Honor Our Own:

Charting my Path, Black History Month, Poetry Reading

Harriet Tubman and I

From the moment I picked up my poet’s pen at age 13, I became a cartographer. Lost in a forest and trying to find myself. I soon discovered the pen had power to go inward and outward. I did both in the internal landscape and the external landscape. The pen first asked me how do you feel Glenis? What weight are you carrying? My journal was a first of this type of internal dialogue. It could bear the brunt.

Luckily, I was on a path. I had been voraciously reading since age five. I had already learned my way around stories. Unbeknownst to me, I was building both vocabulary, craft and a sense of timing. I had that propensity. Coming South Carolina roots,, I was surrounded by storytellers, not by page, but by mouth. They knew their way around a metaphor. What a sense of timing. As they say, I was a little pitcher have big ears, and I was also blessed with even bigger eyes. I was on a need-to-know basis with everything and everyone and I needed to know everything. Even before I could write I clocked it. Put it up in my mind’s card catalog. I had my own version of the Dewey Decimal System.

At Woodmont High School when I started writing in my journal in English class, I turned my gaze onto myself and others. Began writing Praise poems in 1976. Did I know I was writing Praise Poems? No. But the griot within knew. Guided by my Nigerian/Cameroonian roots. In my 40’s, I found this book and told me about the ancestral trek that I am on about being a griot in the Praise Poem tradition.

I pen poems for my classmates, who stood in line for me to write poems of them. I included their names, favorite, hobbies and their crushes. Folded into a Glenis Original. I also pen poems for Bethlehem Baptist Church, functions. It is my childhood/family church. Redmond’s helped build the place. I was a poet, Praise and Elegiac. I was a griot in the truest sense of the word.

Later, I built a livelihood from my passion into a profession. All points on the map have led me from there to here. You can say from the moment that I began to write, I have been drawing a map of where I come from. So much was kept from me historically. I think that was by both happenstance and by design. My parents looked away from the South when they did their Air Force trek, because Jim Crow had afflicted its trauma. So, I had to glean the marrow and there were much meaning and much beauty too being from the Black South. Also, in being an Air Force Brat. I had to excavate. I am still digging. Then, my education was fraught with empty spaces and stereotypes. But God made me a Bookish Girl turned Bookish Woman. In my work I have gone deeper into the forest within and what lay about me. I follow my heart with my poetic footsteps. It has led me here

Pamela Adam Singleton, Tinasha LaRayé, Amber Sherer, Yvonne Reeder, Daisy Booker

Glenis Redmond, Pat Edwards, Glenis Redmond, Melanie Gordon, Kisha Edwards Gandsy and Rep Chandra Dillard. Photo Credit: Amy Randall Photography

On Monday night at the first annual Black History Month poetry reading, Honor Our Own, it was lovely extension of this piecework. I asked 7 poets to join me in writing poems about Black Community Leaders. The evening went like thus.

