Poetry at McLeod
Poetry at McLeod was a collaborative project with McLeod Plantation Historic Site, presenting African American poets at a place where many James Islanders were cruelly enslaved. The mission of McLeod Plantation Historic Site on James Island SC is to correct the romanticized view of plantation life through research. The site is a member of the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience.
Poets were invited based on the quality of their artistry, performance, and teaching, and their desire to communicate the experience and aftermath of enslavement in such a terrible space. These readings created an opportunity for contemplation and dialog about what life was like on a Southern plantation, and helped us to reclaim this complex physical, historical, and emotional American territory.
The idea for Poetry at McLeod was sparked when poet Katherine Williams first heard Columbia native Terrance Hayes read at the SC Book Fair in 2004, fusing hiphop, performance, and formal English poetics—bringing the future of poetry. Williams was newly returned to SC from LA and felt, listening to Terrance’s work, that everything was going to be okay. She just had to find a way to bring more Cave Canem fellows to Charleston.
This new group, Cave Canem, called “a home for Black poetry” and centered on study and critique, was founded by Toi Derricotte and Cornelius Eady in 1996 to shelter and encourage Black literary talent. In 2007 in Atlanta, Terrance gave the keynote reading atAWP, nation’ main literary conference; Frank X. Walker, also a Cave Canem fellow, introduced his Affrilachian Poets Collective (est. 1991) in an electrifying group reading that included Nikki Finney. Soon Cave Canem fellows were winning Pulitzers and becoming American poets laureate. Apparently Terrance was representative.
But what venue in Charleston, boastful setting of the Confederate story and end-point of the Middle Passage, would be a decent place to present African-American poetry and shelter ensuing discussions? It took ten more years for that answer to come—and the answer that came does not work for everyone.
Shortly after McLeod Plantation Historic Site opened on James Island in 2015, Williams took the guided tour. Since her time in LA she had hoped McLeod would become a school for architectural preservation, and was disappointed to think it was going to be just another tourist trap perpetuating the “glorious lost cause” fiction. So she was stunned by the tour’s focus on people’s daily life in the course of producing cotton, the whole story. This was a thrilling development in the story of her hometown. McLeod struck her as the perfect surroundings for Cave Canem poetry.
She phoned the events desk—too expensive—and would just have to keep her eyes open. Presently McLeod’s Shawn Halifax, who had given that momentous tour, told Williams this was the first event proposal consistent with the mission of MPHS. He invited her not just to host a reading, but to collaborate on a series.
Kendra Hamilton, a Cave Canem fellow whose poetry is grounded in her Gullah-Geechee ancestry and Black history, agreed to try a reading at McLeod—a brave act on the heels of the recent church massacre, considering the shooter had recently toured MPHS. The SC Humanities Council had a grant category that might fund this experiment. Things seemed to be lining up.
Williams then brought the idea to a group she was chairing, the Town of James Island’s community arts project, hoping they would co-sponsor the reading with the Parks Commission. Earnest, complex discussions followed: Cave Canem and its importance to American arts; empathy is engendered in emotionally challenging poems; Charleston’s avid support for live poetry; and a novel way for the new Town to bring people together.
Then the talks collapsed. Council Member Crouch, a venerated James Island social and political leader, stated that she had known children who were growing up in the slave dwellings at Old Mister Willie McLeod’s place. She declared that no force on earth could bring her to set foot on such cruel ground.
An experienced leader, “Miss Inez” explored much deeper within our community, and decided she must go to McLeod and meet this Shawn fellow. Her decision: education changes people. And 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 went ahead, outdoors in heavy November weather, and attendance was full. Kendra’s reading was warmly received. The series was a go.
Poetry at McLeod was co-sponsored for six seasons by Charleston County Parks and Recreation Commission. Four of those were co-sponsored by the Town of James Island, and two by The Poetry Society of South Carolina. MPHS changed direction around the time of covid, and the project is in search of a new home.
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Folks on their way to hear Kendra Hamilton’s poetry.
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Kendra’s audience gathers in the rain under the Witness Tree.
Poetry at McLeod presenters 2016-2022
Cornelius Eady Trio
June 4-5, 2022 POSTPONED
Poet Cornelius Eady is author of eight books of poetry. His second, Victims of the Latest Dance Craze, won the Lamont Prize in 1985. In 2001, Brutal Imagination was a finalist for the National Book Award, and his libretto for the opera Running Man was a 1999 Pulitzer Prize finalist. In 1996, Eady co-founded Cave Canem Foundation, today a thriving national network of black poets. He teaches at Notre Dame University.
