body and mind and soul,

just as I am. 

Off-Beat On-Beat

After all this time

our hearts still

do not beat as one, & resting against

my husband's bare chest

in the early morning hours,

I learn this.

No rhythmic sound

of two heart’s beats

falling

into

a synchronous tempo

together; a perfectly aligned

beat            by beat         by beat,

& listening, my ear

pressed to him, I hear of

the off-beats and the on-beats

and a slowing and a quickening,

and there are beats

I miss all together—

from my yawn, his feet moving against the sheets,

readjusting our bodies from where arms have

fallen asleep or thighs have gotten too warm—

I listen & I hear

our hearts’ beats beating,

unsure of which

thrum belongs to him &

which belongs to me;

they are not one,

they are together a

  continuous                 quickening

before slowing

     off-beats

on-beat.

Carry(, As a Feeling)

It’s true:

       It’s hard to carry on with your well-

       crafted composure when the weight of

       your dying mother is laid upon you; her

       swollen belly, holding four liters of fluid,

       resting against you; her crepe-paper skin,

       maintaining no elasticity, tearing beneath

       you. Holding up her body—

                                                 Nevermind.

      This won't be

                about that.

It’s true:

      It’s hard to explain, hard to carefully

      craft these words that I don't even want,

      the ones I hold day-to-day, room-to-room,

      breath-to-breath. Take them.

     Turn out my pockets, remove my contacts,

     pull out my teeth, just gag me until I vomit

     up every last word I've choked down so someone

     else did not have to bear the weight of:

     the anger, the guilt, the sorrow, the shame

     from the relief I harbor. It's true

      this won't be

                  about that

                  either.

                                                Nevermind.

My God, This Is Aging

This is aging? Wearing panty liners because, having stood up too quickly, you pee—just a little and just enough. Getting texts about the passing away of dogs and sending texts concerning the sickness of aging parents: Any updates? Any updates? Anything at all? All whopping point four ounces of twenty-seven-dollar eye cream because a decent night of sleep is only one-sixteenth of what it used to be, but you want to stay up late, want to bathe and shave your legs and have sex only to find your spouse asleep, while also wanting to stay awake to watch the latest episode of Fargo. Taking preventative antacids and ibuprofen that you know you will need after holding up your mother in the ICU,  the weight of her illness and age pressed upon you, reminding you of the way time seems to move all at once and not at all. 

This, also, is aging? Wearing panty liners because, having laughed too hard at your husband's impression of Hank Hill as you walk by the lawnmowers in Lowes, you pee—just a little and just enough. Getting texts about the accomplishments and the anecdotal snippets of the day-in and day-out. The precise rhythm of each night: the eye cream, the moisturizer, your spouse curling behind you as you settle into sleep, drifting apart and back together throughout the night; the way his hand pats your hip when he wakes to run in the hour before dawn; still being tired from sometimes wanting to stay up late to have sex whether your legs are shaved or not, from staying up late to watch X-Files. Picking up prescriptions for your mother for your father, as it’s the only way you know to help, other than holding a straw to her mouth, letting her drink, so she can speak of and laugh about something that possibly didn’t even happen, and you laugh, too, let go of things that no longer matter, as her laughter sounds as it always has, reminding you of the way time moves not at all and all at once. 

Poetry of the People with Susan Craig

This week's Poet of the People is Susan Craig. I am unsure of when I first met Susan, but it was probably a decade or so ago at an event where she was supporting or assisting another poet. Like butter on warm toast; she never insists that she be the main focus of attention. Reading Susan's poetry is to know that when all else passes away, kindness will endure.

-Al Black

Susan Craig is a native Columbian, longtime poet, and former graphic design studio owner.  Her work has appeared in journals and online, including Jasper; Kakalak; Poetry South; Mom Egg Review; Twelve Mile Review; Poetry Society of South Carolina, and elsewhere. Through poetry, she mines the everyday, attempting to unearth the universal.

In the absence of touch

I ordered the puzzle mid-winter,

one with three thousand pieces—Van Gogh's

quaint room in Arles, his chunky saffron bedstead

& cane chairs, walls of cornflower blue,

forest-green window canted open, wooden floors

of foot-worn turquoise.

That April, native creatures of Yosemite ventured

out of seclusion, tiptoed onto gravel roads,

foraged pastures long-encroached by human voyeurs.

I thought of freedom—bear, coyote, deer, bobcat, promenading

through swaying ponderosa, fragrant fir.

It seemed even city air became cleaner, crisper;

streets & highways shone like unused silver,

phantom wheels of material solace begun to unspin.

Were night skies truly more star-spangled those evenings

we sat out front in dilapidated armchairs

watching children pedal by on the sidewalk

followed by pilgrim parents?

In the end, I only completed one-quarter of the puzzle,

left the others disconnected, inchoate

as a surrealist painting.

Van Gogh spent twelve months in the country asylum.

In isolation, his work grew prolific.

Scenes of nature—starry nights, olive trees contorted

below a blue, inexplicable sky.

Jacobson's Organ

            Our canine companions also have an additional

olfactory organ we humans simply do not have...

