Fort Moultrie Community Reading

Date: April 19, 2011
Contact: Bill Martin, [phone] x 11

The National Park Service is pleased to announce a community poetry reading from 4:00–6:00 p.m. on Saturday, April 30th at the Fort Moultrie Visitor Center on Sullivan’s Island. The free public reading will be conducted by South Carolina Poet Laureate Marjory Wentworth, who has served as Poet-In- Residence at Fort Moultrie this spring, conducting writing workshops with students and the general public. Ms. Wentworth is a former resident of Sullivan’s Island and has written extensively about its unique landscape and history in many of her poems. Based on a true story, her award winning children’s story, Shackles, describes what happens when her sons dig up a set of slave shackles in their island backyard.

Ms. Wentworth will be joined by Ed Madden who served as poet-in-residence at Fort Moultrie in 2005 in a partnership with the African American Heritage Corridor. An associate professor at the University of South Carolina, Madden is the author of the prize-winning book of poems, Signals. Erik Calonius will also be reading from his work. A former reporter, editor and London correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, Calonius’ 2010 book The Wanderer: the Last American Slave Ship and the Conspiracy that Set its Sails examines an 1858 slave ship incident. Students from Mary Ford Elementary, Sixth Grade Academy and Mount Pleasant Academy who participated in writing workshops with Ms. Wentworth at Fort Moultrie are invited to read from their work at Saturday's event.

Fort Moultrie is administered as part of Fort Sumter National Monument, a unit of the National Park Service. Located at 1214 Middle Street, Sullivan’s Island, SC the fort and visitor center are open daily from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. except for New Year’s, Thanksgiving and Christmas Days. An entrance fee of $3.00 per adult or $5.00 per family is charged to tour Fort Moultrie. For more information, call [phone] x 20.