The Southern Poetry Anthology Volume I: South Carolina is the 
first in a series of poetry anthologies that will focus on 
contemporary poetry of the American South, region by region. In 
this inaugural collection, editors William Wright and Stephen 
Gardner have collected and compiled the work of seventy-six poets 
who claim—or have claimed sometime in their life—South Carolina 
as home and as a palpable influence on their work.

"The Southern Poetry Anthology Volume I: South Carolina 
includes seventy-six contemporary poets with original, energetic 
and unmistakable voices who have called the Palmetto state home. 
Shadowed and illumined by South Carolina's complex and rich 
heritage dating from 1514, when Spaniards explored the state's 
coast, this collection will enrich contemporary American life because 
selections reflect the multifaceted character of the state that has 
played a major role in events that have shaped our nation."—Vivian 
Shipley

"For anyone who thinks that poetry stopped in South Carolina after 
Henry Timrod and Paul Hamilton Hayne or, for that matter, even 
James Dickey, this generous and well-selected anthology of poems 
by poets who were born or lived in that state will prove to be a real 
eye-opener. These pages are full of those quiet recognitions, startling 
surprises, and sudden revelations of truth that only the best poetry 
can provide. I read it with the same kind of excitement that a good 
novel can provide, and I urge it upon all those readers who need to 
know (or who already know) that poetry is alive and well and 
flourishing in the Palmetto State."—R. H. W. Dillard

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STEPHEN GARDNER is the G. L. Toole Professor of English at the 
University of South Carolina–Aiken, where he has taught literature 
and creative writing since 1972. The author of This Book Belongs 
to Eva, Gardner also edited the literary magazines kudzu and The 
Devil's Millhopper. WILLIAM WRIGHT is a teaching fellow and Ph.D. 
candidate at the University of Southern Mississippi's Center for 
Writers. He is author of a book of poems, Dark Orchard, and has 
published in such journals as North American Review, New Orleans 
Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, and Colorado Review. His next 
editing project centers on contemporary Appalachian Poetry.