Newly named as Greenville, SC’s first Poet Laureate, Glenis Redmond, author of The Listening Skin, is also a 2022 inductee of the South Carolina Academy of Authors (the Palmetto State’s Literary Hall of Fame) and a 2020 recipient of the South Carolina Governor’s Award for the Arts. Poet Marlanda Dekine, author of Thresh and Hold, was recently recognized as the South Carolina Arts Commission Fellow for Spoken Word / Slam Poetry and winner of the 2021 New Southern Voices Poetry Prize.
Both award-winning writers will be reading from their poetry at Sandies at the Beaufort County Black Chamber of Commerce (711 Bladen St.) on Friday, November 4, at 5:30 p.m. Hosted by the nonprofit Pat Conroy Literary Center, this event is free and open to the public. Sandies will be open for dine-in or take-out dinner that evening. Books will be available for sale and signing.
On the following morning, Saturday, November 5, from 10:00 a.m. to noon, Glenis Redmond will also be teaching a poetry writing workshop inspired by Jonathan Green’s artwork of potter David Drake– Working with Wonder: Creating Couplets and Ekphrastic Poetry. This workshop will be held at the Pat Conroy Literary Center (601 Bladen St.) and is open to writers of all levels of experience. $45/person. Please register in advance for the workshop at
https://workingwithwonder.eventbrite.com
ABOUT GLENIS REDMOND
Glenis Redmond is the first Poet Laureate of Greenville, SC, a 2022 inductee into the South Carolina Academy of Authors (our state’s literary hall of fame), and a 2020 honoree of the South Carolina Governor’s Award for the Arts. She has been a literary community leader for almost thirty years. She is a Kennedy Center Teaching Artist and a Cave Canem alum. Glenis has been the mentor poet for the National Student Poets Program since 2014. In the past she prepared these exceptional youth poets to read at the Library of Congress, the Department of Education, and for First Lady Michelle Obama at the White House. She is a North Carolina Literary Fellowship recipient and helped to create the first Writer-in-Residence position at the Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site in Flat Rock, North Carolina. Her work has been showcased on NPR and PBS and has been most recently published in Orion Magazine and the New York Times. She is the author of the poetry volumes The Listening Skin as well as The Three Harrietts, What My Hand Say, and Under the Sun.
ABOUT MARLANDA DEKINE
The 2022 South Carolina Arts Commission Fellow for Spoken Word / Slam
Poetry and winner of the 2021 New Southern Voices Poetry Prize, Marlanda Dekine (she/they) is a poet obsessed with ancestry, memory, and the process of staying within one’s own body. Their work manifests as books, audio projects, and workshops, leaving spells and incantations for others to follow for themselves. Dekine’s work has been published or is forthcoming in Southern Humanities Review, POETRY Magazine, Emergence Magazine, Juke Joint Magazine, OROBORO, Screen Door Review, Root Work Journal, and elsewhere. They are the Founder and former Executive Director of Speaking Down Barriers, Spoken Word Spartanburg, and other organizations that make space for all beings. Currently, they serve as a Healing Justice Fellow with Gender Benders and the 2021-2022 Creative-In-Residence with Castle of our Skins. Dekine is the recipient of many awards, including a Tin House Own Path Scholarship (2021), a SC Humanities Award for Fresh Voices in Humanities (2019), Emrys’ Keller Cushing Freeman Fellowship (2019), and grants from the SC Arts Commission, Alternate Roots, The Map Fund, and other organizations. Thresh and Hold is Marlanda’s first book of poetry.
Learn more about the nonprofit Pat Conroy Literary Center at www.patconroyliterarycenter.org.
Learn more about Sandies at the Beaufort County Black Chamber of Commerce at www.facebook.com/sandiesatthegullahjazzcafe.
