Category: News

Not just a collar

for Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg
at a memorial on the steps of the SC State Supreme Court, 24 Sept 2020

A collar is not just a collar—one thing
they taught us, Ginsburg and O’Connor in jabots
of lace, staking a place among the men
all in collar and tie. Ginsberg saw
the Constitution as a document of promise,
not privilege. She said that even when
you change the players, separate but equal is still
not equal, the field’s not level, and as long
as laws rely on unproven assumptions
about the way women are, those laws
keep women in their place, not
on a pedestal but in a cage. And whether
or not a surviving parent is mom or dad,
the child is still a child and it should be
apparent that a parent is still a parent.
And whether or not that Arizona girl
had a pill in her pocket at school, the men
in the room need to consider how it would feel
to be strip-searched for Ibuprophen
as a 13-year-old girl. She won that one
but sometimes it’s not about winning here
and now, but in a distant there and then
when women have the same opportunities
as men.

If a collar is not just a collar,
a jabot may be both job and jab,
the lace meticulous, precise, knots
and links like the inky lace of letters
on a page. She says her college lit professor
taught her that the right words in the right
order matter, that words can paint a picture.
If a South Carolina law had caused the court
to say a blight of racism infects the body
politic, she said it had become more
like the Hydra, the monster snake Hercules
fought that grew new heads every time
he cut one off. Every time a racist
election law was identified and stopped,
she said, “others sprang up in its place,”
like Texas trying to disenfranchise Blacks
by passing the same law over and over
again. The other judges pretended that,
as Roberts said, “things have changed dramatically.”
She said, instead, that throwing out something
when it has worked and is continuing to work
to stop discrimination “is like throwing
away your umbrella in a rainstorm because
you are not getting wet.” The right
words in the right order. When rioters
were banging on the glass doors of a Florida
election office with clipboards and fists in order
to shut down the recount in Bush v. Gore,
she was a dogged defender of proper procedure,
even if it meant delay in naming a president.
It was then she dropped “respectfully” from
the usual close, writing instead, I dissent.

The court, she said, does not write on a clean
slate. Things accumulate, persist, like mercury
in a river in Roebuck, South Carolina,
even after the company changed their name
to Safety-Kleen, then finally closed the plant.
It’s all moot, they said, since they had
cleaned up their act, though it wasn’t clear
they wouldn’t do it again. Or like the pay
raises Lilly Ledbetter received, small
increments that deceived her for years. Other
judges pretended that “each and every pay
decision she did not immediately challenge
wiped the slate clean.” Yet those decisions,
together, set and kept her pay well below
every other manager.

There is no
clean slate. There’s only history, precedent,
the blurred and half-erased words we write
over. In ‘73 Ginsburg urged the Court
to recognize that it writes not only for
“this case and this day alone” but other
cases like it, and others to come, asking—
whether a state cherishes its daughters as much
as its sons, whether a schoolgirl has got
a pill in her pocket or not, whether a raise
is really a raise when it’s all added up.

A few years ago the justice wrote, “Dissents
speak to a future age. . . . That’s the dissenter’s
hope: that they are writing not for today,
but for tomorrow.” A collar is not just
a collar. When Ginsburg opened her office closet
for Katie Couric, it was a glossary, a semiotics
of gift, event, decision. And when she wore
that spiky rhinestone-studded number she got
from Glamour, we knew what it meant: dissent.
But maybe it’s not spikes but 20-something
dark and dazzling tongues, speaking not quite
as one but pointed, speaking up and speaking
out, speaking against, against, dissenting.

For today, we are ruthless,
but we speak not for today, but for tomorrow.

Watch the live WISTV recording of the event.

Flag

A poem for the adoption of the new City of Columbia flag
March 10, 2020

A leaf, a wing, a sail,
something lifted, lifting,
something new. What

does it mean, he asks.
By which she means, what
do you see? Three

rivers come together.
A road stretches toward
horizon—a lane of light,

of white, into the distance,
which is the future, a lane
of blue to remind you of sky

and water, and who we were.
The shadow of hills flares
against the sky, or forests,

another blue beyond us,
and beyond that a light
in a dark sky, a guide,

talisman, beacon, star.
The horizon is who we are.

Here is a video of Ed reading the poem for the Richland Library.

Columbia Poet Laureate Ed Madden Receives Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship

New York, NY (April 24, 2019)— The Academy of American Poets is pleased to announce that Ed Madden, the Poet Laureate of Columbia, South Carolina, has been named an Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellow and will receive a $50,000 award in recognition of their literary merit and to support civic programs. Ed Madden is one of thirteen state or local Poets Laureate nationwide to be honored.

