Poetry Battle Royale Workshops for Teens are happening now!

In collaboration with The Watering Hole Poetry Organization, I will be hosting poetry workshops for teenagers entitled Poetry Battle Royale. These workshops will combine poetry, debate, and public speaking and will occur over the course of the 2023-2024 school year. Poets will have a culminating debate/performance at the Soda City Poetry Festival in June 2024.

The workshops are made possible through Richland Library, The Watering Hole Poetry Organization, One Columbia, the South Carolina Arts Commission, and the Academy of American Poets Poet Laureate Fellowship.

Visit the link to register: https://bit.ly/45LfFsy

FAQS:

When will the workshops be?

Fall 2023 Semester dates are:

November 4, 2023

November 11, 2023

December 2, 2023

December 9, 2023

Spring 2024 dates will be released in December.

All workshops will be from 12 p.m.-2 p.m.

*Poets do not have to attend all of the sessions to continue to participate.

Where will the workshops happen?

Richland Library SANDHILLS, 763 Fashion Drive, Columbia, SC 29223

Who can participate in the workshops?

High school students in any Midlands area high school. Preference will be given to students in RSD1 & RSD2.

What will happen at the workshops?

Poets will be reading/viewing, writing, and performing slam poetry. Some videos and texts will be vetted by the teaching staff of the program. Debate lessons were developed by Ethos Debate and the poetry lessons are developed by me and the teaching staff. We will have guest speakers and experts in slam and performance to help guide the poets throughout the process.

Have additional questions not listed here? Please email me at poetlaureate@onecolumbiasc.com.

Two Clocks on the Same Street

for Mayor Steve Benjamin’s 10th State of the City address
29 January 2020

There is never only one clock.
Even here, there are two, and both
must be wound by hand since time isn’t
just the turn of sun or season or
the binary beat of your watch but
someone’s hand long ago turning
a key, a crank, so that everybody got
to work and trains mostly ran on time.

There is never only one clock.
Even here, there are two, and both
have four faces, as if the tempo of Main
Street changes from one block to another,
as if those going north toward city hall
see time differently from those headed
south to the statehouse, where stories
congeal into marble, even when
they’re not quite true. It depends
on where you stand. Whether you are
in front of the jewelry store or
the bank, the art museum or the coffee
shop, the hotel or the dorm, the Brazilian
steakhouse where the attendant is parking
your car, or the water department, where
you’re standing in line to pay your bill.
The clock of someone waiting at a bus
stop is different from the clock of a man
driving a car, which is different from
the clock running out at the end
of a game. The coffee shop is in one
time zone, the hospital another, and they
are only blocks from each other.

There is never only one clock.
There is the clock on the wall, the clock
on your wrist, and all the clocks embedded
in our flesh. There is the clock of the river,
which measures its banks, and the clock
of pollen, which slows us all down
until the rains wash the air. There is
the clock of stoplights, the clock of school
buses. There is the sun clock and the moon
clock, the circulations of feral cats,
the visitations of migrating birds, the orb
spiders hanging golden clocks in autumn
air, and the strange and beautiful clock
of fireflies synchronizing themselves with one
another. And it is not always clear
how these synch with the clock of council
meetings or the replacement of street lights
or parking meters or artwork at the airport.

There are two clocks on the same street.
Time is the circle of the sun over
the river, seeing the same things again
but in a slightly different light, and time
is also the wavy line of the river
beneath the sun, always moving on.

January is a clock with two faces
facing opposite ways. One hand
waves a flag of corn and cotton, as if
here we think we’re still there, in a past
that was small and unfair, where justice
might have been the queen of virtues, but
someone kept her blindfolded. The other
hand unfurls something like a wing,
a wave, a page about to be turned
at last. And a decade is just another
way to say the train depot is not
a depot, the post office is no longer
a post office, the park was something else,
and a bank has slapped its logo over
the shoulder of the statehouse. A decade is
a way to draw a dark line through all
the little changes, not a clock but
the shadow of a bridge over the ripples
of the river, to say look at what all
has happened between there and here.