Jacobson's organ.—ellevetsciences.com

 Today the Dog

turns back on the trail

stands & waits for his Human /

this communion of sorts

borne of a decade of rebellion / Dog

at last taming his primal quest

to leap down-mountain

through winter-leaf hillocks

tracking every fleeing

miniscule essence /

Human calling his name

each time envisioning doom as he

bounds & crashes until there is

nothing but a whisper /

     yet these days they are a marriage

of desire & acquiescence

symbiotic trekkers in winter woods

above the mountain cabin

in a timeworn pact /

     Dog waits till Human

makes her way to the ridge / where

the log still lies for sitting

& leaves rustle like dresses / Dog

inhales an extravagance

the Human will never / Human

sits & imagines how the World

will come to an end

Ketamine 

            Paramedic gets 5 years in prison for Elijah McClain's death

—NY Times, March 1, 2024

They never saw your gentleness beneath the ski mask,

arms juking wildly to the music in your ear-pods.

An anonymous caller reported a man who looked 'sketchy'

happy-dancing on the sidewalk that dark night,

arms juking wildly to the music in your ear-pods.

It was August, nowhere near winter in Aurora,

you in a ski mask to ward off fumes and seasonal pollens.

            (Later, friends will call you peacemaker, spiritual seeker.)

This was August, nowhere near winter in Aurora;

officers slammed you against a wall because you resisted,

pleaded, I'm just different, I was just going home, I'm so sorry.

What kind of terror seized you

as officers slammed you against a wall because you resisted?

What kind of danger called for two carotid choke-holds,

you face-down like George Floyd gasping, I can't breathe,

paramedics pumping 500 mg of ketamine into your slight body?

What kind of danger called for two carotid choke-holds;

where were God's better angels that summer night in Aurora?

Three officers pinned your slight body to the concrete,

five-foot-six, champion of stray kittens, violin, healing touch.

Sunflower

           When

in the season of cicadas

Mississippi Kites

wheel in swooning circles

whistling their two-note song

         I picture my father

delta-child

of the Sunflower River

summer swelter

tannin black as southern tea

bare feet coated

in ruddy cotton-field dust

his young father stolen

by Spanish influenza

           I almost see him

youngest of three blue-eyed sons

bent cane pole propped

on one knee

even then a dreamer

the squiggling night crawler

he pierces with a rusted barb

forces his eyes

to bear witness

as if the whole world

hinges on his small measure

of courage

           it is then I want to tell him

every small harm

will be forgiven

Soda City Poetry Festival This Saturday!

The first annual

Soda City Poetry Festival

Saturday, 6/22

9 am - 4 pm

Richland Library Main Branch

on Assembly Street.

Al Black's Poetry of the People Features Jonesy Stark

This week's Poet of the People is Jonesy Stark. I met Jonesy about 12 years ago at an open mic; he blew me away. Some poets are good with delivery or good with their word craft; Jonesy is great with both. Often, I'm left in awe of  the relationships he sees in words. Jonesy quietly gives back to young people in need of  support an amentor. A hidden gem in South Carolina's poetry scene, I am honored to know him.

-Al Black

'Father, husband, educator and advocate of turtles. The tragic end results of Peter Parker being bitten by a radioactive poet.' He is a dude with dreads. Oft mistaken for a poet. Olympic gold medalist robot dancer. PHD in Yamology.

_____

Cardinal Sin

Chapter one First verse

“Thou shall not come for the black woman.”

