Join us on Thursday, June 22nd at 5:30 pm for an In Conversation event with poet Len Lawson. He’ll be chatting about his latest poetry collection Negro Asylum for the Lunatic Insane. We’re excited to have Len in store with us and can’t wait to hear all about his writing processes and inspirations. So don’t miss out on this free event!

ABOUT THE POETRY COLLECTION

Negro Asylum for the Lunatic Insane enters the maelstrom of institutionalized racism and cruelty to aim an unflinching gaze at the violence, neglect, and delusions borne of Southern race ritual. These poems wield knives against slavery’s tumultuous afterlife, cutting us free, guiding us through thickets of scar tissue and nightmare till we glean the brutal clarity of American sin and bear witness to the wondrous power of Len Lawson’s artistic and historical imagination. ~Herman Beavers

Len Lawson is, above all, a talented lyricist whose candid chronicles of working in the field of mental illness—the patients’ trauma caused largely by the institutions supposed to treat and protect them—provides an insight into a realm plagued by racism and abuse, one often ignored and silenced by the world at the large. We come to learn of Lawson’s speaker’s interactions with Brock Bridges who “loved butterflies” and often too tried to escape the establishment, “thinking like the statue/chewing petals off that flower.” Though the speaker tries to keep a line between him and his patients, dealing with his own issues concerning his own happiness and the weight of family memory and present circumstances, all their lives are intertwined even in times of doubt: “I didn’t trust those butterflies like Brock did…Matter of fact I hate butterflies//They give people false hope//Everything can’t have wings/Everybody wasn’t made to fly//Ask all them Africans that didn’t/grow wings still on the plantation.” Lawson explores the larger implications of historical violence and survival, never flinching away (” If you show me this box/hovering up and down/heaven and earth,/I will show you/a casket/lowered into/a world’s eye”) through a variety of many (often experimental) free verse possibilities, and I too can be candid, this is one of the best collections of poetry I’ve ever read. Get it now. Lawson is going places. ~Rose Ben-Oni

Lawson’s Negro Asylum for the Lunatic Insane constructs a fictional institution based on actual 20th century mental asylums for Black people. This haunting, stark series of vignettes of people who occupy such spaces traverse through surprising and dangerous spaces in the mind. History starts surrounding us as an eerie specter seeping into the present, where mental health is now a demand as part of freedom in America. ~Tara Betts, author of Refuse to Disappear

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Len Lawson is author of Chime (Get Fresh Books, 2019) and co-editor of The Future of Black: Afrofuturism, Black Comics, and Superhero Poetry (Blair Press, 2021). He received a 2022 Fresh Voices in the Humanities Governor’s Award from South Carolina Humanities. Len has earned fellowships from Tin House, Palm Beach Poetry Festival, Callaloo, Vermont Studio Center, and Virginia Center for the Creative Arts among others. His poetry appears in African American Review, Mississippi Review, Ninth Letter, Verse Daily, Poetry Northwest, and elsewhere. A South Carolina native, Len earned a PhD in English Literature and Criticism from Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

Two Spartanburg County nonprofits both serving those with little or no income and no insurance – Spartanburg Shares Medical Loan Closet and Help for Our Elderly – are teaming together for an annual pickleball charity tournament Saturday, July 15 at 9am at the Spartanburg Athletic Club. The tournament will benefit both charities. Participants can choose between a round-robin or doubles/mixed doubles format. There are 12 courts, and each person pays $28 to register. Registration ends Tuesday, July 11 at 9pm. Click this link to register (https://bit.ly/3P00E0M).

The pickleball tournament is seeking sponsors. Sponsorship levels range from Gold, Silver, Bronze and a $100 sponsor level. The $2,000 Gold Sponsorship includes a display banner, a logo on all advertisements, three signs, a table for a representative and four entry tickets. The $1,000 Silver Sponsorship includes a display banner, a logo on all advertisements, two signs and three entry tickets. The $500 Bronze Sponsorship includes a display banner, one sign and two entry tickets. The $100 Sponsorship includes one sign at the event.

Spartanburg Shares is a nonprofit organization lending durable medical equipment for 90 days to anyone with proof of Spartanburg County residence. Spartanburg Shares is located at 137 S. Dean St., Spartanburg, SC 29303.

Help For Our Elderly assists with supplementing its clients’ incomes with everyday necessities. Its mission is to service, supplement and enrich the lives of the elderly, disabled and infirm and their families in Spartanburg, Cherokee and Union Counties. Help For Our Elderly is located at 2375 E. Main St., Unit A-311, Spartanburg, SC 29307.

