Poetry at McLeod presents illustrious Black poets whose art illuminates the plantation experience from capture in Africa, to ascendancy in America in all walks of life.

Readings are held by the river, under the centuries-old McLeod Oak, known as the "witness tree," near the cabins where enslaved people lived and worked, developed culture, worshipped, and raised their families. McLeod Plantation Historic Site aims to tell a fuller story of plantation through research into the lives of people who were enslaved there. The site is a member of the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience.

The project began when poet Katherine Williams first heard the poetry emerging from Cave Canem in the voice of SC native Terrance Hayes, fusing hiphop, performance, and formal English poetics. It struck her to work toward a series bringing these excellent poets to Charleston. Cave Canem is an incubator for African American poets, whose fellows include several recent National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize winners, and American poets laureate. To Williams’s mind, Cave Canem is to letters as New Orleans is to music.

Shortly after McLeod Plantation Historic Site opened on James Island, Williams visited. With its focus on researching the lives of people who had been enslaved there, McLeod struck her as the perfect venue to fuse art and surroundings, so she dropped the events desk a line. McLeod’s Shawn Halifax invited Williams not just to try hosting a reading, but to collaborate on a series, since this was the first event proposal for the site consistent with MPHS’s mission. It seemed likely that arts agencies would underwrite such a reading at such a place, and her friend Kendra Hamilton, a Cave Canem fellow whose poetry is grounded in her Gullah-Geechee ancestry, agreed to try an experimental reading there—a brave act on the heels of the Charleston church shooting.

Williams then presented the idea to an arts committee she chaired at the time, hoping for the parent group, the Town of James Island, to accept the role of nonprofit co-sponsor with the Parks Commission. There was much discussion of the high-powered poetry coming out of Cave Canem and its importance to American arts; how poetry, specifically, presents emotionally challenging content while engendering empathy; the support of Charleston’s avid poetry community for live events; and a novel way for the new Town to foster a more cohesive citizenry.

Then the talks collapsed. Inez Brown Crouch, a venerated James Island social and political leader, stated that because she had known children who were growing up in the slave dwellings at Old Mister Willie McLeod’s place, under no circumstances would she set foot on such cruel ground. After several conversations she decided to meet with Halifax, and changed her mind: education can and does change people. Not only that, she would run the hospitality committee, and enjoy sipping lemonade in a rocker on Old Mister Willie’s porch.

The pilot reading was held in November, outdoors, and went ahead in heavy weather. In spite of cold rain blown sideways, attendance was full, Kendra’s reading was well-received. The series was a go. Williams secured funding each year from local, state and federal agencies and businesses, and Poetry at McLeod was co-sponsored for six years by Charleston County Parks and Recreation Commission. Four of those seasons were co-sponsored by the Town of James Island, and two by The Poetry Society of South Carolina.

TBA
Cornelius Eady

November 12, 2022
Evie Shockley

April 23, 2022
Malcolm Tariq

September 10, 2022
Yona Harvey

November 13, 2021
Dustin Pearson

October 9, 2021
Grace Ocasio

April 2021
Joey Tucker
Malachi Jones
Yvette Murray

May 29, 2021
Teri Ellen Cross Davis

November 10, 2019
Tyree Daye

October 13, 2019
Geffrey Davis

June 9, 2019
Roger Reeves

April 28, 2019
Glenis Redmond

June 1, 2018
Marilyn Nelson

April 8, 2018
Len Lawson

March 18, 2018
Gary Jackson

October 22, 2017
Kwoya Fagin Maples

June 18, 2017: Kendra Hamilton

November 12, 2016
Pilot with Kendra Hamilton

Kendra Hamilton, a Cave Canem fellow and author of The Goddess of Gumbo and Romancing the Gullah, is a Charleston native and Presbyterian College (Clinton, SC) professor, whose poetry appears in The Norton Anthology of Contemporary African American Poetry and The Ringing Ear: Black Poets Lean South.