Whether you be other or brother

Must be out your cotdamn mind

To fix your lips to spit some foolishness

And assume I’m finna let it slide

I’m beyond done with you Quasimodos masquerading as Shaka Zulus

You who fetishize the motherland yet detest her daughters

Are unworthy of association with either

In order to be the king

You must lay your life down for the queen

But rather than stand tall

Y'all quick to hotep two step

Dance around accountability

Content to sit on sideline as she unnaturally shifts her spine

Criticize as she throws out her back to pick up your slack

Denounce her for doing for self what you wouldn’t provide her

As if she’d wish to wear the weight of a nation

Defend its borders

Administrate its affairs

All the while making it seem effortless in heels with slayed hair

To be black and to be woman

Is to know no compassion

It is to forever be measured and always found lacking

It is the expectation to be more than a woman

While being treated like less than a lady

It is to walk through a world of pointing fingers

Rarely encountering a helping hand

Because it takes less effort to punch down

Than it does to lift up

It is to intimately know the sting of a slap

While yearning for a caring caress

It is giving the blessing of life to sons who will curse you

It is being crucified and exposed before the world

By the man who was supposed to protect you

It is enduring it all

And still fighting for they who fight against you __

House

I started writing poetry because I wanted a girl to like me
And a decade and a half later
I can sincerely say not much has changed
Guess Hov said it best
“You are who you are when you got here”
Hol’ up
You are who you are when you got hair
Them short and curlies
Folk, I’ve surely yet to meet an adult
We all adolescents imitatin’ what we was taught
Trying’ to live out gimmicks and images we bought
I mean practice makes perfect
And I’ve perfected the practice of actin’
As if I actually have a clue
When in reality I’m equally as lost as my son askin’ how to
See he’s thoroughly convinced I have infinite access to the answers
That his author father
Is the Merlin to his Arthur
When really I’m no mystic
Somethin’ far more simplistic
Just older
And not necessarily wiser
Gifted
With opportunity to make more messes
But how can I confess his faith is fully misplaced
Shake the foundations of his sense of security
I can’t
So I continue to adorn my red and blue suit
To battle monsters in closets and boogeymen beneath bedframes
Doing my damndest to deceive both he and me
To defy my kryptonite
The gnawing that comes from the knowing
Knowing that despite my desire
The “S” on my chest can’t shield him from life
Eventually I’ll have to rack my brain
Tryin’ in vain to explain
Why Lex Luthor is often the victor
Why I raised him like a Kent
In a world corrupt and bent
Taught him to walk straight 
In a slanted land where the bad guy wins
On that day the facade will falter
His reality irreparably altered
As his eyes realize my mystique
Is merely a smoke and mirror mirage
My omnipotence
Certainly less than advertised
My omniscience, nonexistent
Simply a paltry parlor trick
That moment will be awkward
But it will leave us both better
Liberated I free to give what little know how I’ve acquired
To transmit my ideas clear
Unfettered by paternalistic pretense
And he to transmit my middling musings
Into something actually advantageous
Reconstruct my copper cognitions and leaden logos
Into glimmering golden gnosis
Perhaps through his process
Successfully plot his path to the fabled land of adulthood

___

Venomous Virility

“Y’all niggas’ gay!!!”
This was my induction
Into the fraternal order of black masculinity
You see apparently
Six year old me
Had transgressed the border between
Showin’ love for the homey
And havin’ homo tendencies
Cuz real niggas give daps, not hugs
And mosdef don’t smile
While engaged in a man to man embrace
Vulnerability was solely for sissies
And unbecoming of a brother
Tears were for queers
Emotions kept tightly wrapped under covers
These cardinal rules came to reign
Occupied cavity in chest
Freshly emptied of innocent heart
Anger only acceptable outward expression
Of inward issues
Fists replacing tongues
As practiced tools of communication
Because there’s nothing a broken jaw can’t transmit
As impactfully as an eloquent, impassioned plea
Or so we were miseducated to believe
Because every muted word
Every tear unshed
Was a link in chains weighing down our souls
Denial of half our nature
Naturally made us semi-realized beings
Being constantly at war with ourselves
Being strong at too high cost
Of mental and emotional health
Denyin’ self wealth
Of integral life experience
Because boys don’t cry
We crawl through life with faded vision
And I say crawl because men
See, we don’t run
Unless forced to confront
Foe intangible yet can painfully touch
One we can’t vanquish via violence
Neither kick nor punch
I once witnessed my father lose that fight
In a moment of brokenness bend knee
Allow hurt heart through eyes to speak
Tears stain cheek
Once he’d gathered himself
And once more donned his armor of pride
He apologized
I don’t know which was worse
The fact that he felt the need to
Or that I both understood and realized
That in that moment he’d rather have died
Than of himself reveal that side
Losing control was a sin inconsiderable
Father, son bonding
Belonging to ball parks and bar stools
Never bedrooms…
Sorrow shown silent
Only at burial grounds
This’ the mis-molded mess this world’s made us
Sensitive spirits shackled within testosterone walled prisons
Accented with homophobic bars
Boys playing at being men
Barely brave enough to question
Who made up
These malicious mores of manhood?
These Guantanamo Bay ways of approved gender displays?
Who galvanized this jihad against genuine self-expression?
I know not
But I know this
I’m staging a coup
I’m no longer content too
Goose step to cadence of callous rhythm
Ho-hum humdrum pattern stern and militaristic
Monotone,
Mirthless
I will dance daringly to an ostentatious orchestra
Melodic flourishes fully seasoned with life’s many flavors
All while wearing colorful dream coats
Tailored to transmit its infinite textures
No more austere armor
I’m casting aside my sword
Picking up a pen and building bridges with my words
I’m splintering shaft of my spear
And exchanging it for a paintbrush
With aim of illustrating a better world for my son
One where he can sing, dance, laugh, and cry
With equal pride
One where the weapons of war are ideas
And border skirmishes serve to break down
Those between self and others
Oh what a world it’ll be

____

Inhuman

I didn’t want you to walk away 
But I didn’t know how to ask you to stay
I’ve never been one 
For one on ones
Too easily tongue tied when eye to eye
So on this stage I set free the secrets of this page
Prayin’ these words land not
Upon ears deafened by my silence
Victimized by my non-verbal violence
Tuned out by my inability to tune in
I am
More machine than man
Mechanically marching from moment to moment
Merely reacting to previously programmed prompts
Physically present but lacking sincere presence
In essence
I am empty inside
Hollow
Homunculi passing for person
Human in form
All the while lacking the essential qualities
A marvel of masterful magecraft
Cleverly crafted to casually deceive
Mirage of a man

...

