Charleston Currents

PALMETTO POEM: Where Your Soul Belongs

By Matthew Foley, special to Charleston Currents

I know you’ve heard it
all the days of your life.

A voice,
quietly calling.

A song,
for your ears alone.

Over and over again,it has called your name,
pulled you like the moon
calls home the tide. …

by Palmetto Poem · 04/01/2019 · Comments are Disabled · Features, Palmetto Poem

FOCUS, Wentworth: Always remember to proofread and spellcheck

By Marjory Wentworth, special to Charleston Currents | I am a poet, so you might think I’m going to talk about the knowledge that poetry can bring to the world and the inherent joys of being a writer, but I am speaking to you today from a different platform – as a mother whose three sons finished college not that long ago and as a professor who has taught college for many years. I have learned and continue to learn a great deal from my students, and I want to share some of this hard-earned knowledge with you.

Wentworth
Since I am a writer, I teach writing classes, as well as literature and public speaking. My students have to write a lot of essays; you too will have to write many essays at college. So, the title of my speech today is, Always Remember to Proofread and Spellcheck. These words may be familiar to you, but what does this have to do with you as you head off to college? More than you might think.

by Special to Charleston Currents · 06/04/2018 · 1 comment · Focus, Good news

S.C. ENCYCLOPEDIA: Archibald Rutledge, poet

S.C. Encyclopedia | Archibald Rutledge was born in McClellanville, South Carolina, on October 23, 1883, the son of Henry Middleton Rutledge III, an army officer, and Margaret Hamilton. Descended from a lineage of notable South Carolinians, Rutledge included among his ancestors John Rutledge, Edward Rutledge, Arthur Middleton, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, and Thomas Pinckney.

by Charleston Currents · 09/25/2017 · Comments are Disabled · Features, S.C. Encyclopedia

PALMETTO POEM: Three by Kimberly Simms

Brother’s Mess of Crosses

Converted at 16, when the dummy train
derailed to tip across his pregnant wife.
A holy roller, a Carolina spinner,
a brush arbor caller, an off-key gospel singer.

He took scarlet paint to moonshine jars, boulders,
pine trees, fences, and the neighbor’s pig.
His front plot, he planted a mess of crosses
and built his own monolith with river rocks.

He didn’t pay no mind to section leaders,
howled his only boss was the man in heaven.
He sent 10,000 message bottles down the Reedy
River, dreamed of taking Jesus to Mars and Jupiter.

by Charleston Currents · 08/15/2016 · Comments are Disabled · Features, Palmetto Poem

PALMETTO POEM: Rice

Kendra Hamilton: You speak of the rivers of your homeplace far to the north,
How you’d leave the city in summer for the long trek
to Minnesota, then gather at the creekside in boats,
singing, to beat the grasses till they yielded their sweet black grains.