Staff reports | There’s almost an event every day in Charleston’s first poetry extravaganza, Free Verse Festival, which runs through the end of the month.
Take a look at the varied calendar, including The Mayhem Poets on Sept. 29 at the Charleston Gaillard Center to the Poet Laureate Show, featuring our own Marjory Wentworth, on Oct. 6 at the City Gallery at Waterfront Park.
There are dozens of events for the 2017 MOJA Arts Festival, which runs from Sept. 28 to Oct. 8 throughout the City of Charleston as a community celebration of African-American and Caribbean arts. To find what’s right for you, visit this website to see the dynamic offerings, some of which include:
Opening Day Parade, 6 p.m., Sept. 28, Marion Square to U.S. Custom House.
Higher Ground: The Music of Stevie Wonder, 8 p.m., Sept. 28, Charleston Music Hall, 37 John Street. Tribute concert by Charlton Singleton, Quiana Parler and more.
College of Charleston Gospel Choir Concert, 7:30 p.m., Oct. 2, Mount Zion AME Church, 5 Glebe St., Charleston.
Literary Corner with Kwame Alexander, 7:30 p.m., Oct. 3, City Gallery, 34 Prioleau St., Charleston. Free.
Free Verse Poet’s Laureate Show, 6 p.m., Oct. 6, City Gallery, 34 Prioleau St., Charleston. Free.
MOJA Finale, 4 p.m., Oct. 8, Hampton Park, Charleston. Free.
Kwame Alexander was the keynote speaker of Saturday’s Black Ink, a gathering of four dozen writers celebrating African American writing in a six-hour book festival that filled the main library. The festival, now in its second year, reportedly did very well, with writers selling two or three times as many books to hundreds of attendees.
In a poignant talk about memories ranging from a boyhood spent selling books for his father to his mother’s recent death, Alexander kept his audience spellbound with his passionate, strong voice.
But an extended version of a relatively new poem, “Take a Knee,” cut to the core. It showed how a rat-a-tat-tat of common-day phrases starting with the word “take” can generate real emotion and lead, perhaps, to new ways of considering issues.
Staff reports | The American Red Cross has mobilized thousands of trained disaster relief workers, truckloads of supplies and thousands of meals to support the response effort following the hurricane that hit Texas over the weekend.
Staff reports | Charleston Currents contributing editor and South Carolina Poet Laureate Marjory Wentworth’s work is getting attention in a new national book that targets middle-school children to open their eyes to the joys of poetry. Out of Wonder: Poems Celebrating Poets is a collection of original poems by Newbery Medal–winning author and poet Kwame Alexander, along with poems by teacher-poet Chris Colderley and Wentworth.
Also in Good News: Library to take part in summer feeding program; Tall ship makes it to Charleston; and North Charleston Fire Department wins coveted Class 1 ISO rating.
We Can Do Better, South Carolina! (2019) by editor and publisher Andy Brack offers incisive commentaries on the American South, politics, the common good and interesting South Carolina leaders. Available exclusively for Kindle for $7.99. A paperback version will be ready soon. Learn more.
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