Charleston Currents – Marcus Amaker

PALMETTO POEM: Stagnation (a letter 2 America)

By Marcus Amaker, poet laureate of Charleston, S.C.

Amaker (Image by Lisa Livingston)
America has built
too many monuments to war.
Man-made maladies
mounted on Mother Earth.
I’ve seen scars on the skin
of our country’s landscape –
blood-stained band aids
covering exposed bones;
a pain that has not healed.

by Palmetto Poem · 10/02/2017 · Comments are Disabled · Features, Palmetto Poem

FOCUS: Two dozen authors to be at Saturday’s Black Ink book festival

By Stephen Hoffius, special to Charleston Currents | More than 25 African-American authors will gather at Burke High School on Sept. 17 to take part in Black Ink: A Charleston African-American Book Festival. The event will take place from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. and is free and open to the public.

Marcus Amaker, recently named the first poet laureate of the City of Charleston, is the keynote speaker. He’s excited about the festival: “Charleston could use more events that celebrate the literary arts.” He is the author of seven books, the most recent of which, Mantra, is also an app, featuring audio, video, and new poems. Marcus’s poems have been featured on the PBS Newshour, the Huffington Post, several journals, and poetry collections.

by Charleston Currents · 09/12/2016 · Comments are Disabled · Focus, Good news

GOOD NEWS: Institute to focus on environment, health, justice

The day-long Community Leaders Institute (CLI) will start 10 a.m. July 16 in the auditorium of Charleston County Public Library, 68 Calhoun St., Charleston, to explore localized impacts of climate change that require community-level action. Also in Good News: Marcus Amaker is city’s first poet laureate; Votes sought for USS Yorktown; Reducing recycling contamination.

by Charleston Currents · 06/27/2016 · Comments are Disabled · Good news, News briefs

PALMETTO POEM: “Reimagining History”

Though Charleston is a shrine to the past,
where every alleyway and weather-worn road
tells the story of a city resurrected;
time is never standing still.
Running beneath the surface
are fault lines of our own making,
reshaping memory brick by brick.