"Weary, wore out, but alive": Greenville, SC poet laureate Glenis Redmond on listening to what comes before us

In this special episode of Loblolly Press: In Conversation, Greenville, South Carolina poet laureate Glenis Redmond joins us to reflect on family, chronic illness, and the spiritual labor of carrying memory across generations, against the backdrop of her upcoming release, Over Yonder: A Poet’s Exploration of South Carolina’s State Parks, Pt II from Good Printed Things in Greenville, SC. Glenis speaks candidly about how being a poet is part historian and archivist—one who listens deeply to what has come before and preserves it in language with an eye forward to the future. Poets are, what she calls, “uncanny people.”We talk about the challenges of writing poetry and about nature as a Black poet in the South, and how certain landscapes, especially trees, hold both beauty and historical weight. Inspired in part by Glenis’s essay, What Hangs on Trees from Orion Magazine, this conversation explores the tension between belonging and harm, and how Glenis navigates the world as someone who “flies with words.”She shares how systemic oppression imprints on the body, why she started the first slam poetry group in Greenville, SC, and what it means to build roads of access for others—especially for those who have long been othered. We also honor the lineage of Black women thinkers and writers Glenis walks beside: Lucille Clifton, bell hooks, Crystal Wilkinson, Jacki Shelton Green, and Nikki Finney among them.This episode ends with Glenis’s stunning reading of a poem from Over Yonder called “What to Do in Water” - a poetic recounting of when three black teenagers drowned in one of the state’s segregated state parks in 1954.Pre-Order Over Yonder Now (Good Printed Things, July 2025)Glenis Redmond’s Previous WorkThe Song of EverythingWhat My Hand SayThe Listening SkinThe Three Harriets and Others Get full access to Loblolly Press on Substack at loblollypress.substack.com/subscribe