Seven strong : a South Carolina poetry book prize reader, 2006-2012 / edited by Kwame Dawes ; foreword by Marjory Wentworth.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Dawes, Kwame Senu Neville, 1962-

Wentworth, Marjory (Marjory Heath), 1958-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

American poetry--South Carolina.

American poetry.

South Carolina--Poetry.

South Carolina.

Genre:

Poetry.

Physical Description:

xvii, 104 pages ; 22 cm

Place of Publication:

Columbia, S.C. : University of South Carolina Press, [2012]

Summary:

A collaboration between the South Carolina Poetry Initiative and the University of South Carolina Press, the South Carolina Poetry Book Prize is a celebration of accomplished and emerging poets linked together by their shared associations with the Palmetto State. Published on the seventh anniversary of this award series, Seven Strong features selections from the winning poets to date-Susan Meyers (2006), Ed Madden (2007), Ray McManus (2008), DéLana R. A. Dameron (2009), Worthy Evans (2010), Jennifer R. Pournelle (2011), and Julia Koets (2012)-with an introduction by editor Kwame Dawes and a foreword by South Carolina poet laureate Marjory Wentworth. Representing some of the best and brightest among South Carolina's large population of poets, these writers offer compelling vantage points on themes of identity, memory, history (both social and personal), race, gender, and community. What emerges most clearly from this collection is a sense of the creative arts as grounded in connections to place. Be those locations real or imagined, local or far-flung, in the verses collected here, place-like the poets themselves-is always provocatively authentic. Seven Strong is then a road trip for us of the most enjoyable sort, with seven distinctive guides and a landscape that stretches from quirky to cantankerous, mournful to marvelous, but we never lose sight of South Carolina in the rearview mirror.

The former director of the South Carolina Poetry Initiative, KWAME DAWES is a prolific author and editor with publications in many genres. He has written sixteen collections of poetry, most recently Back of Mount Peace and Wheels. Dawes won an Emmy Award for his poetry and reporting on HTW AIDS in his native Jamaica, and he is also the recipient of a Pushcart Prize, the Forward Poetry Prize, and the Hollis Summers Poetry Prize. Dawes is the Glenna Luschei Editor of Prairie Schooner and a Chancellor's Professor of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Book jacket.

Contents:

Part 1 Keep and Give Away / Susan Laughter Meyers Meyers, Susan Laughter

Standing Ajar 3

Your Mother Forbids You to Leave die Yard 5

That Year 7

Washing the Breakfast Dishes, I Decide 9

Daughter 10

Awaiting My Brother's Pathology Report, My Husband and I Take to the River 11

Keep and Give Away 13

Part 2 Driving through die Country before You Are Born / Ray McManus McManus, Ray

One Good Apple 17

Black 19

Burning Caterpillars 20

Orientation 22

Red Barn 23

Driving through the Country before You Are Born 30

Part 3 Signals / Ed Madden Madden, Ed

Frog Eyes 35

Trough 37

What I Found 38

Inventory 40

Confederates 42

Signals 44

Part 4 How God Ends Us / DéLana R. A. Dameron Dameron, DéLana R. A.

Artifacts and Relics 47

Lament 49

It Is Written 51

Body, an Elegy 53

On Seeking the Other 2/5 Up North 55

Inheritance 56

The City of Discarded Umbrellas 57

Flame 58

Part 5 Green Revolver / Worthy Evans Evans, Worthy

Staring at the Cracks in the Wall 61

A Funny Thing 63

Comfort 65

Making the Man 66

Heroes in Waiting 67

Baked into die Cake 68

Green Revolver 70

The Madman's Divining Time 71

Part 6 Excavation / Jennifer Pournelle Pournelle, Jennifer

Urban Excavations 75

Coscoy, Renamed San Diego de Alcala, 1602 77

Jerusalem 87

Part 7 Hold Like Owls / Julia Koets Koets, Julia

Stitiching the Sides of a Story Together 91

Woman Drawn with Stars 92

Bruise 93

Beauty Secrets 94

Oconee Bells 95

Hold Like Owls 96

My Quixote 97

Joy, die Elephant, Greenville Zoo, 1990 98

December Hemlock 99

Ruin 100.

ISBN:

9781611170931

1611170931

OCLC:

773021077