By Marjory Wentworth, S.C. poet laureate
Boats fly out of the Atlantic
and moor themselves in my backyard
where tiny flowers, forgotten
by the wind, toss their astral heads
from side to side. Mouths ablaze, open,
and filling with rain.
After the hurricane, you can see
the snapped open drawbridge slide
beneath the waves on the evening news.
You go cold imagining
such enormous fingers of wind
that split a steel hinge until
its jaw opens toward heaven.
By Susan Laughter Meyers
back from the woods inside me
chickadee silence
nothing I can say to myself so full
the not saying
when I opened the nesting box
what looked slight
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.
By Marjory Wentworth, poet laureate of South Carolina | I am guessing there won’t be a poem at this week’s presidential inauguration. Too bad, because now is the time to think like a poet.
Through empathy, precise language and imagery, poets connect us to the things of this world and to one another. No one understood this better than the late Winston Churchill, who hand-wrote his speeches in iambic pentameter. This five stress line of verse is essentially the length of the average sentence written in the English language and can be said in one breath. Churchill had to inspire a nation under attack, and he accomplished this in ways that will be remembered forever.
By Marjorie Wentworth, contributing editor | The relatives and friends of the nine people murdered on June 17, 2015, are facing a second New Year’s without their loved ones.
The strength and dignity the bereaved have displayed during the killer’s trial is an extension of the goodness of those who died at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. And we all must keep telling their stories — to remind us of who they were and all that we could be.
By Marjory Wentworth, contributing editor | In our very first television interview about our book We Are Charleston, Tragedy and Triumph at Mother Emanuel, the reporter thrust the microphone in my face and asked “Why would a white woman want to write this book?”
I was standing between my African American co-writers, Herb Frazier and Dr. Bernard Powers, at the time, and the question took me by surprise, but it shouldn’t have. I wanted to respond that if he had done his research, the reporter might have asked the opposite question; how could I not write this book?
By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | Almost a year later, the remarkable words of family members in pain still ring in our ears.
“I forgive you,” one said in a crowded courtroom. “May God have mercy on you,” another added. “Hate won’t win,” said a third.
One after another, five people squeezed by turmoil forgave an accused killer, who stood pancake-faced in shackles in a separate room and watched his bond hearing on a television screen.
A poem by Marjory Wentworth, poet laureate of South Carolina:
Yellow crime tape tied to the rod iron fence
weaves through bouquets of flowers
and wreaths made of white ribbons,
like rivers of bright pain flowing through the hours.
Weaving through bouquets of flowers,
lines of strangers bearing offerings
like rivers of bright pain flowing through the hours.
One week later; the funeral bells ring;
lines of strangers still bring offerings.
Nine doves tossed toward the sun.
One week later; the funeral bells ring,
while churches in small towns are burning.
Nine doves tossed toward the sun.
Because there are no words to sing,
while churches in small towns are burning,
a blur of white wings, ascends like music.
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.
In the Dec. 7, 2015, issue of Charleston Currents:
https://charlestoncurrents.com/2015/12/dec7-issue/
PHOTO: Holiday cinch
FOCUS, Steve Skardon: Help for flood victims over holidays
BRACK: Legislature needs more strategic, long-term thinking
IN THE SPOTLIGHT: Charleston Green Commercial
PALMETTO POEM, Marjory Wentworth: The Christmas Apron
GOOD NEWS: Pinckney, Haley, Riley to be honored
FEEDBACK: Likes Haley on immigration
CALENDAR, Dec. 7+: A Christmas Story, holiday lights, more
MYSTERY: Maritime pastoral scene
S.C. ENCYCLOPEDIA: The New Deal
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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