Elizabeth Robin
Award-winning poet Elizabeth Robin will discuss the creation and curation of the Hilton Head Poetry Trail as a free public event at the nonprofit Pat Conroy Literary Center on Saturday, September 14, at 2:00 p.m.
A marriage of technology, creative writing, public art, and arts-minded businesses, the Hilton Head Poetry Trail offers a new way to see Hilton Head Island: through the eyes of the poets who live there. Grabbing extra copies of Local Life Magazine? Scan the sign placed inside the front door and read a Pop-up Poets collaboration. Contemplating the landscape as you rest on Toni Morrison’s bench at Mitchelville Freedom Park? Read James Mallory’s poem “The Beautiful Couple.” Confused, asking “What is it?” as you stare at Caracol in Shelter Cove Park? Scan the trail sign and Jackie Markham gives you one interpretation.
It’s the kind of collaboration that makes the arts an experience. A unique approach to a public arts project, this trail brings poetry into public spaces in a permanent-yet-flexible medium. Because it uses QR codes, the trail can track its visits and regularly switch out trail content to include more poets and poems at each site. Monthly visits have averaged over 300 readings from 20-plus states and 4 or more foreign countries in its first year. Some poems have been read over 1,000 times!
Presenter Elizabeth Robin, retired teacher and award-winning poet, is the author of three collections of poems published by Finishing Line Press: To My Dreamcatcher (2022), Where Green Meets Blue (2018) and Silk Purses and Lemonade (2017). She partnered with the Office of Cultural Affairs to establish the Hilton Head Poetry Trail, a 25-station route of local poets. A Piccolo Spoleto Sundown Poet (2023), she won the 2021 Carrie McCray Nickens Fellowship, was an Island Writers Network open mic emcee for eight years, and creates literary programs on Hilton Head Island.
Learn more about the Conroy Center at www.patconroyliterarycenter.org .
