The Halsey Institute will be hosting a series of poetry readings during the January to March 2013 exhibition, Lesley Dill’s Poetic Visions: From Shimmer to Sister Gertrude Morgan. The Tongues Aflame poetry series is designed to be a response to Dill’s fusion of language and image. All readings are free and open to the public. They will begin at 7:00pm and take place in the Halsey Institute galleries. A reception will follow each reading.

Co-sponsored by the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art, the College of Charleston’s Department of English, Poetry Society of South Carolina and Crazyhorse.

Thursday, February 7 at 7:00pm

Poetry Society of South Carolina members Richard Garcia, Kit Loney, Susan Finch Stevens, SC Poet Laureate Marjory Wentworth, and Katherine Williams.

Richard Garcia is the author of Rancho Notorious and The Persistence of Objects, both from BOA Editions, and a chapbook of prose poems, Chickenhead. His poems have appeared in The Georgia Review, Ploughshares, Pushcart Prize XXI, Best American Poetry and in many anthologies. His manuscript, The Other Odyssey, was the 2012 winner of The American Poetry Journal book prize and will be published in the fall of 2013. A collection of prose poems, The Chair, will be published by BOA Editions in 2014.

Kit Loney is the 2012 winner of the Carrie McCray Nickens Poetry Fellowship from the South Carolina Academy of Authors. She is on the board of the Poetry Society of South Carolina. Her poems have appeared in Poetry Society of South Carolina Yearbooks, Emrys Journal, Kakalak, Yemassee, Redheaded Stepchild, Qarrtsiluni, Waccamaw, and are forthcoming in Poetry East. Her background is in visual arts- she has a BFA in sculpture and a MFA in fiber arts. She lives on James Island with her husband, sculptor Joe Walters. Loney teaches art in middle school.

Susan Finch Stevens‘ chapbook Lettered Bones was chosen by Kwame Dawes as a winner in the South Carolina Poetry Initiative Chapbook competition. Her poems have appeared in various publications and in handmade books exhibited in nationally juried and invitational book arts exhibitions. She has a BA in journalism, a M.Ed. in counseling, and is certified in dream work. She serves on the board of the Poetry Society of South Carolina and lives on the Isle of Palms, SC with her husband David and their Weimaraner Layla.

Marjory Wentworth‘s poems have been nominated for The Pushcart Prize five times. Her books of poetry include Noticing Eden, Despite Gravity, and The Endless Repetition of an Ordinary Miracle. She is the co-writer with Juan Mendez of Taking a Stand: The Evolution of Human Rights and she is the author of the prizewinning children’s story Shackles. Wentworth teaches creative writing at the following institutions: The Art Institute of Charleston, Roper St. Francis Cancer Center “Expressions of Healing” program and Lowcountry Initiative for the Literary Art’s Poets-in-the schools program at Burke High School in Charleston. Her work is included in the South Carolina Poetry Archives at Furman University. She is the Poet Laureate of South Carolina.

Former Los Angeleno, College of Charleston graduate in French, and bench-level medical researcher Katherine Williams has authored three chap books, published poems in various journals, and received a Pushcart Prize nomination. She lives on James Island, where she studies with her husband Richard Garcia’s Long Table Poets, helps to run the Poetry Society of South Carolina, and plays at website creation, surfing, textile arts, gardening, and the cello.

Thursday, February 14 at 7:00pm

College of Charleston students Alexandra Daley, AJ Johnson, Avis Norfleet, Anthony Pugliese and Madeline Thieringer.

Alexandra Daley is a twenty-five-year-old poet and non-fiction writer who recently graduated from College of Charleston with a BA in English with a concentration in Creative Writing. Originally from Chicago, she moved to Charleston in 2010 to attend the College and aspires to work as a technical writer. In her spare time, Alexandra is an avid equestrian who has been riding horses for sixteen years. 

AJ Johnson, a 21 year old from Aiken, SC, is a senior Communications major at the College of Charleston. He loves writing, reading, and good conversation. He is an outspoken advocate for social diversity and intends to open a non-profit focused on urban youth. Johnson uses poetry as an outlet and enjoys connecting with an audience through it. 

Avis Norfleet is a junior at the College of Charleston majoring in English with a Creative Writing concentration and poetry emphasis and a minor in Communication. Her poems explore the quiet desperation of the grotesque world of American Internet Gothic and she has probably lurked on your Facebook page.

Anthony Pugliese is an Astrophysics and Creative Writing student at the College of Charleston, as well as a musician in the Charlotte, NC music scene. He fundamentally believes that art and science hold the answer to all of today’s worst problems, and enjoys speaking in glittering generalities.

Madeline Thieringer likes morning time. She likes the nighttime, too. As for walking, she favors five o’clock, especially in the months approaching December. She would be outside all the time, if she could. She picks up yellow ginkgo leaves that remind her of her sister. Her sister is very dear to her. Maddie paints houseplants in watercolor, and ices cupcakes for work. She is liking Charleston. She will stay, for the time being. Maddie daydreams of working on a farm with friends and writing in the spaces in between. She’ll see what happens. The future does not worry her.

Tuesday, February 19 at 7:00pm

Ted Pope says,
Woody Guthrie’s flying saucer
trapped out here in the orbit of Mars 
like a hound dog or an owl.
The warm-fuzzy wall between the Church and the State

Thursday, February 21 at 7:00pm

Samuel Amadon is the author of Like a Sea (Iowa 2010) and The Hartford Book (Cleveland 2012). His poems have appeared recently in The New Yorker, Ploughshares, A Public Space, and American Poetry Review. He lives in Columbia, SC where he teaches in the MFA program at the University of South Carolina.

Emily Rosko is the author of two poetry collections, Prop Rockery, recently awarded the 2011 Akron Poetry Prize, and Raw Goods Inventory, winner of the 2005 Iowa Poetry Prize and the 2007 Glasgow Prize for Emerging Writers from Shenandoah. Additionally, she is the editor of A Broken Thing: Poets on the Line (University of Iowa Press, 2011). A former Wallace Stegner Writing Fellow at Stanford University, she also is the past recipient of Poetry magazine’s Ruth Lilly Fellowship and a Jacob K. Javits Fellowship. She is an assistant professor of English at College of Charleston and poetry editor for Crazyhorse.

Jillian Weise is the author of The Amputee’s Guide to Sex and The Colony. Her work has appeared in The Atlantic, the New York Times and Tin House. She earned an MFA from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and a PhD from the University of Cincinnati. She has been awarded fellowships from The Fine Arts Work Center, The Fulbright Program, and the Sewanee Writers Conference. Weise is an Assistant Professor at Clemson University. Her collection, The Book of Goodbyes, won the Isabella Gardner Poetry Award and will be published in the fall of 2013.