Marcus Amaker
Author archive
The Charleston Mayoral Inauguration Poem – “Reimagining History”
It’s a beautiful time to be in Charleston. As we transition into a new year, we celebrate a new mayor, John Tecklenburg. John and his wife, Sandy, reached out to Marjory Wentworth and I last year after we performed a free benefit concert for the families of the Emanuel AME victims. At that event, the […]
Videos for the Children’s Museum of the Lowcountry
December 23, 2015
The Children’s Museum of the Lowcountry offers hands-on exhibits for kids, including parties, programs, camps & classes such as yoga & dance. I had the pleasure of doing a series of videos for them, and I’m super proud of how they turned out. See the videos below, and learn more about the Children’s Museum of […]
New album – “the drum machine”
October 28, 2015
Happy to announce my new album, “the drum machine.” It’s a 31-minute electronic music album recorded at home in Charleston. The theme? Beats. It’s also an homage to my music from the last 10 years. I did my first album as tape loop in 2005 after buying a Boss DR 202 drum machine. That album, […]
Poem: “Mahogany”
Who decided to call us “black and white”? When I look at my skin, I don’t see black, I see brown. Brown. Like the color of sand, a brilliant tan that needs no sun. Brown, like the mahogany tree bark, grounded in the summer, whose green leaves make the transition into fall, coffee-stained by the […]
New poem – “greater than (or) equal to”
I was born the year our country celebrated its 200th birthday. Less than a decade from Martin Luther King Jr.’s assasination, 113 years after the emancipation proclimation. Here’s a bicentennial baby obsessed with numbers, released from his mother’s womb into a wounded society. He opened his eyes to a binary world where 0’s and 1’s […]
A poem about Charleston
I was blessed to be able to perform this poem at Lowcountry Local First’s Good Business Summit on August 27 at the Charleston Museum. Text is below. You can also hear my version with Quentin E. Baxter on iTunes. charleston, where the sidewalks scream on saturday nights and the corners rotate budding musicians with skin-tight […]
Evolution of a logo: Charleston Walking Guild
August 25, 2015
Charleston’s tourism and local industry are largely fueled by its walking tours. To date, there are more than 80 Charleston walking tours in town. I met Liz Worrall, who is one of the founders of the Charleston Walking Guild, and she asked me for some design work. I’m putting together the website now, but was […]
“circadian rhythms”
at ground zero of death, the voice of God will sound like an alarm clock, waking you up from a dream. you open your eyes and see yourself, not as a woman or man, but as a spirit who had been breathing in an illusion. on June 18, the voice of God sounded like an […]
Black Cloth – a poem for Charleston
Racism, let us no longer walk in your shoes. you are a traveler of darkness, a walker of shadows, cloaking yourself in a black cloth like the grim reaper and arming your soul with the tools of a terrorist – a misguided soldier who’s trying to start a war. My sisters, heaven was as close […]
