Tuesday December 5th 5 - 7 pm
Boyd Horticultural Center at Hampton Preston
Mansion & Gardens
Join us as we celebrate A Story of the City: Poems Occasional and Otherwise! Published by Muddy Ford Press, this collection of poems was written by Ed Madden during his 8 years as Columbia's first poet laureate.
Hosted by Historic Columbia at the Boyd Horticultural Center, the event will include a short reading by Ed and some special guests, with introduction by Lee Snelgrove, former director of One Columbia, and comments by Robin Waites, executive director of Historic Columbia.
The Horticultural Center is a state-of-the-art greenhouse located behind the Hampton-Preston Mansion. Enter from the back gate on Laurel Street. Street parking available (and evening at the nearby Richland County School District parking lot).
~~~~~
Introducing A Story of the City: Poems Occasional and Otherwise by Ed Madden
I remember the first time I sat at a table with Ed Madden.
Drue Barker, who was coming in as the new director of the women’s studies program at USC, had come to town and Ed, Julia Elliott, and I had taken her down to the Hunter Gatherer pub on the university side of Main Street to chat.
It was sometime in 2007 and I felt like I was among royalty.
I knew of Julia because she sang in the alt-band Grey Egg, which may be the most innovative and eclectic musical group Columbia, SC has ever seen. She had copies of the band’s most recent CD to share with Ed and Drue.
I knew of Ed because it seemed like everyone knew of Ed. A proudly-out gay man, his reputation as a poet and activist set a standard for community engagement. I’ll admit now that these three people, all clearly commanders of their own fates, were a bit intimidating. I was just an adjunct instructor looking to find a new place to grow myself, having spent the last two decades teaching, writing, and watching my daughters grow into adults. If I had known then how many tables Ed and I would sit at together over the years to come, how many projects we would hatch and secrets we would share, I would have taken better note of our surroundings than I did. I would have recorded those observations like historical artifacts of the moment. I would have recognized that I was meeting a person who would play a unique and cherished role in the rest of my life.
Fast forward eight years and I had the proud pleasure of cheering Ed on as he took the title of Poet Laureate for the City of Columbia. A brave and selfless thing to do. Ed embraced the role like it was made for him, working with Lee Snelgrove to create a culture of renegade poetry at the same time that he seamlessly elevated the importance of poetry by creating beautiful and profoundly honest responses to the events that occurred in the life of the city.
As the first poet laureate in the capitol city of a state that has gone without a state poet laureate for three years and counting, Ed’s position took on greater significance than it had to. While South Carolina’s first state poet laureate, Archibald Rutledge, had served a lifetime appointment from 1934 until his death in 1973, followed in succession by Helen Von Kolnitz Hyer, Ennis Rees, Grace Freeman, and Bennie Sinclair, in 2020, Marjory Wentworth, the sixth person to hold the title, left the post and, as late as summer 2023, Governor Henry McMaster had failed to fill the position. In the absence of a government or appointing body following through on its responsibility to maintain the continuity of leadership in the poetic arts, poets throughout the state looked to Ed Madden as their guide. And guide them he did. Soon, city poets laureate were being named throughout the state in Charleston, Greenville, Rock Hill, the Pee Dee, and more.
Why does it mean so much to poets to be represented by an honored one of their own? Several reasons, none of which are monetary. In fact, the small budget once allocated to the state poet laureate was rescinded by former Governor Mark Sanford in 2000. There is a smaller budget for the Columbia city laureate, but it all goes toward supplies needed for various projects and never sees the inside of the laureate’s pocket.
It is validating to wordsmiths of all genres to have an artist among them who represents the importance of the part they play, we play, in the creation of our culture. The poet laureate of a city or state is a role model for all of us who confess our words and perceptions to paper in an attempt to make sense of the chaos that surrounds us. That person reminds us that the act of creative writing is not an exercise in frivolity but rather an important practice in interpreting the turns of events that make up our history.
Similarly, patrons of poetry depend upon the writers among us, especially our poet laureate, to help us find truth in ways that sooth and unite us. Time and again, Ed Madden reminded us that in addition to being a city of individuals whose unique gifts intimately design the world around us, we are also a cohort of creatures living life together at this particular place and time and are forever united by the community we create.
So much has changed over the almost two decades I’ve called Ed Madden my colleague, friend, and collaborator. Neighbors have moved, both to and away from us. Elected officials have come to office, created policy, and moved on. Friends and allies have passed away from us, leaving their own legacies on the landscape of our home. And because Ed Madden used his inimitable gifts to record his perceptions of this community and commit them to paper to preserve for posterity, the record of our lives as citizens of Columbia, South Carolina will live on in the volume—A Story of the City: poems occasional and otherwise, Columbia, SC 2015-2022.
By Cindi Boiter
Reprinted with permission from Jasper Magazine, Fall 2023