Columbia Poet Laureate Ed Madden Receives Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship

New York, NY (April 24, 2019)— The Academy of American Poets is pleased to announce that Ed Madden, the Poet Laureate of Columbia, South Carolina, has been named an Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellow and will receive a $50,000 award in recognition of their literary merit and to support civic programs. Ed Madden is one of thirteen state or local Poets Laureate nationwide to be honored.

This new award, made possible by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and announced by the New York Times, is in keeping with this spring’s national poetry programming theme of Poetry & Democracy offered by the Poetry Coalition, an alliance of more than 20 organizations working together to promote the value poets bring to our culture and the important contribution poetry makes in the lives of people of all ages and backgrounds.

Poets have an important role in our culture and in communities all across the country. By supporting Poets Laureate at the state and local level, we hope to ensure that more people become acquainted with poets and poetry where they live and have an opportunity to benefit from innovative and groundbreaking programming close to home, said Michael Jacobs, Chairman of the Academy of American Poets.

Madden is a poet whose work exemplifies how poetry can spark conversation and can help us learn about one another’s lives and unique experiences, which promotes greater understanding. We’re honored to help underwrite Madden and the other twelve Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellows, all of whom are exceptional leaders, said Jennifer Benka, Executive Director of the Academy of American Poets.

Ed Madden was raised in Newport, Arkansas. He received a BA in English and French from Harding University, a BS in Biblical Studies from the Institute for Christian Studies, an MA in English from the University of Texas at Austin, and a PhD in literature from the University of Texas at Austin. His most recent collections include Ark (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2016), Nest (Salmon Poetry, 2014), and Prodigal: Variations (Lethe Press, 2011). He currently teaches English at the University of South Carolina. Madden, who will receive $50,000, plans to launch “Telling the Stories of the City,” a project that will incorporate local and youth voices, build on community-based workshops, and create an interactive storymap of the city.

The full list of fellows to receive the first ever Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellow awards of $50,000 to $100,000 each include Grace Cavalieri, Poet Laureate of Maryland, Molly Fisk, Poet Laureate of Nevada County, California, Jaki Shelton Green, Poet Laureate of North Carolina, Fred L. Joiner, Poet Laureate of Carrboro, North Carolina, Robin Coste Lewis, Poet Laureate of Los Angeles, California, Claudia Castro Luna, Poet Laureate of Washington State, Ed Madden, Poet Laureate of Columbia, South Carolina, Adrian Matejka, Poet Laureate of Indiana, Jeanetta Calhoun Mish, Poet Laureate of Oklahoma, Paisley Rekdal, Poet Laureate of Utah, Raquel Salas Rivera, Poet Laureate of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Kim Schuck, Poet Laureate of San Francisco, California, and TC Tolbert, Poet Laureate of Tucson, Arizona.

The Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowships panel included past U.S. Poets Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera, Robert Pinsky, and Natasha Trethewey; National Student Poets Program founder and member of President Obama’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities Olivia Morgan; MacArthur Fellow Natalie Diaz and Guggenheim Fellow Mark Nowak. The panel was co-chaired by Eunice “Nicie” Panetta, executive producer and co-host of “Fresh,” a podcast series in development about the freshman class of the 116th Congress, and former board chair of the Academy of American Poets; and Jennifer Benka, president and executive director of the Academy of American Poets. Final award decisions, informed by the panel and the scope of the projects, were made by the Academy of American Poets.

About the Academy of American Poets
The Academy of American Poets is our nation’s leading champion of poets, poetry, and the work of poetry organizations. Founded in 1934 in New York City, the organization produces Poets.org, the world’s largest publicly-funded website for poets and poetry; National Poetry Month; the popular Poem-a-Day series; American Poets magazine; Teach This Poem and other resources for K-12 educators; an annual series of poetry readings and special events; and awards the American Poets Prizes. The organization also coordinates the work of a national Poetry Coalition working to promote the value poets bring to our culture and the important contribution poetry makes in the lives of people of all ages and backgrounds.

For additional information about the Academy of American Poets and the Poets Laureate Fellowships, visit: poets.org/academy-american-poets/2019-academy-american-poets-laureate-fellows