NC Poetry Society meeting
10 a.m., registration starting at 9:15 a.m.
Weymouth Center for the Arts and Humanities
555 East Connecticut Avenue
Southern Pines, NC
Free & open to the public
Morning workshops:
1) Exploring Japanese Poetry--Tom Heffernan
2) T. S. Eliot: Slicing Through Time and Space--Ron Bayes
3) Present Tense Poetry--Robin Greene
1 p.m. Open mic
1:30 p.m. Jacki Shelton Green, reading
2:30 p.m. Open mic
The North Carolina Poetry Society: www.ncpoetrysociety.org
Saturday, December 16, 2006
Monday, Jan. 15: Poetry Society of SC featured at Monday Night Blues
Monday Night Blues
January 15, 2007
8 p.m.
East Bay Coffee House
159 East Bay Street, Charleston, SC
Free & open to the public
Members of the Poetry Society of South Carolina (PSSC) will be featured at the weekly series Monday Night Blues. All PSSC members are invited to come and read their poems.
Emcee, Jim Lundy
MNB curator and founder, Elle Davis
The Poetry Society of South Carolina: www.poetrysocietysc.org
January 15, 2007
8 p.m.
East Bay Coffee House
159 East Bay Street, Charleston, SC
Free & open to the public
Members of the Poetry Society of South Carolina (PSSC) will be featured at the weekly series Monday Night Blues. All PSSC members are invited to come and read their poems.
Emcee, Jim Lundy
MNB curator and founder, Elle Davis
The Poetry Society of South Carolina: www.poetrysocietysc.org
Friday, Jan. 12: Poetry Society of SC open mic
Friday, Jan. 12, 2007
7 p.m.
Open Mic: Elle Davis, Emcee
City Gallery at Waterfront Park
34 Prioleau Street, Charleston, SC 29401
Refreshments
Free & open to the public
Members of the Poetry Society of South Carolina (PSSC) will be reading their poems at the annual open mic. If you're not a member and would like to read at the event, you can join PSSC that evening. Several membership levels:
Individual: $25
Student: $15
Family: $35
Sponsor: $50
Patron: $100
Reading guidelines: One poem per poet, 2-minute limit.
Elle Davis is a freelance editor and writer. She is the curator and co-producer for Monday Night Blues, the longest running weekly literary event in the Lowcountry of SC. She has read for Piccolo Spoleto’s Sundown Poetry Series and other venues and is currently working on her first novel.
The Poetry Society of South Carolina: www.poetrysocietysc.org
7 p.m.
Open Mic: Elle Davis, Emcee
City Gallery at Waterfront Park
34 Prioleau Street, Charleston, SC 29401
Refreshments
Free & open to the public
Members of the Poetry Society of South Carolina (PSSC) will be reading their poems at the annual open mic. If you're not a member and would like to read at the event, you can join PSSC that evening. Several membership levels:
Individual: $25
Student: $15
Family: $35
Sponsor: $50
Patron: $100
Reading guidelines: One poem per poet, 2-minute limit.
Elle Davis is a freelance editor and writer. She is the curator and co-producer for Monday Night Blues, the longest running weekly literary event in the Lowcountry of SC. She has read for Piccolo Spoleto’s Sundown Poetry Series and other venues and is currently working on her first novel.
The Poetry Society of South Carolina: www.poetrysocietysc.org
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Monday, Dec. 4: Book celebration in Columbia, SC
Event: Book Launch for Keep and Give Away, Poems by Susan Meyers
Date: December 4, Monday
Time: 6:30 - 7:30 p.m.
Place: McMaster Art Gallery
USC Department of Art
1615 Senate Street
Columbia, SC
Reception preceding the event.
I'm grateful to the South Carolina Poetry Initiative for hosting this event, which is free and open to the public. SC Poet Laureate Marjory Wentworth, as well as poets Richard Garcia and Linda Ferguson, will also be reading from their work. Please come if you can!
Date: December 4, Monday
Time: 6:30 - 7:30 p.m.
Place: McMaster Art Gallery
USC Department of Art
1615 Senate Street
Columbia, SC
Reception preceding the event.
I'm grateful to the South Carolina Poetry Initiative for hosting this event, which is free and open to the public. SC Poet Laureate Marjory Wentworth, as well as poets Richard Garcia and Linda Ferguson, will also be reading from their work. Please come if you can!
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Saturday, Nov. 11: Workshop -- Writing the Necessary Poem
Saturday, Nov. 11, 10 a.m. - 2 p.m.