This new award, made possible by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and announced by the New York Times, is in keeping with this spring’s national poetry programming theme of Poetry & Democracy offered by the Poetry Coalition, an alliance of more than 20 organizations working together to promote the value poets bring to our culture and the important contribution poetry makes in the lives of people of all ages and backgrounds.

Poets have an important role in our culture and in communities all across the country. By supporting Poets Laureate at the state and local level, we hope to ensure that more people become acquainted with poets and poetry where they live and have an opportunity to benefit from innovative and groundbreaking programming close to home, said Michael Jacobs, Chairman of the Academy of American Poets.

Madden is a poet whose work exemplifies how poetry can spark conversation and can help us learn about one another’s lives and unique experiences, which promotes greater understanding. We’re honored to help underwrite Madden and the other twelve Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellows, all of whom are exceptional leaders, said Jennifer Benka, Executive Director of the Academy of American Poets.

Ed Madden was raised in Newport, Arkansas. He received a BA in English and French from Harding University, a BS in Biblical Studies from the Institute for Christian Studies, an MA in English from the University of Texas at Austin, and a PhD in literature from the University of Texas at Austin. His most recent collections include Ark (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2016), Nest (Salmon Poetry, 2014), and Prodigal: Variations (Lethe Press, 2011). He currently teaches English at the University of South Carolina. Madden, who will receive $50,000, plans to launch “Telling the Stories of the City,” a project that will incorporate local and youth voices, build on community-based workshops, and create an interactive storymap of the city.

The full list of fellows to receive the first ever Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellow awards of $50,000 to $100,000 each include Grace Cavalieri, Poet Laureate of Maryland, Molly Fisk, Poet Laureate of Nevada County, California, Jaki Shelton Green, Poet Laureate of North Carolina, Fred L. Joiner, Poet Laureate of Carrboro, North Carolina, Robin Coste Lewis, Poet Laureate of Los Angeles, California, Claudia Castro Luna, Poet Laureate of Washington State, Ed Madden, Poet Laureate of Columbia, South Carolina, Adrian Matejka, Poet Laureate of Indiana, Jeanetta Calhoun Mish, Poet Laureate of Oklahoma, Paisley Rekdal, Poet Laureate of Utah, Raquel Salas Rivera, Poet Laureate of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Kim Schuck, Poet Laureate of San Francisco, California, and TC Tolbert, Poet Laureate of Tucson, Arizona.

The Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowships panel included past U.S. Poets Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera, Robert Pinsky, and Natasha Trethewey; National Student Poets Program founder and member of President Obama’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities Olivia Morgan; MacArthur Fellow Natalie Diaz and Guggenheim Fellow Mark Nowak. The panel was co-chaired by Eunice “Nicie” Panetta, executive producer and co-host of “Fresh,” a podcast series in development about the freshman class of the 116th Congress, and former board chair of the Academy of American Poets; and Jennifer Benka, president and executive director of the Academy of American Poets. Final award decisions, informed by the panel and the scope of the projects, were made by the Academy of American Poets.

About the Academy of American Poets
The Academy of American Poets is our nation’s leading champion of poets, poetry, and the work of poetry organizations. Founded in 1934 in New York City, the organization produces Poets.org, the world’s largest publicly-funded website for poets and poetry; National Poetry Month; the popular Poem-a-Day series; American Poets magazine; Teach This Poem and other resources for K-12 educators; an annual series of poetry readings and special events; and awards the American Poets Prizes. The organization also coordinates the work of a national Poetry Coalition working to promote the value poets bring to our culture and the important contribution poetry makes in the lives of people of all ages and backgrounds.

For additional information about the Academy of American Poets and the Poets Laureate Fellowships, visit: poets.org/academy-american-poets/2019-academy-american-poets-laureate-fellows

Ed Madden Reappointed for a Second Term

City’s Poet Laureate continues to make literary art public art for another term

COLUMBIA, S.C. February 4, 2019 – Dr. Ed Madden has been reappointed as the City’s Poet Laureate for a second four-year term. As the city’s first poet laureate, Dr. Madden has used his experience as a teacher and poet to create community-centered activities to help increase awareness and accessibility around the literary arts, in particular poetry, with the goal of making literary art a public art – something he plans to expand on during his second term.

Madden’s projects as city poet laureate include; Poetry on the Comet, Main Street poetry banners, EnjoySC’s Make Poetry day, poetry parking tickets for April Fool’s Day 2017, Free & Clear poetry boxes on front lawns around the city, and most recently the Rain Poetry sidewalk art project, which became a viral hit with many in the community. These are just a few examples of the work Madden has done as the Columbia’s Poet Laureate. After seeing the success of his work in the community, Madden is even more excited about the new opportunities he’s currently cooking up for the community, especially with the renewal of his new upcoming term.

