Laureates gather in celebration of National Poetry Month

In celebration of National Poetry Month, Furman University will present a poetry reading and discussion by three appointed South Carolina Poets Laureate Thursday, April 21 at 4 p.m. at the Hartness Pavilion on the Furman campus.

“A Gathering of Laureates: A Joint Reading and Discussion by SC Poets Laureate Marjory Wentworth, Laurel Blossom, and Ed Madden,” is free and open to the public, and is cosponsored by the Friends of the Furman University Libraries and the Furman English Department. Books will be available for purchase and signing after the program. The event is part of Furman’s Cultural Life Program.

Each poet will give a short reading from their writings and will speak about their work as a laureate: what they do, how they use poetry in their respective communities, and how poetry can fulfill both a civic function as well as serve as a community voice for the arts.

Marjory Wentworth, who has held her office since 2003, is the author of five books of poetry, most recently, New & Selected Poems (University of South Carolina Press, 2014).

Laurel Blossom, the Poet Laureate (since 2014) of Edgefield, S.C., is the author of six books of poetry, her latest, Longevity (Four Way Books, 2015). The editor of several additional poetry collections, Blossom has held fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York Foundation for the Arts.

Ed Madden, the recently-appointed Poet Laureate of Columbia, S.C., is Professor of English at the University of South Carolina and the author of four collections of poetry, his most recent, Ark (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2016).

All three laureates’ manuscripts and personal papers are housed in the South Carolina Poetry Archives in the Department of Special Collections and Archives in Duke Library at Furman. The South Carolina Poetry Archives contains the papers and manuscripts of more than 20 South Carolina poets and a comprehensive collection of the published writings of all South Carolina poets.

For more information, contact Kathleen Hamlin kathleen.hamlin@furman.edu, or (864) 294-2191.