Al Black's Poetry of the People Featuring Larry Rhu!

This week's Poet of the People is Larry Rhu. I think I first met Larry when Curtis Derrick hosted a poetry workshop and Tim Conroy introduced us. Larry and I cohost Simple Gifts and I cherish sitting in his backyard garden to discuss literature and Boston Celtic basketball. He is a generous and humble friend and I am honored to be in his orbit.

Lawrence Rhu is the Todd Professor of the Italian Renaissance, emeritus, at the University of South Carolina. He has published books and essays about the American and European Renaissances and edited Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale. His poems have appeared in Poetry, North Dakota Quarterly, Innisfree Poetry Journal, The Poetry Society of South Carolina Yearbook, Pinesong, Fall Lines, One, Main Street Rag, Conversations: The Journal of Cavellian Studies, Jogos Florais, Forma de Vida, and other journals. They have won awards from the Poetry Society of South Carolina and the Pirate’s Alley Faulkner Society of New Orleans. 

Instead of a Letter

Ever since your scary diagnosis, Jerry,

your Kawasaki Ninja’s helping us

document nostalgia’s hits or misses:

Fats Domino at El Casino Ballroom

in downtown Tucson, Oracle Union Church

beyond the Catalinas. Grandfather Ford—

an old Ford, he’d say, but still serviceable—

supplied its pulpit with clear messages

he shared implicitly (or I divined)

between approach shots on the practice range

when he taught me to golf during junior high

and we began our easy-going exchanges.

Nothing oracular about that town

except the name and my experience

of friendship with a kindred soul whose calling

required some explanation of its quiet

moments, like golf, when others take their turn. 

Chemo and radiation are still shrinking

your tumor while our sunset dialogues

help reconstruct our common histories

with anecdotes and our imaginations

in FaceTime calls from two time zones away.

Bits and pieces patched together come

to represent whatever meant the world

to me and you, my father’s other son

in spirit and my mother’s other student.

Grammar and medicine, their offerings,

helped you avoid English X at U of A

and then through medical school at UNM.

Transcendental brother, Anglo caballero,                              

biker, physician, my dear friend, your Ninja

and horses call to mind a life of travel:

happy trails, lonesome roads, and our reunions                    

in Rio Hondo, New Orleans, Missoula,

Boston, Prescott—even Italy,

when I was teaching high school there in Rome.

In just three months you’ve biked eight thousand miles

in perfect weather on backroads and blue

highways, inspired by sunlight and fresh air.

Has anyone lived long enough to be

“almost a native,” as some born elsewhere

used to say after many years in Tucson?

May we not homestead in creation, staking

our claims, not taking what’s given for granted,

settling in some ever nearer region?

Benefits of Doubt

For D. T. S.

No inference made, no implication either—

I did not infer what you did not imply,

but thanks. I appreciate your concern.

Ghosts haunt words with shades of meaning

difficult to dispel. Slips and lapses

make us marvel at the secret life

of language in conversation with itself.

Perfect strangers intrude upon the best

intentions, foiling our plans. Still, we’re thrilled

to entertain felicities unaware.

It all depends upon our being being

attuned. So, drop your guard. Speak your mind.

Learn what you mean in sync with those awaiting

news of you and yours. I’ll listen up. Online

or off, count on my friendship as a reader.

Arborist

Two trees or maybe three I knew for sure:

the fig and sycamore…but now I can’t

recall the third. The Church of Rome inspired

my confidence about the first—fig leaves

cover places Michelangelo

and Donatello felt the shepherd boy

need not blush to leave exposed. A protest

rallied us to save the sycamores

along the Charles River by Mem Drive.

But I knew cacti of my desert boyhood

well before hope of a better school stole me

away from home to greener climes with all

four seasons, ice and snow, and trees Thoreau

once learned by heart alone. The orchard keeper,

my beloved, leads me now through arboretums

around the world. Unlike Walden’s chronicler,

even in dark woods, we wander as a pair.

Released from rigors of the father tongue,

which he so harped upon, the fallen world’s

transformed into a commonwealth we share.

Memento

No reason for the trip but Sunday free

we headed toward the North Shore on Route 1

— itself a brilliant stretch of salesmanship

where concrete cattle graze invitingly

on green cement before a steakhouse door,

one of many bright commercial fancies

up and down the strip.

We toured the infamous Witch House in Salem

where pre-trial interviews were held before

witchcraft and wizardry scared slaughter out.

There must be reasons why the Lord would fail them.

Soon, a host of innocents told why.

Our high school guide recited all the facts

and ushered us about.

Then, on to Marblehead where several hills

are strewn with brayed slate gravestones by a pond

the locals fish on weekends when they’re free.

Hourglasses, death’s heads, cross-bones are the frills

that trim the verses written for the dead.

We paused and read their prayers so quaintly rhymed

and lost to history.

May her virtues take her where they should

graven on the slate of Mary by her John

invoked the angels she’d soon bide among

To such as she I’m sure that death is good.

We moved from stone to stone like other tourists

till evening took the light and brought a chill

that made us move along.