“I am delighted and honored to continue in this position,” Madden said. “It has been a great experience, and I look forward to coming up with more ways to make literary arts public art, and put poetry into our everyday lives, and I really look forward to including more young writers and diverse writers from around the city in the work we do!“

Madden made his first official appearance as the newly reappointed city poet laureate on January 29, 2019 at the City of Columbia’s State of the City address. During the address, Madden presented a new poem titled “Better Angels.”

“Ed’s service to Columbia as our city’s first poet laureate has set the bar high for our future in terms of cultural leadership,” says Mayor Steve Benjamin. “It has truly been a pleasure and treat for us to consume Ed’s work over the years, and we look forward to seeing what’s to come in his next term.”

National Poetry Month 2018

April is National Poetry Month and this year’s recognition took many forms. While we didn’t pull pranks the same way as last year, we worked hard to get poetry out to as many people in their daily lives as possible. Through partnerships with the Comet, Indie Grits, Main Street District, Enjoy SC and Soda City, we were able to feature poetry in a public setting in a variety of ways.

“A lot of things we’ve been working on all came together this year,” says Madden. “I love that we’re putting poetry into daily life in so many ways, and I’m especially grateful to all the writers who were so generous with their work.”

Poetry on the Comet – In it’s third year, the Poetry on the Comet project brings together 30 different poems by authors from Columbia and South Carolina based on the Indie Grits 2018 theme “Two Cities.” Poetry has been posted prominently on the buses, was shared daily on Ed Madden’s Facebook page and is being published as a chapbook. Select poems were also displayed on screen during the 2018 Indie Grits Festival.

Main Street Banners – Poems by eight South Carolina poets were displayed on banners along Main Street for the month of April. The selections include phrases by James Dickey, Susan Laughter Meyers, Nikky Finney, Ed Madden, Ray McManus, Terrance Hayes, Marjory Wentworth and DeLana R.A. Dameron.

Free & Clear – Similar to the ubiquitous Little Free Libraries that families host in their yards throughout the city, poetry boxes are being hosted in neighborhoods across Columbia and offer free poems about homeownership and community. Passersby are offered the chance to take home a poem of their own.

EnjoySC: Make Poetry at the State House – Hosted by One Columbia for Arts & History and Ed Madden, Columbia’s Poet Laureate, in partnership with the City of Columbia through a Knight Cities Challenge Grant, the Enjoy SC: Make Poetry event featured poets from across South Carolina reading poetry on April 18 and April 21 . Attendees consulted with poets on-site who will type a take-home poem on typewriters.

Poems on the COMET 2018

CALL FOR POEMS

Theme: Two Cities

In fall 2015, poems appeared on Columbia’s buses, telling the stories of the city. In spring 2017, we saw poems about rivers posted on city buses and on movie screens during the Indie Grits Waterlines film festival. This year, we’re looking for poems about how we experience the city, what separates us and what unites us.

We’re thinking about the Indie Grits theme for 2018: “Two Cities.” We all live in the same city, but we work and live in the city in different ways. We experience the city in different ways—its landscapes and streets, its neighborhoods, its social and political spaces.

  • What are the frontiers of your city? What spaces define your experience?
  • What social events, what networks, what communities are your city?
  • How do race or socioeconomic factors define your experiences and interactions within our shared city? What spaces are accessible? How has your world been shaped by gentrification, accessibility (including access to the arts), housing displacement or development? by sidewalks and libraries and green spaces? By churches and community centers? By railroad tracks and speed bumps and traffic lights and bus stops?
  • How do we make our city more open, more inclusive, more welcoming? How do we have difficult conversations? How do we break down barriers, make things more accessible, express and experience empathy?

Because this year’s Indie Grits Labs are focused North Main, we are especially interested in poems by writers from North Main neighborhoods or poems about Main and North Main.

Requirements:

Poems should be 10 lines or fewer & should address the theme. Submit your poems to poetlaureate@onecolumbiasc.com by Feb 15, 2018, for consideration.

On considering the bronze bust of J. Marion Sims at the northwest corner of the South Carolina statehouse grounds, at a reading for the monument’s removal, 7 Sept 2017

This poem was written for MEND: A Poetry Marathon to advance the removal of the J. Marion Sims Monument at the S.C.Statehouse and read aloud at the monument on September 7, 2017.