For more information on Spartanburg Shares, visit their website – www.spartanburgshares.org or follow them on Facebook at www.facebook.com/spartanburgshares.

For more information on Help for Our Elderly, visit them at www.helpforourelderly.org.

Please direct all media inquiries for Spartanburg Shares to our Volunteer Coordinator and Spokesperson Evan Carr at (864) 266-1749 or [email protected].

Please join the Advanced Institute for Development and Learning Saturday, July 29th for a Yard and Bake Sale Fundraiser. The yard sale will include housewares, furniture, baby and children’s items and more!

If you’re interested in donating, check out our event page for drop-off times, or otherwise, we hope you’ll come shop on July 29th from 8am – 12pm!

Are you ready for some football?

On Friday, August 11th, Hope Center for Children will turn Indigo Hall into the ultimate tailgate party with its Twelfth Annual Tailgate Trot. Festivities start at 6:00 p.m. and end at 10 p.m. Guests must be 21 or older. Your participation will support our vitally important work to Protect Children & Support Families.

Admission is $75 per person. Group discounts are available.

Get your tickets by visiting: hopecfc.org

This year’s Tailgate Trot will host the American Cornhole Association’s Cornhole-for-a-Cause competition and other games and feature special guests, a silent auction, raffles, food stations, beer and wine, and signature tailgate cocktails. The well-known Carolina Coast Band will provide live music.

So, get out your favorite team jersey, invite your friends, and celebrate the new football season at the 12th annual Tailgate Trot!

Are you ready for some football?

Join us on August 11th for Hope Center for Children’s 12th Annual Tailgate Trot “Fun”-raiser!

Get your tickets here: rb.gy/mg3tl
Download sponsor booklet (PDF): tinyurl.com/nnhh7btb

Wear your favorite team gear and join us for some fun including:

• Live music from the Carolina Coast Band • Silent Auction • Raffles • Delicious food and drinks • Tailgate games

Sponsorships are available. Contact Phyliss Skuba at 864-583-7688 ext. 102 or [email protected]

Join us on Thursday, August 17th at 5:30 pm for an In Conversation event with award winning poet Glenis Redmond!

The first Poet Laureate of Greenville, South Carolina, Glenis has received the highest arts award in South Carolina, the Governor’s Award, and was inducted into the South Carolina Academy of Authors. She’ll be talking about her collection The Listening Skin. We’re honored to have Glenis in store with us and can’t wait to hear all about her writing process and inspirations, and hear her answer questions about her collection.

So don’t miss out on this free event!

BOOK SUMMARY

Hewing close to the bone, the incendiary poems in The Listening Skin explore how an artist dares to dance and create through a pain-riddled body. Corporeal and spiritual, immediately personal and deeply historical, Redmond’s latest collection details how generational cycles of poverty, mental and physical illness, and systemic racism impact the self, the family, and the greater African-American collective. Examining the connection between adverse childhood experiences and adult chronic conditions, Redmond’s poems arise from her deepest listening, beyond the skin, rooted in the marrow. They speak to the hardship of enduring fibromyalgia and the ongoing challenges of multiple myeloma while rejoicing in survival and the grace of existence itself. Yes, The Listening Skin affirms life and demands the dignity its speaker deserves: “I am full of this past present heat / I carry. / I come to the shore, / but I vacate nothing.” This consummate work honors embodied knowledge, all that’s heard at the boundary between flesh and air, vacating nothing, determinedly and brilliantly whole.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Glenis Redmond is the First Poet Laureate of Greenville, South Carolina. She is a Kennedy Center Teaching Artist, and a Cave Canem alumni. She has authored six books of poetry: Backbone (Underground Epics, 2000), Under the Sun (Main Street Rag, 2002), and What My Hand Say (Press 53, 2016), Listening Skin (Four Way Books), Three Harriets & Others (Finishing Line Press), and Praise Songs for Dave the Potter, Art by Jonathan Green, and Poetry by Glenis Redmond (University of Georgia Press). Glenis received the highest arts award in South Carolina, the Governor’s Award and inducted into the South Carolina Academy of Authors. She is a “Charlie Award” recipient awarded by the Carolina Mountains Literary Festival and was recently a recipient of the Peacemaker Award by the Upstate Mediation Center in 2022.