Going back on the same route we came by

we passed a dinosaur at a putt-putt course,

a lowering hazard on the thirteenth hole.

The traffic slowed. A siren gave a sigh

and blinked upon a wreck beside the road.

Three bodies, under cover, lined the pavement.

The cars slowed to a roll.

Streetcar through Parnassus

Don’t you think somebody ought to pray for them? - How six-year-old Ruby Bridges explained her prayers for protesters against school desegregation

From Lee Circle to the Garden District

nine muses cross the tracks,

divinities of total recall

once upon a time.

From history to astronomy

along St. Charles Avenue

the streetcar bumps and grinds

from Clio to Urania, the goddess

Milton summoned puritanically 

insisting on a Christian meaning

for her pagan name. No such

precise distinction here obtains.

That culture clash sounds academic,

the harmonizing rhetoric antique.

The Heavenly Muse now names

some lapsed Presbyterian

daughter of faded Memory. 

Yet, in the roundabout, Lee’s empty place

on the Olympian column top

prompts Clio to review her latest draft

—its epic or tragic plot—

with Calliope and Melpomene.

That vacancy makes room

for hope to change the shape of time

imposed by powers that be—

or were and wished to stay.

Cycling between the Odd Fellows’ Rest

and the Archdiocesan Cemetery,

beyond the neutral ground,

I turn toward Metairie and soon discern,

from beneath the Interstate,

a marble soldier

ready to read the roll of casualties,

the toll his counterparts memorialize

on a thousand small-town New England greens.                   

Whatever local muse prompts song,

as I recall, no run of Boston streets

bears gaudy classical names

if you don’t count the Marathon.

There’s no Mardi Gras with krewes,

like Bacchus or Endymion

or Comus’s raucous gang

routed in that Puritan’s court masque.

Yet who’s to say they won’t be coming back?

Here or there, in Cambridge or Fenway Park,

or on the banquette where first graders once

braved mobs with Federal Marshals,

walking to school and hoping

against hope for a fresh start.

SC Writers Association 2024 STORYFEST Early Bird Registration Ends June15th

2024 STORYFEST EARLY BIRD PRICING ENDS JUNE 15

Early bird registration for SCWA’s 2024 Storyfest, set for Sept. 27 through 29 in Columbia, ends June 15.

Fees for the full three-day conference are $250 for members and $325 for nonmembers; those fees will increase by $30 on June 16, so register now and save! Student registration for the full conference is $140. A one-day ticket for Saturday-only sessions is available for $195. Masterclasses, manuscript critiques and query pitches are available for additional charges as add-ons to your registration.

Storyfest, SCWA’s biggest event of the year, will be held at The DoubleTree by Hilton in Columbia, with the added advantage of having the hotel and conference under one roof – and the rooms are less expensive this year, too!

In addition to amazing authors, editors, agents and screenwriters from outside of our state, some of South Carolina’s most prominent writers will be there to make this conference successful. We will have three pre-conference masterclasses and craft classes as well as the invaluable Queryfest, Slushfest, Speed Pitch Session and a “Publishing World Today” panel, which provides cutting-edge self-publishing assistance. Four keynote speakers will provide valuable insights, including information on artificial intelligence and how it will impact the writing world, and Storyfest has 20 other breakout and other presentations – something for every genre. A Saturday cocktail hour, open mic, exhibits, book signings and more also will be included.

We will highlight our keynote speakers and presenters in The Quill between now and September. We featured Lynn Cullen and Grady Hendrix in the May issue; see 2024 Storyfest Faculty bios on all of our fabulous speakers. Here are two more keynoters:

TIFFANY YATES MARTIN

Tiffany Yates Martin has spent nearly 30 years as an editor in the publishing industry, working with major publishers and New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestselling and award-winning authors as well as indie and newer writers. She is the founder of FoxPrint Editorial and author of Intuitive Editing: A Creative and Practical Guide to Revising Your Writing. She is a regular contributor to writers' outlets like Writer's Digest, Jane Friedman and Writer Unboxed, and a frequent presenter and keynote speaker for writers' organizations around the country. Under her pen name, Phoebe Fox, she is the author of six novels. Visit her at www.foxprinteditorial.com.

She will offer a masterclass, “Mastering the Holy Trinity of Story: Character, Stakes and Plot;” deliver a keynote, “The Happy, Harsh Truths of a Writing Career;” and present breakout sessions. We are thrilled to have her for 2024 Storyfest.

ALAN ROTH

Alan Roth graduated from Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey with degrees in history and English literature, then attended graduate school at Emerson College in Boston, where he received an MFA in creative writing. He is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and serves as an adjunct professor of screenwriting at Fairleigh Dickinson’s School of the Arts. He is a winner of the coveted Nicholl Fellowship Academy Award for best original screenplay (Jersey City Story) and works with producers on developing projects for both film and TV.

He will present a keynote, “AI and Current Trends in Writing,” and a breakout session on “Book to Screen.” We are so pleased to have him as part of 2024 Storyfest.

