Today we’d like to introduce you to Glenis Redmond.
Hi Glenis, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I am the fourth of five children born to Johnny and Jeanette. We were an Air Force family for twenty-one years. Of my parents’ offspring, I was the only one born in South Carolina—Sumter, at Shaw Air Force Base. For a long time, I resented that my brother before me was born in Évreux, France. I felt he had an exotic birthplace to roll off his tongue, and I did not.
It took me thirty years to realize that South Carolina would be the place I would write about—it is endlessly rich with story and history. I had to grow up and look back through the eyes of a poet.
How did I become a poet? I truly believe I was born noticing what others did not. Though I loved to dance and run as a child—and I was very good at both—I also liked being by myself in nature. And I loved to read. Between those two things, I was already showing poetic signs.
Mrs. Katherine H. Priest, my fourth-grade teacher, wrote on my report card in the English section: “Oral work is excellent; Glenis enjoys talking, acting, and singing before the other children. I hope she develops this talent.” I was that kid—the animated, kinesthetic student acting out any story or scene with dance, humor, and timing. Though I remember Mrs. Priest as very strict and stern, she was one of the few teachers who saw the storyteller in me. Wherever she is now, I hope she knows that I did develop that talent—by becoming a poet, a teaching artist, and a literary citizen.
In fifth grade, I remember hearing a poem at a Black History Program. It made a lasting impact on me. Then, when my dad retired, we moved back to South Carolina. In eighth grade, my English teacher had us keep a journal, and I began writing poetry.
I went on to become the first in my family to earn a college degree. Later, while working toward a Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology at Virginia Commonwealth University, I realized the program wasn’t for me. I was married then, with twin daughters, living in Richmond, Virginia. We moved back to South Carolina, and I took a job as a Clinical Counselor II for the state.
While counseling, my health began to falter. I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia. I asked myself, What do I want to do with my days? That’s when poetry returned to my life. I took poetry classes. I began reading my own work. By the end of the next year, I became a teaching artist for the South Carolina Arts Commission—and I created the very first poetry slam in Greenville. It has been 30 years. I have traveled the state, the country and the world teaching and performing poetry.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I chose the life of a poet. Or perhaps, it chose me.
It has not been an easy road, but it has been deeply meaningful. Through divorce and through sickness, I have kept on going because my life has had purpose.
In 2000, I got a booking agent, and that took me across the country. It was marvelous, but it also meant leaving my twin girls, Amber and Celeste. Thankfully, my former mother-in-law, Sara Sherer, a retired math teacher, cared for them while I was away. She helped me immensely.
My mother always asked, whenever I had an engagement, “Who’s going with you?”
I’d tell her, “It’s just me.” She never got used to me traveling alone. She grew up in another era—one where women did not drive unescorted, and where, as a Black person, it was not safe to do so.
I think I have a lot of my father in me when it comes to traveling. Once I knew my daughters were safe, I relished the open road. I missed Amber and Celeste, though. I was working for them. When they were out of school, I took them with me.
My mother would say, “You read a map like a man.” I took that as a compliment. I started out on my poetry tours before GPS or even MapQuest. I dotted the world by bus, train, plane, and car. I’ve been to every state except Alaska, Maine, South Dakota, and North Dakota.
The hardest challenge has been my health—living with chronic fibromyalgia and, later, my 2019 diagnosis of Stage III multiple myeloma. I survived chemotherapy and a stem cell transplant in 2020. I’m in standard remission now, but there’s been a lot of fallout. I do engagements here and there, my health does not let me travel like I used to.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I am a poet and teaching artist, and I serve as the Poet Laureate of Greenville, South Carolina. In my career, I have held two long-term residencies: eleven years at the New Jersey State Theatre in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and ten years at the Peace Center in my hometown. For the past eleven years, I have served as the Mentor Poet for the National Student Poets Program, part of the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers and the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards.
In 2025, I received the Order of the Palmetto, the state’s highest civilian honor, awarded by the Governor and approved by a bipartisan committee in recognition of a lifetime of extraordinary achievement, service, and contributions on a national and statewide scale. I also received the Highlights Foundation Inspire Scholarship in 2025 and am currently serving as a Baldwin Fellow (2024–2025). In 2023, I was selected as a Poet Laureate Fellow by the Academy of American Poets and named a Citizen Diplomat by the Jonathan Green Maritime Cultural Center.
In 2022, I received the Governor’s Award for the Arts and was inducted into the South Carolina Academy of Authors, the state’s literary hall of fame. I am a Cave Canem alumna and a veteran of the U.S. Army Reserves. I earned my B.A. from Erskine College and my M.F.A. in poetry from Warren Wilson College.
I am the author of eight books of poetry. My most recent titles include Over Yonder: A Poet’s Exploration of South Carolina State Parks I; The Song of Everything: A Poet’s Exploration of South Carolina State Parks II; The Listening Skin (Four Way Books); and Praise Songs for Dave the Potter (University of Georgia Press), with artwork by Jonathan Green. My poetry has appeared in Orion Magazine, Callaloo, American Poets, The New York Times, and the North Carolina Literary Review. The Listening Skin was shortlisted for both the PEN Open Book Award and the Julie Suk Award.
I am most proud of becoming an Ultimate Outsider with my grandson, Julian. Together, we visited all forty-seven South Carolina State Parks, a journey that inspired my books The Song of Everything and Over Yonder.
I am currently working on my first middle-grade novel in verse, which tells the story of Clayton “Peg Leg” Bates, the one-legged tap dancer from Fountain Inn, South Carolina. Bates attended the same school my parents did—Fountain Inn Colored High School, a Rosenwald School built through the combined efforts of Julius Rosenwald, the Black community, and the white community during segregation to ensure Black students had access to education.
I am now conducting oral history interviews with alumni of the school, many in their eighties and nineties. This research will become a book titled It Is Written in the Name: Fountain Inn Colored High School. This work brings me full circle—home to South Carolina and back to the heart of storytelling.
What does success mean to you?
My Definition of Success
Success for me is fulfilling a need within the community. I see it as service and outreach—helping others gain a sense of agency and strengthen their voices. I also define success through my own growth and development as a poet and storyteller.
Storytelling is one of the most beautiful ways we connect as a community, so I strive to create programs that allow people from all walks of life to tell their stories. For instance, I’ve paired poets with city parks, inviting them to write poems inspired by those spaces. I’ve worked with Greenlink, where poets were paired with bus riders—first the poets wrote poems, and the following year, the riders wrote their own. Through the Metropolitan Arts Council, I’ve paired visual artists with poets, fostering creative exchange that culminates in exhibitions and readings.
I believe that making spaces for people to connect is not only successful but deeply meaningful. Staying in touch with my students through the years might be my most valuable currency. They send me their poems; they tell me where their lives have taken them. Some have become professors of poetry, while others have become architects, engineers, teachers, and more.
The poet’s role is not to make everyone a poet, but to help people recognize the poetry in their lives. That, to me, is success.
Pricing:
- Song of Everything $12.00
- Over Yonder $12,00
- SC State Park Box Set: $32
- The Listening Skin: $17.95
- Praise Songs for Dave the Potter: $35.00
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.glenisredmond.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/glenismakingpoetryreign/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/glenis.redmond/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRzOYhsKbQ5_cCoa37Twozw
- Other: https://substack.com/@glenis?
