Glenis Redmond, poet in residence

Glenis Redmond is a native of Greenville, South Carolina. She graduated from Erskine College with a B.A. in Psychology. Her Master of Fine Arts in Poetry is from Warren Wilson College. An esteemed Cave Canem Fellow and a NC Literary Fellowship Recipient from the North Carolina Arts Council, she currently serves as the Poet-in-Residence at The Peace Center for the Performing Arts.

Ms. Redmond participated on the task force that created the first Writer-in-Residence at the Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site in Flat Rock, NC. She is a Kennedy Center Teaching Artist and is listed in their National Touring Directory. She is also a full-time road poet, performing and teaching poetry across the country. During the 1990s, Ms. Redmond worked as a drug abuse counselor.

In 1995, she then founded the Greenville Poetry Slam and took the first all-women’s team to Nationals. Glenis is a two-time Individual Regional Slam Champion was a top-ten finalist twice at The National Poetry Slam. A year later in 1996, she founded The Asheville Poetry Slam at the Green Door down Carolina Lane, where a tribe of poets answered her Afro-Carolinian call and response poetry stride for stride. Enlivened by this movement, Glenis became a true believer of words that sing and dance in the air.

In 2014 and 2015 Glenis was selected to be the Mentor Poet for the National Student Poets Program. She coached and escorted the five youth poets to The White House, The Department of Education and The Library of Congress. Her upcoming book, What My Hand Say will be published by Press 53.

Glenis loves poetry in all shapes and forms: page and stage. She finds her inspiration through personal struggle and overcoming them, as well as being an underdog. She currently suffers from fibromyalgia. Her goal is to to share her story and get other people to share theirs. You can find her poems featured in journals and anthologies including, Tidal Basin Review, NCLR, EMRYS, Meridians, The Asheville Poetry Review, Tongues of the Ocean and Obsidian II.

Glenis believes poetry is the mouth that speaks, when all other mouths are silent.