Waccamaw Higher Education Center, 160 Willbrook Boulevard, Pawleys Island, SC 29585.
I'll be teaching a workshop called "Writing the Necessary Poem," on generating poems that matter. It includes a brief study of published poems that turn the ordinary into the extraordinary. Strategies for getting to the heart of the poem. Includes class packet of sample poems and resources. For all levels. A sandwich can be purchased during class, or bring your own. Registration, $30: Coastal Carolina University Lifelong Learning, 843-349-4032 or www.coastal.edu/outreach.
Waccamaw Higher Education Center, 160 Willbrook Boulevard, Pawleys Island, SC 29585.
I'll be teaching a workshop called "Writing the Necessary Poem," on generating poems that matter. It includes a brief study of published poems that turn the ordinary into the extraordinary. Strategies for getting to the heart of the poem. Includes class packet of sample poems and resources. For all levels. A sandwich can be purchased during class, or bring your own. Registration, $30: Coastal Carolina University Lifelong Learning, 843-349-4032 or www.coastal.edu/outreach.
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
Saturday, Oct. 21: Kakalak anthology reading
Saturday, October 21, 2 - 4 p.m., Charleston County Public Library, Charleston, SC--Some of the poets and artists published in Kakalak 2006: An Anthology of Carolina Poets will present their poems and art from the anthology. The program is free and open to the public. My friend Linda Ferguson and I are in charge of planning the event, and we'll be participating.
Saturday, Oct. 7: Memoir Writing Workshop
Saturday, October 7, 2006
Memoir Writing Workshop with Susan Meyers
Charleston County Public Library
68 Calhoun Street, Charleston, SC
Meeting Room B
10 a.m. – 12 p.m.
Ages 18 and up
Writing a memoir is one way to make meaning of life through reflection of self and family. We’ll address some of the questions memoirists face: what to put in, what to leave out, where to start, what shapes a memoir, what makes it meaningful. The workshop will include discussion, a brief writing session, and a class packet for participants. Free and open to the public. Limited to 25.
Memoir Writing Workshop with Susan Meyers
Charleston County Public Library
68 Calhoun Street, Charleston, SC
Meeting Room B
10 a.m. – 12 p.m.
Ages 18 and up
Writing a memoir is one way to make meaning of life through reflection of self and family. We’ll address some of the questions memoirists face: what to put in, what to leave out, where to start, what shapes a memoir, what makes it meaningful. The workshop will include discussion, a brief writing session, and a class packet for participants. Free and open to the public. Limited to 25.
Monday, September 18, 2006
Saturday, Sept. 30: Poetry Council of NC meeting
Saturday, Sept. 30, 9:30 a.m., Peeler Crystal Lounge, Catawba College, Salisbury, NC. Pre-registration for lunch ($12 per person) is required. The Poetry Council of NC will present readings by the winners of its annual poetry contests. The latest edition of Bay Leaves, containing the winning poems, will be available for sale. The featured speaker in the afternoon will be poet Cathy Smith Bowers. I judged the student contest this year, and it'll be fun for me to hear the students read their poems.
Sept. 22-29: Artist residency at Table Rock State Park
Sept. 22-29: Table Rock State Park, near Pickens, SC. I'm looking forward to spending a week in a cabin there--time to write, read, hike, and just enjoy the park.
Saturday, Sept. 23: SC Poets Summit, Columbia, SC
Saturday, Sept. 23, 9:30 a.m. - 3:30 p.m., Columbia Museum of Art. A day of poets and poetry, sponsored by the SC Poetry Initiative. The schedule of events include workshops and a reading by Patricia Smith. In the morning I'll be participating on a publishing panel with poets John Lane, Ryan Van Cleave, and Michelle Reese--moderated by Linda Ferguson. In the afternoon there will be a musical performance of Kwame Dawes's Wisteria. The day is free and open to the public.
Sunday, August 13, 2006
Friday, Sept. 8: Michael Lythgoe reading, Charleston, SC
The Poetry Society of South Carolina program
September 8, 2006
Second Presbyterian Church, 342 Meeting Street, Charleston, SC, at 7 p.m.
Free and open to the public. A book signing and reception follow the program.
Michael H. Lythgoe is the author of Brass, this year’s winner of the Kinloch Rivers Chapbook Competition of the Poetry Society of SC. A former Jenny McKean Fellow in Creative Writing at George Washington University, he has taught at Syracuse University and has an MFA in Writing and Literature from Bennington College. He is now the president of the Academy for Lifelong Learning at USC, Aiken.
September 8, 2006
Second Presbyterian Church, 342 Meeting Street, Charleston, SC, at 7 p.m.