REGISTER FOR 2024 STORYFEST

MORE ABOUT 2024 STORYFEST

The hotel room rate is $169 (plus tax & fees) for one king or two queen beds. For the SCWA discounted rate, reserve at the DoubleTree by Hilton Columbia; book by Aug. 29 for the discount.

RESERVE YOUR ROOM FOR STORYFEST

If you are not a member of SCWA, join now to enjoy the member rate for Storyfest as well as other SCWA benefits. Membership is $75 annually; go to Join Us.

For more information email administrator@myscwa.org

Battle of Musgrove Mill Poetry Reading & Contest - June 28th 10 am - noon

News from the Poetry Society of South Carolina —

Enter our contest by submitting a poem with the theme of revolution or victory to everycornereverycounty@gmail.com.

You can win a beautiful American themed guitar, thanks to our sponsor, Danny Sciortino!

Purchase your copy of Fall Lines volume X Today!

If you couldn’t make it to the reading and release celebration for Fall Lines volume X in May, you have two options for acquiring copies of the literary journal.

Swing by the main branch of Richland Library at 1431 Assembly Street in downtown Columbia, or visit the Jasper Project website to order copies to be delivered to your home via mail.

Click Here to

Order your copies today!

Poetry of the People with Al Black featuring Mary E. Martin

This week's Poet of the People is Mary E. Martin. I first met Mary in either Rock Hill or Charlotte at a poetry reading put on by Jonathan K. Rice. She has facilitated some of my readings in Rock Hill and has journeyed to Columbia to read for the Mind Gravy Poetry series. She is a elegant poet who writes from a gentle, graceful place. Rock Hill, South Carolina is blessed to have her in their midst.

-Al Black

Mary E. Martin is a poet, dancer, and teacher at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, SC. She
grew up in the west and the south, preferring the rich landscape of the south. She explores a
fusion of text, movement, and music in community performance projects she has developed in the Carolinas. Her poetry has appeared in many journals, including The Kansas Quarterly, The Journal of the American Medical Association, and The Southern Poetry Review.

At the University Inn

As a student waitress
I served Denise Levertov
breakfast—she drank tea,
not coffee.

I almost spilled
my adoration, but her reverence
for the moment stopped me
from recalling the spell
her reading had cast--
only her poetry
breathed, her images
sacred, almost palpable
renderings of the inner
paradise we know exists.

I kept the check slip
she had signed,
taped on a wall
near my desk,
an artifact that lasted
as many years as it took
for me to realize
beauty’s minutiae
is just as sublime
as what we claim
breathtaking.

My Dog Looks Up at the Moon

Late night he pauses
on the deck, doesn’t howl
but quietly stares
at the bright curve above,
his big head, black and white
sixty-pound hunter body
more a still life, a whisper
between dog and moon,

he listening as the moon
tells him he is a being
who loves, a love
that can travel anywhere,
a dolphin splash love;
he wishes he could swim
to the moon, lick her
powdered white cheek, sleep
overnight in a velvet smooth
crater, dreaming an unknown
tenderness, then slip back
down just as I awaken;
mythically happy to see
him again, I kiss him
and feed him breakfast.

Folk song

I like to howl with my dogs
in our own backyard Olympus,
out-sounding the sirens
by blending our voices.

Without judgement or fear
I like to howl with my dogs;
we are neither dog nor human
out-sounding the sirens.

Crooning welcome tears
without judgement or fear
I stretch out my neck;
we are neither dog nor human.

I stand erect as they do
crooning welcome tears,
eyes toward the clouds
as I stretch out my neck.

A pack of screeching troubadours
out-sounding the sirens,
no better heaven than ours
than when I howl with my dogs.

Flint

I sit on my couch

waiting for a spark

of an image, just enough

to keep me writing

in my small house, on a quiet

street, Flint Street,

the only sharp edges

the barking dogs

in almost every house.

My words, the hard quartz tools

I rely on to shape the world,

are like the rough tools

tribes relied on to survive

in the wild brush and windowless caves.

I think of the steel that strikes

flint into fire, angry voices

of a small Midwestern town

shouting out their abuse,

the City of Flint forging

their words into a hard

refusal, to be more than

their namesake’s core,

to be the unshadowed

flame of the heart.          

El Paso
                   When I was young and shy

The dark brick scrubbing
our hands when we grazed the body
of homes on the army base
as we darted everywhere to find
a place to hide. We played at night
with flashlights, the fat tree trunks
our gathering place, the touch
of the bark friendly rough.

Later we lived in an off base adobe
cuddled all around by bushes,
bushes full of secret
spaces I quietly lingered in every day.

Walking to school I always hesitated
at the canal, loud water tumbling over itself,
the bridge with no rails the only connector
to the school. I swear I could see loose
animal bodies shoved through foaming
water, wet fur, and bared teeth.

Our father treated us with short trips
over the border in Juarez,
always stopping at the same restaurant;
we sipped orange sodas,
stared at the polished blue and white tiles,
while my father drank beer
or tequila; none of us
ever questioned why always
the same place, the same food.

The cruel misperception
of others, always a lack
of embrace-- the 1950’s shadow
pulled me to hide
and grow where I hid.