“Whirlygig” for Heron Briggs — Glenis Redmond

“What a Mother Holds” for April Harrison — ShAy Black

“Tribute” for Mrs. Frances Gale Brooks Brackett — Amber Sherer

“An Assignment from God” for Mrs. Xanthene Norris — Yvonne Reeder

“Know How” for Mrs. Patricia Edwards — Glenis Redmond

“Light Giver” for Glenis Redmond — Starry Walker

“Super Intentions” for Dr. Rudolph Gordon — Kisha Edwards Gandsy

“Sunday” for Dr. Rudolph and Mrs. Corin Gordon — Melanie Gordon

“His Works” for Mr. Hiram Springle — Amber Sherer

“Little Boy Lovejoy” for Mr. Moses Dillard — Kisha Edwards Gandsy

“Lead Jesse Lead” for Reverend Jesse Jackson — Tinasha LaRaye

“Bookish Woman” for Mrs. Daisy Booker — Glenis Redmond

“This Blessed Rich Soul” by Mrs. Rebecca John Roberts— Pamela Adams Singleton

“We Need More Mary’s” for Mrs. Mary Duckett — Yvonne Reeder

“Kinkeeper” for Mrs. Ruth Ann Butler — Glenis Redmond

I will not try to encapsulate the rich moment because it cannot be done. Sometimes you have to be there in real time. I will say this. I was pleasantly surprised by the audience. It was not the Instagram crowd to whom I sent my social media posting about the event. It was all over the map but mostly an older generation. I believe the news of the event spread by word of mouth and telephone landlines. I could not be any happier. Maybe this was how it was meant to be for the first Black History Month Poetry Reading. As we were celebrating many people who they knew personally. I did not give the poets parameters. They could choose anyone they wanted to tribute. Of course, me as Sankofa, my head is always turned back to the past. Yet, I am in the present looking to the future too. May Honoring Our Own continue to grow. I wrote a poem for Daisy Booker, she went to the Rosenwald School, Fountain Inn Colored High School that my parents went to as well.

I was pleasantly surprised, when my former Peace Voices student, Starry Walker chose to tribute me. She had no idea how prescient this moment was for me. I am at a place, where I am still mapping my path, yet it seems I have forgotten how many miles I have walked personally and poetically. This is a trick of memory to keep me focused on the tasks at hand, but it has been 33 years of teaching and outreach. In her testimony of what poetry did for her, I had not been privy to the whole story.

It is always lovely to have someone reflect how you have showed up in their lives. I did not know the full story until Monday night. Thank you Starry.

My daughter also spoke into me before she read her tribute poems. She said a lot to personally, but I was left with this line: Mom, I know you like the palm of my hand. Suffice to say, she is a poet. She is a chip off the old block. She is her own edifice standing beautifully tall. I was waterfall of tears on the front row.

All of the poems from the poet landed with a palpable blow. It was a powerful evening.

Here is Starry’s Praise Poem dedicated to me.

Light Giver
For Glenis Redmond

Most people don’t get to meet their heroes in real life 
I count myself blessed to not be in that number 

I have learned not to take our time together for granted 
When you speak, I know to listen, 
careful to rehearse every word you say 
as if I am writing a bible 
for the generations that will come after me,
a holy text flows from your mouth 
every time it opens:
Filled with advice for black girls 
that think themselves a prison 
that need to know that their voice can be the key 
How powerful are your poems, 
they are the keys that free 
so many from self-doubt and low self esteem 

Your name, Glenis Gale Redmond 
The same name that God spoke 
in the beginning when he wanted there to be light
I call you light giver
going to places 
where others are afraid to go
Reminding us to grow, 
to bloom anyhow 
I call you beautiful and the best dressed 
among us on any day

You are national treasure 
without a monument 
but monumental, still

I think you are too good for this world 
and that is why 
it is a better place 
with you in it

How blessed I am, 
to know my hero in real life 
and not take it for granted.

Whew! that was a lot to hold.

Last Note: It is difficult for me as a HSP, Highly Sensitive Person to be in the moment yet document the moment. As a Kennedy Center Teaching Artist, (not anymore) but for 25 years, I had to train myself to document meaningful moments do I could take them out to the world as documentation as love letters for administrators and for others to know the beauty of these art-filled moments.

My friend and my first boss, Patricia Edwards said of the Honoring Our Own event. “It was sacred. It was church.” Pat is the one in the red turtleneck. I wrote a tribute for her. She is legendary in the counseling field, administration and drug adjudication field in the Upstate.

Starry Walker, Daisy Booker, me, Patricia Edwards and Melanie Gordon.

This is how my whole career has been. Sacred. Church-like. I have been blessed to have been brave enough to carve out this meaningful path.

I have been blessed to have people to meet me on this path to get me further and closer to my destination. I thank each and every one who saw something in me and gave me a lantern, and tools. I still have much to do. I pray I have the fortitude to walk, write and reach out.

All the poems were stellar. All the poems were medicine. Life Giving. I was appreciative for all the poets, the honorees and the audience.

Write With Me Wednesday Prompt: Write a tribute poem to anyone living or dead who needs to be uplifted. Think on what their gifts were and how they inspired you.

Let you pen be a candle. Shed light on them. Shed light on you. This is one of the greatest currencies I know. The gift of Tribute. We are all tributaries in our own right. Now, write. Flow. Don’t forget to Bloom Anyhow!

Yours in Verse,

Glenis Redmond