Glenis was born on Shaw AFB in Sumter, South Carolina. She presently resides in Greenville. She was the founder of the Greenville Poetry Slam in the early 90’s. Glenis confesses that she is Bi-Carolinian as she lived in Asheville, North Carolina for seventeen years and was a vital leader in the poetry scene in the 90’s. During that time, she was a Southern Fried Slam champion of the individuals twice and ranked twice in the top ten at the National Poetry Slam. Glenis helped found Word Slam, a poetry slam for teens in Asheville, NC. She was awarded the WNC Best Poet through the Mountain Xpress so many times, she was placed in the Hall of Fame. She is a North Carolina Literary Fellowship recipient and helped to create the first Writer-in-Residence program at the Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site in Flat Rock, North Carolina. She received her MFA in Poetry from Warren Wilson College while touring full-time as a poet and mother-of-twins, Amber, and Celeste Sherer. She is now a Gaga to three grandchildren Julian and Paisley and newborn, Quinn.

Glenis has spent almost three decades touring the country as a poet and teaching artist. She served as the Poet-in-Resident for the Peace Center in Greenville and the State Theatre in New Brunswick, NJ. As a Kennedy Center Teaching Artist, for seventeen years, Glenis has created and facilitated poetry workshops for school districts across the country.

Since 2014, she has served as the mentor poet for the National Student Poets Program through Scholastic Art and Writing Awards. In the past she has prepared these exceptional youth poets to read at the Library of Congress, the Department of Education, and for First Lady Michelle Obama at The White House.

Her poetry has been showcased on NPR and PBS and has been most recently published in Orion Magazine, storySouth and The New York Times, as well as numerous literary journals nationally and internationally. Glenis believes poetry is the mouth that speaks when all other mouths are silent.

CornerFocus cordially invites you to tee off at the 1st Annual Triple-P Golf Tournament held at the premiere Club at Brookstone on August 23, 2023.

$125 donation
Each golfer plays 18 holes of golf and includes a cart, lunch, door prizes, boxing memorabilia auction, 1st and 2nd place, longest drive and closest to pin awards.

Proceeds are applied to the CornerFocus ‘Triple-P’ program. Helping at-risk youth athletes Prepare for success, Protecting them physically, and Performing to their full potential.

Registration Deadline: August 9, 2023

Special Guest – Al Bernstein
Al Bernstein is best known to a national audience as the voice of boxing, first for ESPN, and now for Showtime. He has achieved success in television, movies, and as a live stage performer. As Ambassador for CornerFocus, he is passionate about fostering the values of safety and responsibility to next generation’s athletes.

Local band The Grateful Brothers announces their upcoming benefit concert in support of the nonprofit organization Loaves & Fishes. The event will take place on September 15th at The Radio Room, one of the city’s premier live music venues. Doors will open at 7:00
PM, with the show starting at 8:00 PM.
Proudly presented by The Radio Room Greenville, this year’s lineup includes The Grateful Brothers, and Matt Fassas Trip.
The Grateful Brothers is a highly regarded band known for their captivating performances paying homage to two legendary rock bands, the Grateful Dead and the Allman Brothers. This special concert will showcase their exceptional musical talent while raising funds and awareness for a worthy cause.
Doors open at 7:00 PM, and the show starts at 8:00 PM. Tickets available now. $15 in advance, $20 at the door.
There are a LOT of fun and philanthropic events in Greenville, but “if you get confused, just listen to the music play.” like The Grateful Dead said.
Attendees can look forward to an evening of soulful music, vibrant energy, and an opportunity to support a worthwhile cause. In addition to the concert, there will be various opportunities for patrons to contribute to Loaves & Fishes, including a raffle and t-shirt sales.
“We’re thrilled to bring this show together with The Radio Room and Loaves & Fishes! We have a wonderful community around this band, and this is a great opportunity to bring us all together to give back to the local community and fight food insecurity in Greenville while enjoying a killer night of live music. Truly a win-win!” says Zach Thigpen, singer and guitarist of The Grateful Brothers.
“We’re excited to team up for another great event of Rock Out Hunger with Loaves & Fishes, because food rescue is something that we’re all passionate about. We’re currently in our 13th year as a business, and this will be our 2nd event with Loaves & Fishes, and we hope for many more to come”, says Wes Gilliam, a co-owner of the Radio Room in Greenville, SC, as well as a founder of the Upstate Music Awards. He is a proud husband and father and a longtime supporter of Loaves & Fishes.
“Once in a while you get shown the light, in the strangest of places, if you look at it right.”- Jerry Garcia
Proceeds from Rock Out Hunger will be put to immediate use this year rescuing food in Greenville