Carolina Poets GOES LIVE: Featuring Sam Barbee, Al Black, and John Pursley

Our reading this week is hosted and curated by Andrew K. Clark, and features Sam Barbee, Al Black, and John Pursley.

John Pursley III teaches contemporary literature and poetry at Clemson University, where he also directs the annual Clemson Literary Festival. He is the author of the poetry collection, If You Have Ghosts (Zone 3 Press), as well as the chapbooks, A Story without Poverty (South Carolina Poetry Initiative) and A Conventional Weather (New Michigan Press), among others. In addition, he works as the poetry editor of Burnside Review and is an assistant editor for the South Carolina Review. His poems and reviews have appeared in Poetry, AGNI, Colorado Review, Kenyon Review, and elsewhere.

Al Black is a Hoosier in the land of cotton. He writes poetry and hosts workshops and arts events in the midlands of South Carolina. He is author of two books of poetry, I Only Left for Tea (2014 Muddy Ford Press), Man with Two Shadows (2018 Muddy Ford Press); co-editor Hand in Hand: Poets Respond to Race (2017 Muddy Ford Press); co-founded the Poets Respond to Race Initiative , co-hosts the Chewing the Gristle (a poetry chat Youtube series) and was the 2017 Jasper Literary Artist of the Year.

Sam Barbee’s poems have appeared recently Poetry South, Literary Yard, Asheville Poetry Review, and Adelaide Literary Magazine, among others; plus on-line journals American Diversity Report, Exquisite Pandemic, Verse Virtual, The Voices Project, and Medusa’s Kitchen. He has a new collection, Uncommon Book of Prayer (2021, Main Street Rag). His previous poetry collection, That Rain We Needed (2016, Press 53), was a nominee for the Roanoke-Chowan Award as one of North Carolina’s best poetry collections of 2016. He received the 59th Poet Laureate Award from the North Carolina Poetry Society for his poem "The Blood Watch"; and is a Pushcart nominee.