Marcus Amaker
Author archive
the spider (a love poem)
I remember when love was an elusive spider – an intruder that kept trying to creep into my life, crawling between the cracks of hardwood floors before disappearing into the shadows of sleepless nightmares. I spent restless years trapped by distraction, haunted by a thing I could not catch, but secretly wanting a tarantula to […]
Working on the new project ….
November 30, 2017
… and it’s been a great journey. Like many artists, the process of making a project is just as important as the final product. It’s where the joy lies. I’ve been editing / writing / singing / pushing buttons / playing / designing for a few months now. What you’ll get is a unified statement. […]
strange roots (the digging)
I. deep down, i know that you can’t take away my shine. it’s been perfected over generations of mining. my ancestors spent years digging through dirt for any sign of a gem, any treasure that can peek through parasites. but the past is so dirty and deep-rooted that sometimes i am too tired to dig […]
selfie
have you ever taken a photo of a mountain? a screen never quite captures the magic. to reduce a massive, complex miracle to pixels is criminal. it’s too simple. we do the same to ourselves.
Burke HS poetry club
November 9, 2017
Burke High School teacher Kaitlyn Mindel reached out to me because she leads a spoken word poetry club at the school. They meet weekly and have been planning to do a slam at the school. I recently visited and was BLOWN AWAY by their talent and skill. Evidence: I’m going to work my hardest to […]
(thank you)
November 3, 2017
Welp. Free Verse is over. I’m proud that this festival accomplished what I wanted it to: amplify voices that needed to be heard while spreading poetry across the city. I couldn’t have done it without your support. Much love to SC Humanities, the South Carolina Arts Commission and the Charleston Visitors Bureau. And the sponsors: the Cooper School, Pure Theatre, MOJA Arts Festival, the SchoolHouse, Enough […]
Free Verse: a poetry festival for Charleston
September 28, 2017
My dream of putting together a poetry festival is now a reality. When I became poet laureate of Charleston, my main vision + goal was to spread poetry in Charleston and make it a more stable scene. Poetry has been alive in the Holy City for a long time. When I moved here in 2003, […]
Tori Amos, thank you
September 16, 2017
My relationship with Tori Amos has gone through its ups and downs. Like many people in the Tori universe, I first came to her music in the 90s. Under the Pink was my first album, and I quickly went to Little Earthquakes then Boys for Pele then From the Choirgirl Hotel then To Venus and […]
Stagnation (a letter 2 America)
America has built too many monuments to war. Man-made maladies mounted on Mother Earth. I’ve seen scars on the skin of our country’s landscape – blood-stained band aids covering exposed bones; a pain that has not healed. We hold hatred high on pedestals in the name of history. Birds are perched on the shoulders of […]