Evie Shockley
November 12-13, 2022
Nashville native Evie Shockley’s (PhD, English, Duke), a Cave Canem graduate fellow and winner of the Lannan, Stephen Henderson, and Holmes National poetry prizes, teaches African American literature and creative writing at Rutgers. Her five books include semiautomatic (2017, Wesleyan), winner of the Hurston/ Wright Award and finalist for the Pulitzer, and Renegade Poetics: Black Aesthetics and Formal Innovation in African American Poetry.
Malcolm Tariq
April 23-24, 2022
Poet Malcolm Tariq, of Savannah, holds a PhD in English from the University of Michigan. He is the author of Heed the Hollow (2019 Cave Canem Poetry Prize), and Extended Play (2017 Gertrude Press Chapbook prize). A graduate of Emory University, his poetry has appeared in CURA, Vinyl, Nepantla, Tinderbox, and The Iowa Review.. A former Cave Canem program director, he is now with Prison and Justice Writing at PEN America. Tariq lives in New York.
Yona Harvey
September 10-11, 2022
Native Ohioan and Cave Canem fellow Yona Harvey, author of Hemming the Water (Four Way Books, 2014 Kate Tufts Discovery Award) and You Don’t Have To Go To Mars for Love (2020), is widely published. One of the first black women writers at Marvel Comics, she co-wrote World of Wakanda with Roxane Gay, and Black Panther & the Crew with Ta-Nehisi Coates. She is professor of writing at University of Pittsburgh.
Dustin Pearson
November 12-13, 2021
Dustin Pearson, of Summerville, winner of the Academy of American Poets Katharine C. Turner Prize, a Cave Canem fellow with an MFA from AZ State, he is now a McKnight doctoral fellow in creative writing at Florida State University. His work appears in Blackbird, Vinyl Poetry, Bennington Review, TriQuarterly, and elsewhere.His first two collections, Millennial Roost and A Family Is a House, will be followed next year by A Season in Hell with Rimbaud (BOA Editions).
Grace C. Ocasio
October 10-11, 2021
Pushcart Prize nominee Grace C. Ocasio’s second collection, Family Reunion (Broadstone), received honorable mention for the Quercus Review Press Book Award. Her other books include The Speed of Our Lives, (BlazeVOX, 2014) and a chapbook, Hollerin from This Shack (Ahadada, 2009). She was a finalist for an Aesthetica Creative Writing Award and won a NC Arts Council grant. Her poems appear in Rattle, Court Green, Black Renaissance Noire, and other journals.
Teri Ellen Cross Davis
May 29-30, 2021
Among Cave Canem fellow Teri Ellen Cross Davis’s honors are The Journal / Charles B. Wheeler Poetry Prize for a more perfect Union, (2021), the Ohioana Book Award for and Haint (2016), and fellowships to the Sewanee’s Writer Conference and Provincetown’s Fine Arts Work Center. Her work appears in Bum Rush The Page, The Golden Shovel Anthology and elsewhere.
Three Binyahs: Up-and-Coming Lowcountry Poets
April 11-12, 2020
Malachi JonesMalachi Jones, a native of Hollywood SC, is a sophomore at Columbia University in creative writing with concentration in African American studies. His awards include a prestigious gold medal for his 2018 writing portfolio. In 2016, he was a finalist for the National Student Poets Program, and in 2017 his work was published in Rattle’s Young Poets Anthology and Univ. of SC’s Student Anthology, Writing South Carolina. Malachi interviewed Roger Reeves about Poetry at McLeod for Charleston City Paper in 2019.
Yvette R MurrayPushcart nominee and Watering Hole fellow Yvette R. Murray’s chapbook, Hush, Puppy is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press. She earned a BA in English from Duquesne University in Pittsburgh. Her work is in Emrys Journal, The Petigru Review, Catfish Stew, Call and Response Journal, Best New Poets and elsewhere. She lives in Charleston, her hometown, and besides poetry is writing science fiction short stories and a children’s book series. She serves on the boards of The Poetry Society of SC and the SC Writers Association.
Joey Tucker aka
Mr. Enlightenment
Joey Tucker, of Walterboro, SC, first encountered poetry in his senior year at Presbyterian College in Clinton, SC, and that is when the light came on. In 2009, he released his first chapbook, Walletz & Pursez; two more, L.I.G.H.T. and A Poet’s Playground followed, plus two poetry CDs, Worth My Weight in Watts (2015) and Summer Soulstice (2017). He has performed at several venues in SC & GA. He teaches public school English “because it allows him to make an impression on a child that lasts forever. ”
Tyree Daye
November 9-10, 2019
Tyree Daye is a poet from Youngsville, North Carolina. He is the winner of the 2017 APR/Honickman First Book Prize for his book River Hymns, a 2017 Ruth Lilly Finalist, Cave Canem fellow, and longtime member of the editorial staff at Raleigh Review. He received his MFA in poetry from North Carolina State University. Daye’s work has been published in The NY Times and elsewhere. He is an assistant professor of English at St.Augustine’s University in Raleigh, NC.
