Events Calendar

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.

Join us for an informal writing workshop. Registration required. Email [email protected] or call 864-963-9031.

Join us for a Pop-Up with author Timothy Joseph Foreman! He’ll be in store with his collection of strange short stories On the Borders of Reality.

Come meet Timothy, hear more about his work, and get a copy Saturday morning from 10am to noon!

ABOUT THE BOOK

What happens at death? What horror lurks in the dark? What if ghosts are not what they seem? What if aliens are not what they appear to be? What if hallucinations were not just “in the head?” This book is full of strange and unique stories. There are monsters, heroes, plot twists, and other worlds. All these stories are different. They all have the same underlying theme, the mystery of human existence.

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.

The oldest and most common advice poets hear is “show don’t tell.” But what does that mean, exactly? What is the difference between showing and telling? Why is “showing” better? Most of us write poems to tell readers something, to share our ideas. Many poets—from as far back as John Donne to as recent as Stephen Dunn–do a lot of telling in their poems. So why are we always advised not to tell? In this workshop we will discuss these questions. In the process, we will look at a few well-known poems to see how–or if—they show rather than tell, and we will do some writing exercises that may help us arrive at some conclusions about this persistent advice.

This workshop is open to writers of all skill levels and is a fun way to find inspiration from a new prompt or revise current work. It is hosted by the Friends of Carl Sandburg at Connemara and will use Microsoft Teams for the virtual connection. Sign up to attend the workshop at workshop link

Eric Nelson’s most recent poetry collection, Horse Not Zebra, won both a Da Vinci Eye Award for cover art and an Honorable Mention in Poetry from the 2023 Eric Hoffer Book Awarda. His poems have appeared in many journals, including Poetry, The Sun, The Oxford American, and The Missouri Review. Among his awards are the 2014 Gival Press Poetry Book Award for Some Wonder; the 2004 X.J. Kennedy Poetry Award for Terrestrials, chosen by Maxine Kumin; the Arkansas Poetry Award for The Interpretation of Waking Life (1991); the Split Oak Press Chapbook Award for The Twins (2009); the Georgia Author of the Year Award (2005), and fellowships to the Hambidge Center for the Arts and the Virginia Center for Creative Arts. He taught writing and literature courses at Georgia Southern University for twenty-six years before retiring in 2015 and moving to Asheville, where he lives with his wife, Stephanie Tames, and teaches in the Great Smokies Writing Program. www.ericnelsonpoet.com.

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

Part of the event series: Small Business Development Center Training

Many programs say that they’ll help you lose weight but how many really teach you how to live healthier?

Healing Head To Toe isn’t about making you a lifetime client but instead a walking testimony to what happens when you take your life back.

Learn To
– Eliminate chronic illnesses
– Increase energy
– Decrease pain
– Live longer

PLUS an exclusive opportunity for a consultation to join the Healing Head To Toe community.

Secure your spot at the next session by registering using the link below:
https://book.stripe.com/dR6aFq58Y32RemAeUY

FREE to attend. No shows will be charged $25. A card must be on file to register. HSA and FSA are both accepted.

Waters and light refreshments will be provided.