This week's Poetry of the People is a guest from NC - Andrew K. Clark

This week's Poet of the People is Andrew K. Clark.* I first got to know Andrew after a poetry reading in Hilton Head when I had dinner with him after his reading. He was living in Savannah with his wife, Casey, and preparing to relocate to the mountains of North Carolina where he grew up. He now resides and writes in the mountains outside Asheville. He is a prolific poet and author and is a delight to know.

-Al Black

Andrew K. Clark is a novelist & poet from the Western North Carolina mountains, where his people settled before The Revolutionary War. His poetry collection, Jesus in the Trailer, was published by Main Street Rag Press. His first novel, Where Dark Things Grow, is forthcoming from Cowboy Jamboree Press on 9/10/24. His work has appeared in The American Journal of Poetry, UCLA’s Out of Anonymity, Appalachian Review, Rappahannock Review, The Wrath Bearing Tree, and many others. He received his MFA from Converse College. Connect with him and read more of his work at andrewkclark.com. 

beautiful screaming

I tried to quit
I really
did
throw’d everything away
so many times
swore off the makeup
swore off them wigs
I’d go to bed
try to forget everything
squeeze my eyeballs
inside out
but seemed like
it called to me
from in the bin
called me
to put it back on
come stand in front of the mirror, boy
it was hardest when
the sun went out
***
first time I didn’t even
mean for it to happen
I got all made up
& I don’t know why but
I went outside
down there
by the pond
that old dirt road
you know the one
the lover’s lane
there was a car pulled
near the water
and I wanted
to see inside
catch me a peek
of what they was doing
only when I did

the girl seen me
she screamed
screamed so loud
it busted my ears
so loud she shook
the whole goddamned world
and the boy trying to jerk
up his pants
& I fell in love with her
right there
& the sounds she made
I ain’t never heard
nothing so beautiful
& she made me
beautiful too
& she seen me
like nobody ever seen me
& she saw how beautiful I was
& everything tingled everywhere
in the whole goddamned world
the whole world tingling up
its goddamned spine
and down between
its goddamned legs
& I went back the next night
& the night after that
seem like more cars come
down by the pond
like people wanted me to
just scare the living
shit out of them
like it turned
them on too
& I gave them what they wanted
& they gave me what I wanted
all that screaming
them tires spinning the dirt
***
them kids made up
hashtags for me

things like
#clownscare
& #clownopocalypse
& it went on like that for a long time
& I made all the papers
& it was beautiful
till
they caught me
& they put me back
in the home
& they chained me
under the box springs
pumped me so full
of all them drugs
& I love all them drugs
when I’m under
the box springs
pumped full
I can’t remember
who my first-grade teacher was
or where I learned to dress up
or who my daddy is
but I do remember
all that screaming
all that beautiful screaming
& how they seen me
really seen me
for the first time

equine | canine

the horses up
the mountain
went wild, forgotten
by their people
nobody come by
to even feed them
until
they forgot they
were horses
grew as feral
as jackals
fought off bears
killed off the coyote
stayed alive
even during winter
no grass on the ground
teeth grinding
down the trees
they fucked each
other constantly
foals rising from
the dark earth
each spring
they ate their brothers
whose legs fell lame
teeth rounding
sharpening canine
until
their eyes grew large
dark manes matted
no one could
approach them
no one could
pet them
but me

paper dolls

drought and famine and violence and
tinder enough to burn the world down,
and it’s only tuesday. but one thing you
understand is that you got to get right
with god. it don’t pay to wait. you ‘re
on the last verse of just as i am, without
one plea, sister gail keeps playing long
as there are sinners out there and you
better get up, fight your curled up
atrophied limbs, fight your jangled up
trifling, get down front to that altar and
make yourself low before the preacher.
you don’t have to do it, i know.
salvation is a choice. but if you don’t,
you should know a few things. one, the
devil has nightmares too. they wouldn’t
make sense to you because they’re
made up of all the beauty of gods green
spring bright fondling, the way vines
creep under doorways and rise to
choke the tallest thickest trees in the
woods out back. did you know there
are flowers with black spider eye
faces? god made those too. bottomless
night holes that fall for miles, sucking
you in by your eyeballs, pulling fibrous
orange slice chunks from your back,
bent and stretched and uglier than you
can imagine. two, you had no choice
but to do it. you might could’ve
become a preacher yourself, shopping
pinstripe suit catalogues, starching
your collars out in a dingy basement,
pull cord lightbulbs burning your scalp.
you might could’ve earned your keep
on the mission field or in a soup
kitchen but when mama took up that
knife and cut that man across his face
for the way he mocked her cooking,
you ain’t had no choice. three, scissors
and girly magazines in your hiding
place under the skirting of the trailer,
stretched out on the warm dirt, you

found magic powers. kaleidoscoping
girls every which way and that: take
this head and put it on that body, put
these legs under those hips, take her
tits and put them on that one there, and
this one, she should be a dancer, so
change her shoes. so much flesh, so
much sin and skin that you mix and
match in peach and black and orange
and cream - you’re nothing if not
wicked. four, when they found your
stash, pulling back the purple curtain,
they took all your lovers away, best
friends too; you had no choice. sister
gail finished the song, and the preacher
ain’t called for another verse, so thank
hallelujah for lighter fluid, kitchen
matches and sweet sulfur black and
blueness.