Free and open to the public. A book signing and reception follow the program.
Michael H. Lythgoe is the author of Brass, this year’s winner of the Kinloch Rivers Chapbook Competition of the Poetry Society of SC. A former Jenny McKean Fellow in Creative Writing at George Washington University, he has taught at Syracuse University and has an MFA in Writing and Literature from Bennington College. He is now the president of the Academy for Lifelong Learning at USC, Aiken.
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
August 5: Kiawah Island event with artist Lese Corrigan
Saturday afternoon tea
Arts in August series
The Morning Room at the Sanctuary
Kiawah Island, SC
August 5
2:30 p.m.
Lese Corrigan and I got to know each other when we each held a year's residency at the Gibbes Museum of Art in Charleston, SC. In 2004-05 she was the artist in residence there, and I was the poet in residence. We enjoyed working with school classes that came to the museum for mornings of art and creative writing. I admired the oil painting that she did after studying Anna Heyward Taylor's Coming Storm, the woodblock print in the permanent collection that we selected to respond to. Depicting an old tractor in a field, Lese's painting adhered to Taylor's composition of diagonal lines, the ominous mood set by weather, and the suggestion of hard physical labor. I knew early in the Gibbes experience that I liked Lese and her art. So it has been a joy for me that she gave permission for her painting, Cultured Pomegranates, to be on the cover of my poetry book. And I'm delighted that we'll be joining forces again on Kiawah Island, all for the good of poetry and art.
Corrigan Gallery
Arts in August series
The Morning Room at the Sanctuary
Kiawah Island, SC
August 5
2:30 p.m.
Lese Corrigan and I got to know each other when we each held a year's residency at the Gibbes Museum of Art in Charleston, SC. In 2004-05 she was the artist in residence there, and I was the poet in residence. We enjoyed working with school classes that came to the museum for mornings of art and creative writing. I admired the oil painting that she did after studying Anna Heyward Taylor's Coming Storm, the woodblock print in the permanent collection that we selected to respond to. Depicting an old tractor in a field, Lese's painting adhered to Taylor's composition of diagonal lines, the ominous mood set by weather, and the suggestion of hard physical labor. I knew early in the Gibbes experience that I liked Lese and her art. So it has been a joy for me that she gave permission for her painting, Cultured Pomegranates, to be on the cover of my poetry book. And I'm delighted that we'll be joining forces again on Kiawah Island, all for the good of poetry and art.
Corrigan Gallery
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
Kakalak reading in Charlotte, NC--July 5
Barnes & Noble Arboretum Poetry Reading & Sharing
2006 Kakalak: An Anthology of Carolina Poets
Program by Kakalak poets & artists
Wednesday, July 5
7:30 p.m.
Charlotte, NC
Some of the poets included in the just-released 2006 Kakalak: An Anthology of Carolina Poets will read their poems; some of the artists in the anthology will show their artwork and present an artist statement. The evening will include book signings and an open mic. The event is free and open to the public.
2006 Kakalak: An Anthology of Carolina Poets
Program by Kakalak poets & artists
Wednesday, July 5
7:30 p.m.
Charlotte, NC
Some of the poets included in the just-released 2006 Kakalak: An Anthology of Carolina Poets will read their poems; some of the artists in the anthology will show their artwork and present an artist statement. The evening will include book signings and an open mic. The event is free and open to the public.
Sunday, June 11, 2006
Jun 17: Sam Ragan Poetry Festival in Southern Pines, NC
Saturday, June 17, 2006
Weymouth Center for the Arts & Humanities
555 East Connecticut Avenue
Southern Pines, NC
I'm looking forward to this annual event, held by the NC Poetry Society:
— A day-long festival filled with poetry, music, celebration, and fun.
Registration starts at 9:30 a.m., and festivities will last until about 3 p.m. You can order a box lunch for $8.50 or bring your own.
— Featured poets and performers: Margaret Baddour will MC in the morning, which includes performances by Gibbons Ruark, Michael Beadle, Bill Blackley, Donald Thompson, and Bill Griffin. In the afternoon, Sara Claytor will MC activities, which include performances by Stephen Smith, Shelby and Linda Stephenson, and Gilbert Abraham.
— Open mic readings will be held throughout the day, so bring a poem (limit one poem/one page please so everyone may have an opportunity to read).
--Free & open to the public.
Weymouth Center for the Arts & Humanities
555 East Connecticut Avenue
Southern Pines, NC
I'm looking forward to this annual event, held by the NC Poetry Society:
— A day-long festival filled with poetry, music, celebration, and fun.
