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Online: www.richlandlibrary.com
Tuesday, April 6, 2021 at 6:00 PM EST – 7:30 PM EST
Price: Free · Duration: 1 hr
“The poets of the world occupy a place of high honor in my city of books.”— Pat Conroy, My Reading Life
For National Poetry Month, join the Pat Conroy Literary Center’s Jonathan Haupt and Holland Perryman as they explore Conroy’s lifelong relationship with poetry as a reader, as a self-described failed poet, and as a writer who found a creative outlet for the rhapsody and rhythms of poetry in his iconic lyrical and descriptive prose. Conroy’s love of language blossomed from an early love of poetry, and even in his final hours, he was immersed in the beauty and power of verse. Through discussion of Pat’s teachers, mentors, favorite poets, and fellow advocates of poetry, and through published and unpublished examples of his writings spanning the breadth of his life, this presentation fosters a new appreciation for his admiration of poetry, for his dedication to the writing craft, and for the myriad ways in which poetry shines through Conroy’s storied prose.
This presentation was originally created in collaboration with poet and retired educator Tim Conroy, author of Theologies of Terrain.
Hosted by Richland Library (Columbia, SC), this event will be held virtually via Zoom. Please register in advance at https://www.richlandlibrary.com/event/2021-04-06/pat-conroys-great-love-poetry
Our Presenters
Jonathan Haupt is the executive director of the Pat Conroy Literary Center and the former director of the University of South Carolina Press, where he created the Story River Books fiction imprint with Conroy, named by Garden & Gun Magazine as one of “the top ten things to love about the South.” Jonathan’s book reviews and author interviews have appeared in the Charleston Post and Courier, Beaufort Lowcountry Weekly, Beaufort Lifestyle magazine, Savannah Morning News Beacon magazine, Pink magazine, the Southern Review of Books, and Southern Writers Magazines Suite T blog. He is co-editor with Nicole Seitz of the award-winning anthology Our Prince of Scribes: Writers Remember Pat Conroy, winner of 17 book awards. Jonathan also serves on the boards of the South Carolina Academy of Authors and the Friends of South Carolina Libraries and on the advisory board of the South Carolina Humanities and the affiliates steering committee of the American Writers Museum. In 2020, he was recognized with the Doug Marlette Literacy Leadership Award presented by the Pulpwood Queens, the largest book club in the U.S.
Holland Perryman is the Pat Conroy Literary Center’s first student intern. A Beaufort High School junior and the student body vice president, she was the recipient of the creative writing award for a competition inspired by the Conroy Center’s March Forth partnership at BHS in 2019. Holland was also a finalist for the inaugural Ann Head Literary Prize for Short Story in 2020, and she was selected for the Creative Writing Academy Program at the SC Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities in 2019. Her work has been published in the Charleston Post and Courier, Lowcountry Weekly, the Southern Review of Books, and Stretching Skyward, the Camp Conroy 2020 anthology.
