Award-winning poet Marlanda Dekine-Sapient Soul will lead a series of poetry writing workshops on Wednesdays in October and November 2020 at 10:00-11:30 a.m. for the Georgetown County Library System (GCLS). Due to COVID-19, all sessions will be conducted online with the video-conferencing program, BlueJeans. The program is free and open to the public. However, space in the workshop is limited in order to give proper attention to all participants. To register, please contact, Dr. Dan Turner at 843-545-3363 or dturner@gtcounty.org. If you’re interested, don’t let technology stand in your way! GCLS has laptops and wifi hotspots available for patrons to check out.
The workshop series is funded by a Fast-Track Literary Grant from SC Humanities, www.schumanities.org and the SC Arts Commission https://www.southcarolinaarts.com/. The sessions are supported by the Friends of the Library groups at each of the four GCLS libraries: Georgetown, Waccamaw, Andrews, and Carvers Bay.
The overall theme for the sessions is “Writing Wherever You Are” and offers a unique approach to writing poetry, one that can be of equal value for beginning and experienced poets. Marlanda will bring in a selection of poems by accomplished and emerging South Carolina poets and then guide participants through key elements of these works. She will then discuss ways participants can incorporate these techniques into their own writing. Each individual session of the overall “Writing Wherever You Are” series has a distinct focus to provide participants with a diverse range of approaches and tools for creating poems. Individual session topics are listed below:
- October 7: “The Blank Page”: Techniques to start writing
- October 14: “Healing through Writing”: Cathartic approaches to generating individuality
- October 21: “Voice & Tone”: Immersion in literature to speak truthfully and well
- October 28: “Sound & Noise”: Consideration of the musicality of words
- November 4: “Before We Wrote, We Spoke”: Vocal ways to recall oral traditions
Marlanda Dekine-Sapient Soul is a poet and author from Plantersville, South Carolina. Her work has appeared in Emergence Magazine, Screen Door Review, Flycatcher Journal, Spark & Echo Arts, TEDxGreenville, and elsewhere. Previously, Marlanda studied in Paris with NYU’s Low-Residency MFA program. Currently, she is an MFA candidate at Converse College, and a 2019 Fresh Voice of the Year, awarded by SC Humanities. Marlanda believes in the power of being with poetry for collective healing and liberation.
The mission of SC Humanities is to enrich the cultural and intellectual lives of all South Carolinians. Established in 1973, this 501(c) 3 organization is governed by a volunteer 20-member Board of Directors comprised of community leaders from throughout the state. It presents and/or supports literary initiatives, lectures, exhibits, festivals, publications, oral history projects, videos and other humanities-based experiences that directly or indirectly reach more than 250,000 citizens annually.