Geffrey Davis
October 12-13, 2019
Geffrey Davis is author of BOA collections Night Angler, (2018 James Laughlin Award), and Revising the Storm (2013 A. Poulin, Jr. Prize. Among his awards for poetry are the Anne Halley, Dogwood, and Wabash prizes, and fellowships from Bread Loaf, Cave Canem, and NEA. His work is in NY Times Magazine, Crazyhorse, Massachusetts Review, Mississippi Review, New England Review, The New Yorker, Poetry Northwest, PBS NewsHour, Ploughshares, and elsewhere.
Roger Reeves
June 8-9, 2019
Roger Reeves’s poems appear in Poetry, Ploughshares, American Poetry Review, Boston Review, Tin House, Best New Poets and elsewhere. He has won NEA, Ruth Lilly, Bread Loaf, and Cave Canem fellowships, and an Alberta H. Walker Scholarship from the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center. He earned his PhD the University of Texas-Austin, where he is now a professor. His forthcoming On Paradise from W.W. Norton follows King Me (Copper Canyon Press, 2013).
Glenis Redmond
April 27-28, 2019
Glenis Redmond is Poet-in-Residence both at The Peace Center for the Performing Arts in Greenville, SC and the State Theatre in New Brunswick, NJ, and a Kennedy Center Teaching Artist. Among her awards are a Cave Canem fellowship, the Nazim Hikmet Poetry Festival competition, and the Plattner Award. She has published three poetry collections, What My Hand Say (Press 53, 2016), Under the Sun (Main Street Rag, 2008), Backbone (Aqyil, 1997).
Marilyn Nelson
June 1-3, 2018
Marilyn Nelson, daughter of a Tuskegee Airman, a founding member of Cave Canem, and finalist for several National Book Awards, has been a fellow of the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2013 she was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. Nelson has composed extensively on the lives of African Americans, including Emmett Till, George Washington Carver, and a slave named Fortune.
Len Lawson
April 7-8, 2018
Len Lawson, of Sumter SC, hosts Cave Canem retreats in SC and facilitates discussions on race. He holds an MFA from Queens, and is studying toward the Ph.D. degree at Indiana U of Pennsylvania. He was a fellow of the Tin House Summer Workshop, Palm Beach Poetry Festival, Callaloo Barbados, VT Studio Center, VA Center for the Creative Arts, and The Watering Hole. His poetry appears in Callaloo, Mississippi Review, Ninth Letter, Verse Daily, and Poetry Northwest.
Gary Jackson
March 17-18, 2018
Born and raised in Topeka, Kansas, Gary Jackson is the author of the poetry collection Missing You, Metropolis, which received the 2009 Cave Canem Poetry Prize. He was featured on 2013’s "New American Poets" by the Poetry Society of America, and his poems have appeared in Callaloo, Tin House, and Crab Orchard Review, and is a fellow of both Cave Canem and Bread Loaf. He joined the Department of English at the College of Charleston in 2013.
Kwoya Fagin Maples
October 21-22
Charleston native Kwoya Fagin Maples was a born reader, and upon reading Maya Angelou’ s poetry she realized there exists a “secret code” within English that she needed to learn. Thus began her love for poetic language, mysterious, captivating and edible. She became a graduate Cave Canem fellow teaching in Louisiana. Her book, Mend, finalist for the Donald Hall Prize, tells of the birth of gynecology in America and the role of black enslaved women in that process.
Kendra Hamilton
June 17-18, 2017
Kendra Hamilton, a Charleston native, is a professor of English and Director of Southern Studies at Presbyterian College in Clinton, SC. Her poetry appears in The Norton Anthology of Contemporary African American Poetry and The Ringing Ear: Black Poets Lean South. A Cave Canem fellow, Dr. Hamilton’s recent art reflects her research into the lives of people enslaved at McLeod.
Thanks to our sponsors
Poetry at McLeod received major support from the SC Humanities Council, a not-for-profit organization inspiring, engaging and enriching South Carolinians with programs on literature, history, culture and heritage.
The project was also funded by grants from South Arts in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts and the South Carolina Arts Commission.
The City of Charleston Office of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the SC Arts Commission, and The Poetry Society of SC, made generous contributions toward Poetry at McLeod.
PSSC receives generous support from the Dubose and Dorothy Heyward Memorial Fund, the John and Susan Bennett Foundation through the Coastal Community Foundation, and PSSC members.