 

Now   wasn’t there some good?
            – Bettina Judd, “After Memory,” Patient (2014)

“That a historical figure existed at a different time, with different norms, is not irrelevant. But it is only one consideration in the fraught and important question, as to who should loom over us on pedestals, enshrined in metal or stone.”
– Ross Andersen, The Atlantic, 6 Sept 2017

“The first surgeon of the ages in ministry to women, treating alike empress and slave.”
– from the left panel of the Sims monument, SC Statehouse                       grounds

 

Because he was not, in fact, physician to empress and slave alike; because he used the bodies of black women and poor women to launch what would become a lucrative practice among wealthy women; because he would not have been physician to an empress in a mansion if he had not first experimented on enslaved women in a shed behind his house;

Because Anarcha and Lucy and Betsy are named as enslaved women in his autobiography but are never given voice;

Because he says of Betsy that “she willingly consented”;

Because he invented 71 instruments to aid in childbirth, yes, but because he started with a pewter spoon and a cobbler’s awl; because an awl is a long spike used for piercing leather; because this monument remembers the Sims position and the Sims speculum, but it does not remember the shoemaker’s tool that he used to pry the bones of a newborn African infants’ skulls into proper alignment; because the fatality rate for those operations was 100 percent;

Because he did not use anesthesia on black women; because he was sure they could endure the pain; because they thought blacks had a higher tolerance for pain; because the pain was so great, he asked other men to hold them down;

Because he asked his students to pull the buttocks apart so that he might see better;

Because he whitewashed his woodcuts of black women’s bodies when he moved to New York, so his patrons and students there would not know that he experimented on the bodies of enslaved women;

Because this monument was erected in May 1929 by the Women’s Auxilliary of the South Carolina Medical Association; because the most popular radio show in American in 1929 was Amos ‘n’ Andy; because Martin Luther King Jr. was born four months before in Georgia;

Because the elegant cement curve of the steps of the Sims monument, and the wall broken by the bust of J. Marion Sims so ironically echo the elegant curve of the African American History Monument across the South Carolina Statehouse grounds, a wall of images broken by the historical fissure of the Emancipation Proclamation;

Because the bronze bust of J. Marion Sims, his disembodied head and chest, suggests that this is a monument to reason and affection and not to the body, the disappeared and disappearing body, the disappeared, disavowed, but not disowned bodies of enslaved women;

Because the black women’s bodies erased by this monument are described in great detail in Sims’ biography as loathsome and disgusting;

Because he tells the story with such ease, because he stopped at the store and bought a spoon and then he stopped at his office and called out to his students, “Come, boys, go to the hospital with me,” because he then asked them to lay hold of her buttocks and pull them open; because he says Betsy “willingly consented”; because a jaunty “Come, boys, go with me” is the story of the invention of the speculum;

Because he performed clitoridectomies on women, because hysteria and improper sexual behavior were pathologized as gynecological illnesses;

Because consent no longer means the consent of your owner;

Because consent no longer means the consent of your husband;

Because the elliptical arch around this disembodied head suggests a cartouche, suggests the hieroglyphic oval enclosing a royal name; because the elliptical arch around this bronze bust suggests the halo arching over an image of a saint; because it suggests the clitoris under the hood;

Because when you stand in front of the bust of J. Marion Sims, he looks down on you, on us, looks down on this mixed crowd; because when you stand in front of the bust of J. Marion Sims, he can’t quite look you in the eye;

Because getting rid of a monument is not the same thing as erasing history; because the installation of a monument is not an accurate representation of history but an elevation of a particular representation, a particular representative, a particular reduction of history;

Because we should continue to teach the history of J. Marion Sims, his 71 instruments, his bent spoon, his shoemaker’s awl; because we should teach the names of Betsy, and Lucy, and Anarcha; because we should say the names;

Because even though some say the history of J. Marion Sims may be nuanced and complex, this monument is not.

 

 

[A note on the form: I had in mind the series of “because” clauses that often structure a formal resolution. This does not end, however, with “be it resolved,” since there is not yet resolution.]

Where is Your Next Stop? Launching Poets on The Comet This Sunday, November 1!

On Sunday, November 1, One Columbia and The Comet will host the launch of our city’s first major poetry as a public art program—poems on city buses—with a rolling poetry reading on a downtown bus route followed by a celebration and reading at Tapp’s Art Center (1644 Main).

Repost from The Jasper Blog. 

Poetry on the COMET Announcement and Event

I’m pleased to announce that the poems collected for the project with The COMET have been posted up on the advertising area of the inside of the buses! Here are a few photos of some of the cards:

To celebrate this project, there will be an event titled “Poetry 101” held on November 1. A number of poets will be reading on COMET Route 101 North Main, rotating at select stops. After the rolling reading, the event will proceed at the Tapp’s Arts Center (1644 Main), where there will be light refreshments, and a poetry reading. Anyone who would like to ride along with the poets should report at the Sumter Street Transit Center (1780 Sumter) at 3:30pm. Limited seating, first come, first served.

One Columbia has also collected poems into a chapbook which will be free and available at the event on November 1 or at the One Columbia office (1219 Taylor Street).

As an added bonus, all rides on Route 101 North Main will be free to any riders all day on November 1!