Registration starts at 9:30 a.m., and festivities will last until about 3 p.m. You can order a box lunch for $8.50 or bring your own.
— Featured poets and performers: Margaret Baddour will MC in the morning, which includes performances by Gibbons Ruark, Michael Beadle, Bill Blackley, Donald Thompson, and Bill Griffin. In the afternoon, Sara Claytor will MC activities, which include performances by Stephen Smith, Shelby and Linda Stephenson, and Gilbert Abraham.
— Open mic readings will be held throughout the day, so bring a poem (limit one poem/one page please so everyone may have an opportunity to read).
--Free & open to the public.
Saturday, May 20, 2006
New anthology of NC and SC poets
2006 Kakalak: An Anthology of Carolina Poets has just been released. Congratulations to editors Lisa Kerkle, Richard Allen Taylor, and Beth Cagle Burt. The lovely cover art is a photo entitled "Winter Cotton, Florence, SC," by Donna H. Goodman. For further info, check out the Web site at Kakalak
Tuesday, May 16, 2006
Poets the titles below belong to
Peter Desy -- "Dog Almighty"
Hailey Leithauser -- "The Moon Speaks of the Imposition of Morals"
Jennifer Gresham -- "Explaining Relativity to the Cat"
Wesley McNair -- "Charles by Accident"
Hailey Leithauser -- "The Moon Speaks of the Imposition of Morals"
Jennifer Gresham -- "Explaining Relativity to the Cat"
Wesley McNair -- "Charles by Accident"
Sunday, May 14, 2006
A few poem titles I like--(the poems are favorites too)
Dog Almighty
The Moon Speaks of the Imposition of Morals
Explaining Relativity to the Cat
Charles by Accident
The Moon Speaks of the Imposition of Morals
Explaining Relativity to the Cat
Charles by Accident
Friday, May 12, 2006
one of my favorite poems
The City Limits
by A. R. Ammons
When you consider the radiance, that it does not withhold
itself but pours its abundance without selection into every
nook and cranny not overhung or hidden; when you consider
that birds' bones make no awful noise against the light but
lie low in the light as in a high testimony; when you consider
the radiance, that it will look into the guiltiest
swervings of the weaving heart and bear itself upon them,
not flinching into disguise or darkening; when you consider
the abundance of such resource as illuminates the glow-blue
bodies and gold-skeined wings of flies swarming the dumped
guts of a natural slaughter or the coil of shit and in no
way winces from its storms of generosity; when you consider
that air or vacuum, snow or shale, squid or wolf, rose or lichen,
each is accepted into as much light as it will take, then
the heart moves roomier, the man stands and looks about, the
leaf does not increase itself above the grass, and the dark
work of the deepest cells is of a tune with May bushes
and fear lit by the breadth of such calmly turns to praise.
From The Selected Poems: 1951-1977 by A. R. Ammons
by A. R. Ammons
When you consider the radiance, that it does not withhold
itself but pours its abundance without selection into every
nook and cranny not overhung or hidden; when you consider
that birds' bones make no awful noise against the light but
lie low in the light as in a high testimony; when you consider
the radiance, that it will look into the guiltiest
swervings of the weaving heart and bear itself upon them,
not flinching into disguise or darkening; when you consider
the abundance of such resource as illuminates the glow-blue
bodies and gold-skeined wings of flies swarming the dumped
guts of a natural slaughter or the coil of shit and in no
way winces from its storms of generosity; when you consider
that air or vacuum, snow or shale, squid or wolf, rose or lichen,
each is accepted into as much light as it will take, then
the heart moves roomier, the man stands and looks about, the
leaf does not increase itself above the grass, and the dark
work of the deepest cells is of a tune with May bushes
and fear lit by the breadth of such calmly turns to praise.
From The Selected Poems: 1951-1977 by A. R. Ammons
Verse Daily features one of my poems
I'm honored to report that the editors at Verse Daily featured one of my poems, "Hat of Many Goldfinches," on May 9, 2006. The poem appears in my newly published book, Keep and Give Away, from the University of South Carolina Press.
Verse Daily has featured a number of my poems, including these:
December 23, 2005: "Spell for Setting the Sun"
December 26, 2004: "Contraries"
September 22, 2004: "Keep and Give Away"
August 19, 2003: "Neither the Season, nor the Place"
Verse Daily has featured a number of my poems, including these:
December 23, 2005: "Spell for Setting the Sun"
December 26, 2004: "Contraries"
September 22, 2004: "Keep and Give Away"
August 19, 2003: "Neither the Season, nor the Place"
Keep and Give Away
Keep and Give Away was selected by Terrance Hayes as the inaugural winner of the South Carolina Poetry Book Prize sponsored by the South Carolina Poetry Initiative.