Pollination
(after Lindsey Alexander)

My beard is a honeycomb you lick when hungry.
On your way to the icebox,
on our daily hike through the woods,
you can’t help but stop and taste it.
Bright and untamed,
Zizzing like bees
in a white box;
your face stays sticky and
you keep licking your cheeks all day,
even during video calls.
Eventually, you send
a dozen mouths
to extract me,
drip by drop,
while you lie back
and wait to be fed.

*While Clark is not a SC poet, we are honored to share his work with you this week via Poetry of the People!

REVIEW: Letters to Karen Carpenter by Richard Allen Taylor - Reviewed by Lawrence Rhu

The heart of Richard Allen Taylor’s new collection, Letters to Karen Carpenter (Main Street Rag, 2023), is “Undeliverable,” the first of its four sections. There Taylor apostrophizes the late singer of poignant hits and anthems of romantic promise like “Close to You” and “It’s Only Just Begun,” as he struggles directly with his book’s core premise and challenge. The intimate beauty of Carpenter’s voice, combined with the pathos of her early death due to complications of anorexia nervosa, often served Taylor and his late wife, Julie, as a compelling soundtrack to their life together, especially during her last days when she was dying of leukemia.

In “Recruiting You, Karen, as a Pen Pal,” Taylor acknowledges his own mother’s quiet disappointment in him for rebuking his daughter’s impulse to address her dead grandfather during a Thanksgiving prayer. Thus, Taylor both confesses and disavows his paternal inclination to lay down the law about communication with the dead. Such religious inhibitions give way to imaginative play audible in this poem’s title and its transformation of “a brass lamp” into a magic lamp that delivers his late mother’s “unsolicited advice.” Moreover, that maternal heirloom, duly capitalized in the next poem, names the record company that released the Carpenters’ first single, Magic Lamp.

You’ll recall that, before there was writing, Orpheus sang as he descended to rescue Eurydice from the land of the dead. Those who turn the feelings such a story relates into compelling songs or poems can deeply affect us. We understand what they are saying, or we know that, someday soon enough, grief will teach or remind us, and we will understand again. In Letters Taylor achieves such effects in representing the process of grief and mourning. His serious yet playful approach enables him to bear the weight of such heavy loads both honestly and nimbly. The epistolary form opens a space for tones of confidentiality and intimate exchange. It puts Taylor in conversation with addressees who are out of reach but familiar and loved. Of course, there are darker sides to such imaginary conversations, and Taylor does not pretend otherwise. In a down-to-earth way, he expands our horizons, so they include mercy and gratitude along with suffering and loss. You can hear it in “Note to Karen about Mortality,” the opening poem of Letters:

                        I watch a lone hawk ride thermals, rise

                        without effort—and think of mortality’s leaden

                        weight, sloughed off like last year’s molting.

                        Not that I believe in reincarnation. Not that I

                        disbelieve. I mean the hawk reminds me

of you, and my wife—who loved your music.

“Undeliverable,” the book’s second section, represents raw encounters with the Grim Reaper in “Chemotherapy” and “Untitled Poem about Dying,” as mute acknowledgment of the limits of language reveals in the first word of the latter poem’s title, “Untitled.” In the following quote, the memorable simile, “like a canal lock,” provides the title for a poem about a waiting room where caregivers bide their time while cancer patients undergo tests and procedures on the day after Valentine’s Day: “The room has filled and emptied many times today, // like a canal lock passing ships into the darkness.”

Though the book’s first two sections display Taylor’s resilience and wit in the face of daunting loss, its final two sections, “Postcards” and “Change of Address,” give those qualities freer range and greater opportunity to shine in his lines. Taylor’s elegiac imperative inspires many poems, but it also leaves room for hope and recovery as well the play of language that gives delight.

-Lawrence Rhu

Lawrence Rhu is the Todd Professor of the Italian Renaissance emeritus at the University of South Carolina. He has written books and essays about the American and European Renaissances, and he edited Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale for the Evans Shakespeare series from Cengage. His poems have appeared in Poetry, Two Rivers, South Florida Poetry Journal, Forma de Vida, Jogos Florais, Quorum, Fall Lines, Pinesong, and the Poetry Society of South Carolina Yearbook. In 2018-19, three of his poems received named awards from the Poetry Society of South Carolina. A fourth, “Reading Romance with a Lady Killer,” received the 2018 Faulkner-Wisdom Poetry Award from the Pirate’s Alley Faulkner Society in New Orleans. In 2019, his unpublished poetry collection, “Pre-owned Odyssey and Rented Rooms,” was runner-up for that Society’s Marble Faun Award. In 2020, Conversations: The Journal of Cavellian Studies published or reprinted a dozen of his poems together with his essay on poetry and philosophy, “Other Minds and a Mind of One’s Own.”