In her first full-length collection, Susan Meyers guides us through her examination of life's ordinary moments and the seemingly ordinary images that abide in them to reveal the extraordinary. From minutia to marriage, crumbs to crows, nothing is too commonplace to escape her attention as she traverses terrains of childhood, loss, relationships, and death. Mostly lyrical and often elegiac, the poems of Keep and Give Away move along the rifts between the past and present, the lived and desired. The dominant emotions of the verses are deepened by observations rooted in our natural world, where birds are "yeses quickening the air" and the sky can "lap you up, and up." In the book's final section, marriage poems turn to fishing and gardening for their truths, contemplations that recognize the realities of a world governed by luck, imperfection, contraries, and—most of all—love.
Susan Meyers is the author of Lessons in Leaving, a chapbook selected by Brendan Galvin for the 1998 Persephone Press Book Award. Her poems have appeared in the Southern Review, Crazyhorse, and Tar River Poetry and have been featured online at Poetry Daily and Verse Daily. A longtime writing instructor, she holds an M.F.A. from Queens University of Charlotte. Meyers grew up in North Carolina and currently lives in Givhans, South Carolina, near Summerville.
"Whether Susan Meyers describes the cry of a loon, a boat trip into a swamp, or casting a net, the images in Keep and Give Away are striking and resonate with the book's central paradox of loving and letting go. Though Meyers does not turn from painful experience like her mother's decline, lingering death, and the black hole of its aftermath, her dominant impulse is to celebrate and, as she says in one poem, 'learn to look for the overlooked.' This is a first collection full of finely crafted poems—free verse and poems in form—that are alive and radiantly detailed, pleasurable and poignant."—Peter Makuck, author of Off-Season in the Promised Land and Costly Habits
"As I read the final poem of Susan Meyers's first full-length collection Keep and Give Away, I felt again the resonant ending of 'Shelling: Ars Poetica'—'the last one leaves you wanting more.' In poems as skillfully crafted as they are inspired, Meyers holds tight to the tenuous things of this world, polishing and polishing each until it glows. This is a stunning body of work."—Cathy Smith Bowers, author of A Book of Minutes and Traveling in Time of Danger
"Keep and Give Away offers us countless resounding, delicate notes. We might fall, submit to loss, were there no art such as this to keep us upright in the world."—Terrance Hayes, author of Wind in a Box and Hip Logic, from the foreword
Sunday, March 26, 2006
Keep and Give Away
What do I know of man's destiny?
I could tell you more about radishes.
— Samuel Beckett
With a bushel basket in hand
he’s the tally of my ripest desires,
more than the sum of his summer
crops, perfect and plentiful as they are—
even counting Early Contenders
and Silver Queen. Burpless
cucumbers, Kentucky Wonders, too.
Throw in the fruit to sweeten
the numbers: blackberries and figs
piled in pyramids or weighed
in pecks. And don’t forget
the peppers (red, yellow, green),
divided into keep and give away.
Dinner plates—heaped with leafiness,
tubers, and pods—heavy
with the haul and roots of his labor.
Now he’s shelling peas in his lap
and I sit across the room, listening
to the ping, ping. He’s more
than the sum, I cannot count the ways,
and despite a constant reckoning
of work and luck, numbers fail me
in this long, hot growing season.
first published in The Southern Review
rptd on Verse Daily
rptd in A Millennial Sampler of South Carolina Poetry
I could tell you more about radishes.
— Samuel Beckett
With a bushel basket in hand
he’s the tally of my ripest desires,
more than the sum of his summer
crops, perfect and plentiful as they are—
even counting Early Contenders
and Silver Queen. Burpless
cucumbers, Kentucky Wonders, too.
Throw in the fruit to sweeten
the numbers: blackberries and figs
piled in pyramids or weighed
in pecks. And don’t forget
the peppers (red, yellow, green),
divided into keep and give away.
Dinner plates—heaped with leafiness,
tubers, and pods—heavy
with the haul and roots of his labor.
Now he’s shelling peas in his lap
and I sit across the room, listening
to the ping, ping. He’s more
than the sum, I cannot count the ways,
and despite a constant reckoning
of work and luck, numbers fail me
in this long, hot growing season.
first published in The Southern Review
rptd on Verse Daily
rptd in A Millennial Sampler of South Carolina Poetry
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